Faithless (Mistress & Master of Restraint) (2 page)
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Authors: Erica Chilson
Faithless
~Part One~
FAITH
~Chapter One~
“You
’ve been notified,” A boy’s flat voice ominously flows from behind my locked front door, seconds after I flipped the deadbolt. I wouldn’t have heard him if I hadn’t just arrived home moments earlier. I bet he followed me up the walk.
Not good.
I walk on heavy-laden feet to the door, scuffing my sneakers on the marble tile, dread coiling in my gut. Every visitor in the past week since I’ve been home has been… mean- nasty. If it wasn’t reporters hounding Momma and Fate, it’s been the rich folks not caring if they verbally attack a minor or not. The last posse was six men in expensive business suits wielding bricks from their garden patios. They managed to break out the huge widow in the family room before I put a stop to them.
Is this New York? Because it feels like I’ve slid into an alternate universe where rich folks accost you in West Virginia- I could make it into a B-rate horror flick.
When the rich attack!
I grab the fireplace poker from beside the door. Fate nearly had a heart attack when I took on six men.
I knew I was safe. Only the truly evil would retaliate against an eighty pound girl defending her home. These men are used to mediation lawyers, not throwing fists. I let them break one window to ease their frustrations. I poked at them with the iron stick, and just like that, their tantrums ended with them piling into their expensive cars.
Well, I may have threatened their hundred-thousand dollar cars with my fireplace poker. Losing a million dollars each hurt their pride, but they aren’t stupid. A pissed off teenager with a pointy metal stick next to a Porsche… their intelligence and higher reasoning returned right quick!
I shimmy up the door, standing on my tippy-toes and palming the wood. I put my peeper to the porthole, or whatever that little hole is called. Speechless, utterly speechless, I stare into a pair of mesmerizing eyes and my mind goes on a vacay. Our eyes connect through the peephole. Realistically, I know he can’t see me, but his pale gaze bores into my soul, hitching my breath in my throat.
The boy can’t be much older than
me, maybe eighteen at most. His hair is shaved tight to his skull, so I have no idea of its color. He’s not very tall because he’s eye-level with the peephole. I’m on my tippy-toes, struggling to see out. It’s my usual stance since I’m an inch shy of five feet.
“I know you’re there,” his
blank voice trills down my spine. “I can hear you breathing. I’m looking for Thomas Simpson’s eldest daughter, Fate. You wouldn’t happen to be her, would you?”
“How
do you know my daddy?” My voice quivers when I think of my daddy locked away in that cold, dank jail cell. I know he broke the law, but it’s only money. He ain’t kilt nobody or nothing.
“He was an associate of my father’s. I need to speak with you
,” he hopefully utters. A small twitch ripples through his bottom lip, and then he adds, “If you’re Fate.”
“
Why ain’t your daddy here instead?” I raise my voice louder so he can hear me through the hardwood door.
“He’s indisposed,
” he calmly replies, but I heard his voice crack before he could stop it. When the boy talks about his daddy, he sounds so sad it breaks my heart.
“Indisposed how?”
I lean closer to the door, trying to get a better look at the boy and lose my footing. I catch myself on the coat tree seconds before I glue myself back to the peephole. There’s something about this kid- he’s interesting to look at. He’s not gorgeous; he’s just interesting.
“
Dead, my father’s dead,” he numbly replies, momentarily knocking me stupid. “This is ridiculous, talking through the door,” he rapidly slurs. “Allow me in so we can talk.” He’s trying to coax me, but I know better than that. My daddy taught me how to read people. This kid is shady. I pretend that my mind doesn’t supply
Just like your daddy… just like you.
It’s what makes me want to talk with him- we’re kindred. He’s no rich man looking for payback. But he wants something, which riles me up, making my mouth spew words that are best left unsaid.
“
I guess he’s real indisposed, now, ain’t he?” The words spill without thought, just as they always do. I don’t mean to sound insensitive. I just don’t know how to chat with people. My sister is going to kill me if she heard that. “Sorry for your loss… Who was your daddy? Maybe I knew him. My daddy didn’t teach me to be ignorant. I ain’t letting some boy come inside after all the stuff that’s been happening. They threw bricks through our windows last week- a girl slapped my sister when she went to the store. The last time my momma left the house, she was ostracized by her kind. So prove it,” I challenge.
“You must be Fate, the eldest, right?” Hope fills his voice. I’ll be anyone he wants me to be if he’ll
just tell me what he wants.
“I sure am,” I boldly say. “
I ain’t weak either, so get to talkin’.”
“My father was Jonathon. His friends called him JJ.” He says friends weird, like it means something else
, something wicked.
“Stand in front of the peephole again. I need to get a better look at ya.” I met JJ a few times. He was nice to me and my mom
ma and my sister, but he treated Daddy strangely. He reminded me of an old dog at his master’s feet- tail wagging, tongue hanging, eagerly awaiting his master’s command.
The boy steps back on
the porch so that I can get a look-see from boots to hair. He’s dressed nicely, nowhere near the tastes of my sister’s friends. Well, he ain’t one of them, so it don’t matter none if he wears non-designer jeans and a gray t-shirt. His black leather boots are designer, though. Maybe he just don’t care what he wears.
“You look like your daddy. Same round f
ace and you’re kinda short, too,” I murmur to myself. In a stronger voice, I add, “Okay, but you’re not coming in. I’m coming out. Step away from the door. Go on down the walk a bit, so I know you won’t charge me.”
“You care more about the house than you do yourself?” He snorts, amused by my choices. “I could hurt you out here just as easily as I could inside there.”
“Yeah… well, I ain’t worried none about myself. See, my momma and sister are in here. You can put a hurting on me out there, but if I let you in here, you could hurt them, too. Now. Back. Down. The. Walk,” I icily order.
The boy walks backwards down the walk with his hands held out.
He’s smirking to himself, apparently he finds me funny. When his feet hit the sidewalk, I quickly slip out the door and it automatically locks behind me.
I stand on the porch with my arms crossed over my chest, glaring at the interloper who won’t tell me what he wants. He’s ey
eing me over and I don’t like it one drop. I do the same right back at him. I could take him. He’s not
that
big. I’ve protected my house at least a dozen times in the week since Daddy went to jail.
“
You remind me of a rabid Chihuahua that thinks it’s a Pitbull,” the boy relentlessly teases me as if I’m amusing. “You actually think you can guard your house and yourself against me,” he incredulously murmurs, shaking his head to and fro.
“I don’t think,” I growl, “I know.” My chin juts out farther and my shoulders go back. Even my feet prepare for attack. He ain’t the first boy I’ll fight dirty against. Hand-to-hand, he will kick my ass. But who said I had to fight fair. I’ll twist his nuts while he cries like an infant.
He calms himself after silently laughing for a solid minute, and says, “Are you sure you’re Fate?” He scrutinizes me, not believing my claim.
“As sure as
I’ll ever be,” I drawl with a scowl on my face. “Who are you, JJ’s son? What do you want with Fate Simpson?”
“I can’t say until you confirm your identity.” His voice cracks a bit and he tries to cover it with a cough. I smile when I hear it. “You’re not what I expected.” He does a double-take, and then a triple-take
, his eyes burning into my flesh- and the grimace on his lips screams he don’t like what he sees. “You’re a kid. You don’t look nineteen and you talk funny.”
“Well, now, that’s
not nice with the name calling,” I drawl, anger simmering just beneath the surface of my voice. It’s like a broken record- it makes me want to move back to West Virginia. “I can assure you that Fate Simpson is in fact nineteen. She’s fair of hair and skin, and has blue eyes. She’s short, real short. Doesn’t that sound just like me?” I challenge, attitude twisting my tone. I fist my hands on my hips and look down on him.
“That would be the description I was given. But
… I was also told that she was an adult, and that her baby sister looks just like her.” He looks me over some more with a smirk on his face. He doesn’t believe that I’m Fate.
“Well, my sister is the spitting image of me, I’
ll give you that,” I drawl, looking him square in the eyes. The trick to lying is about skirting as close to the truth as you can go without actually telling the truth. I’m a very good liar.
“
Are you really Fate? If you lie to me I’ll hurt your mom and sister,” he quietly and easily threatens me, drawing a step closer. “I need to know for sure.”
“Damned fool,” I grumble under my breath, pu
lling an Id out of the front pocket of my worn-in jeans. “It’s a good thing I tested today, or this wouldn’t be on my person.”
I hand him the Id, saying I am, in fact,
Fate Simpson. I smile sweetly as he examines the Id, and then me, trying to authenticate us- me and the Id. It’s the real deal. Not a fake. He’ll find no issue with it.
“Wow,” he murmurs, shaking his head. “You look ten or twelve. You can drive? You graduated?” he mutters to himself in disbelief.
“That’s what it says, don’t it?” I snatch the Id back and retreat to the front stoop. “I’m finished with you funning me. You’re extremely rude.” I pout out my bottom lip, and turn to go back inside. Without fail, men react to a woman’s retreat- words will spill that were previously stuck.
“I… I just… I don’t…
get it,” he growls, rubbing a hand over his shaved head. His head fuzz looks real soft. I bet it feels like microfiber. “You don’t act like you’re from around here.”
“I’m not… not really.
I went to school back in West Virginia, where my Daddy grew up. I lived with Aunt Amelia. I came here during vacations and for Hillbrook Prep. Momma and Daddy wouldn’t allow me to miss that.”
“Why didn’t you live with your parents?”
He sounds extremely curious as he stays on the sidewalk, leaving a good twenty feet between us. So much for the putting a hurting on me.
“Didn’t wanna
.” I roll my eyes at the boy. It’s none of his dang business that my momma didn’t want me living around here. “What’s your name?”
“Doesn’t
matter,” he brusquely says.
“Yeah, it sure does matter.
You come to my home to bother me. You make me produce an Id just so you’ll talk to me. Mr. JJ’s son, what do you want with Fate Simpson?”
