Where Lightning Strikes (Bleeding Stars #3)(100)

She could only say she was staying over at her friend Tricia’s house so many times.

She slid right into the scene like she’d belonged there all along. Partying with the best of us. Up all night with me before she’d slink back to her place just before dawn, stealing into her bedroom window she’d broken out of eight hours before.

Most of the time, anyway. This morning I woke with her still wrapped around me. Her head was on my shoulder, all that hair bunched in my face. I pressed my face into it.

“Kenz, baby, what are you still doing here? You have school.”

Her head jerked up. Disoriented, she blinked. She looked at the clock on my nightstand. It read 11:48 a.m. At least we could still call it morning.

“Shit,” she muttered. Then she seemed to let the moment of panic go sliding by and she dropped her head back to my shoulder. “I can’t do it, Lyrik. It feels like I haven’t slept in days. I just want to stay right here…in this bed…all day.”

Turning over, I moved to hover over her. “Think I like the sound of that.”

She gave me a flirty grin, before we both froze with the sudden pounding at the front door.

“Just ignore it,” I said.

But the pounding continued. Her phone lit up on the nightstand. She fumbled for it, then squeezed her eyes shut when she saw the number on the screen. Finally, she opened to me. “It’s my dad. And I’ve missed like…ten calls from him.”

She thumbed through her missed texts, shaking her head. “He showed up at school to talk to Tricia. She caved. Told him where I’ve been going. This is totally my fault,” she whispered under her breath. “If I just would have gotten up.”

The pounding increased, this incessant, demanding hammer.

I studied her for a beat, before I asked, “How do you want to handle this?”

“I have to go out there. He’s just…worried. And I’m sure really, really pissed.”

Guilt moved over her face, that innocent girl making a comeback. The one who didn’t belong here.

Not at all.

“Coming with you then.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

I touched her face. “We can’t hide this forever, Kenz.”

“He’s going to try to keep you from me.”

“I know,” I smiled down at her, “but he can’t.”

Something like affection smoothed her features before dread took her back over, and she gave a tight nod. We quickly dressed. The hammering at the door never ceased. I could almost feel the anxiety and torment that came with it, the desperation fueled by anger and worry and panic.

It only incited my own. My heart rate increased with each thunderous jolt. I was going through a million scenarios in my head, what I would say and what I would do. Because there was no chance I was going to deny Kenzie. Everything about that felt wrong. Not when me and this girl were so f*cking right.

That same panic had taken Kenzie whole as she shoved her feet in her shoes and quickly ran her fingers through her hair to straighten it. Desperate to put on a disguise of innocence when it was clear the situation was anything but.

She headed from the bedroom and I followed. In the living room, the curtains were drawn, the place dimmed out but the evidence from the party the night before still strewn all about the room.

For two beats, Kenzie hesitated at the rattling door, sucking in a breath, before she clicked the lock and slowly opened it.

Immediately the knocking ended as a flood of blinding light gushed into the room. A sizzling outline of a single dark figure in the middle of it gave the perception of a man on fire.

No question, that’s exactly what he was.

Kenzie just stood there with me five feet behind her, like a monster lurking in the dusky shadows.

For a moment it was utter relief. There was no missing it. Like the only thing in the world her dad wanted was for her to be okay. It took all of a second before the rage came rushing back.

“Get in the car.” It was low and full of a threat.

“Daddy.” She reached out a hand like she wanted to soothe him. Ease him and beg him at the same time.

“There’s nothing to discuss, Kenzie. Get in the car.”

She hesitated and I took a step forward into the light.

Revealing myself.

Brown eyes, the same color as Kenzie’s, flew up to clash with mine. But where hers were soft and sweet, his burned with hatred. It was barely contained.

“Get in the car,” he gritted again, his attention fully locked on me, that glare holding the strength to cut me in two.

When she didn’t move, he grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her out into the day.

She yelped, and I knew he wasn’t hurting her, that this guy was only there to protect, but I couldn’t stop myself from surging forward. I came to a hard stop when he forced her behind him.

A living wall of aggression.

His eyes wandered, scrutinizing, taking me in, adding me up. I stood there in my super-tight black jeans and ratted-out tee, the new tat I’d just gotten inked on the outside of my upper arm clear and standing out, black hair an unruly disaster.

That hatred deepened.

“You think it’s fun to play around with a little girl?” he suddenly spat.

“I’m not a little girl,” Kenzie argued quietly.