Walk the Edge (Thunder Road, #2)(110)

Kyle has me and he’s yelling and he’s furious. His face red, his eyes wide, he’s spitting as he continues to scream at me and this isn’t Razor’s bridge. This is the other bridge. This is the one that the trains use. I snap my arm back and it slips in his clammy hand. “No!”

I spin on my toes and spot motorcycles. Four of them, then two more. They park in the grass next to the abandoned car. Racing off their bikes, yelling at us to stop. One of them has blond hair and he’s faster than the others, running as if he’s watching his life coming to an end.

“Razor!”

An arm around my waist and I’m being dragged. Onto the train tracks, onto the bridge, and below us the rapids swirl. The roar of the water replaces the buzzing in my head. White foam waves lash up, then get sucked into the undertow.

I have to get off this bridge. I need to get to safety. I prepare to kick, raise my elbow to strike a blow, then Kyle circles us and I can’t breathe.

We’re on the edge and he’s leaning me over. My feet scoot back and smack his and I recoil, but the more I struggle, the more he uses his body weight.

“Stay back,” Kyle shouts. “Stay the f*ck back!”

Not quite a hundred feet—the drop is easily that huge. Into the rocky ravine. Into shallow rapids. At forty-eight feet, the chance of surviving a fall is fifty percent. At eighty-four feet, ten percent. I wish I had never read that article. Wish I could remain ignorant.

“Why did you do it? Why did you write that post? Why did you ruin my life? I’m going to lose everything. Everything.”

“You did this. You’re the one that took the photo.”

“But I never would have released it.” We shake as he yells and I press back, into him, away from the edge. “It was just a threat. To scare you. I never would have released it.”

“You released the one of Violet.”

“That was them. Not me!” He shoves us closer to the edge again. “That wasn’t me!”

“Calm down,” comes a voice, and it’s not Razor’s. I rip my focus away from the water and there’s a man with blond hair and a cut like Razor’s slowly approaching the bridge. His hands are up—a sign of submission. “Just calm down.”

“I said stay back!” Kyle’s voice vibrates against my back.

My pulse pounds in my ears. “Please, stay back!”

“Breanna,” Razor calls. “It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

A promise. Razor’s next to the other man and I don’t see the terror inside me reflected on him. Razor is calm, too calm, and he subtly nods at me. “I promise,” he repeats.

I swallow to ease my dry throat and nod back. Razor never makes a promise he doesn’t intend to keep. It’s then that I realize that my fingers have a death grip on Kyle’s arms. The one wrapped near my throat, the other snaked around my waist.

“Were you stalking her?” the guy next to Razor asks. Pigpen. I bet this is the Pigpen Razor has talked about.

“No!” Kyle shakes his head, bumping mine. “I drove by her house to see her and I saw her taking off. I followed her. That’s it.”

“Now you’re holding her over a bridge. How do you see this playing out, kid?”

“Get on your bikes and leave.” Kyle’s voice trembles and so does his body. “That’s what’s going to happen. I’ll let her go then and then I’ll leave. I’m not the bad guy in this. I didn’t take or put up the picture of Violet. I’m not the one!”

“Promise you won’t hurt him,” I say.

Razor tilts his head to show he’s consumed with the thought of hurting Kyle, but he remains silent as Pigpen says, “Hurting you was never an option on the table. We don’t operate like that. Hurting kids isn’t how we work.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“A man wouldn’t be holding a girl on a bridge like he’s about to toss her over. I swear on my patch, killing you is not in the Terror’s plans.”

I blink as I hear the promise and Razor raises his head for me to not tip their hand. They don’t have plans to kill Kyle, but anything else, like maybe jail time, is up for negotiation.

“How can I believe you?”

“You can’t,” says Pigpen. “But I’m not seeing your other options.”

“I’m not bad,” Kyle whispers into my ear. “I’m sorry, Bre. I promise I’m not bad.”

The desperation in his voice, the way he’s hugging me instead of holding me, causes me to loosen my grip. For months, Kyle has been this shadow of a monster haunting my life and he’s been the epitome of evil, but listening to his brokenness—he doesn’t sound much different from Zac or Paul or Elsie. He doesn’t sound much different from a scared child.

The big, strong football player who everyone knows is frightened. Frightened enough to blackmail me, frightened enough to do something that causes him to feel guilty, frightened enough to take on the Terror, frightened enough to drag both of us onto a railway bridge.

“I’m scared,” I say to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says again.

“You and I, we’ve made bad choices. It doesn’t make us good, but I’m not sure it makes us bad.”