Find Me (22 page)

Anyone else would start in with the denials.
It doesn’t have to be like this. You don’t have to run. You have Bren and Todd.
Griff, though. . . . He just nods. I pass him my helmet and our fingers graze, making my heart stutter.

He hooks his hand around my wrist. “What would you do if you could do anything?”

“No idea.” I refuse to think about it. That’s a question that other girls deserve to answer. “What would you do?”

Griff hesitates, then his mouth is on mine again. Both hands cup my neck, my jaw, my face. He kisses me like I’m wonderful.

And I’m grabbing him like I’m drowning.

I press close, curving my fingers around his belt loops, and he responds by bending me into him. All I can do is hold on.

Griff breaks away, breathing hard. We’re
both
breathing hard. I can’t look at him. I’m too transfixed by how his pulse jerks beneath his skin.

“I would do that,” Griff says.

Our eyes meet and we both look away.

“I want to see you again.” Griff runs his hand down my spine. “After this. During this.”

Our gazes meet again and, even though I know better, something inside me loosens. “Me too.” I nudge my chin toward Joe’s front door. “Get it over with?”

Griff hesitates. Something’s wrong again. His eyes have gone dark.

“Griff?”

“Right.” He shrugs and follows me toward the front porch. I make myself grab the door handle and push it open. I’ve known Joe for so many years. I’ve hacked for almost as long. You’d think this would be easier.

We walk into the darkened hallway.

“Well, you two sure took your sweet time.” The voice is coming from the step-down living room. Joe doesn’t sound particularly pissed, but a chill still climbs up my spine. The lights are low—the computers must be overloading the electrical system again—and I can’t really see much apart from Joe’s outline. My eyes adjust to the dimness, and my chill turns into a shudder.

Because Joe isn’t alone.

“Hey there, Wick.” My dad’s teeth are a stripe of white in the dark. “Did you miss me?”

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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Doesn’t matter if it’s been fifteen
minutes or fifteen days, there’s nothing like seeing him again.

—Page 61 of Tessa Waye’s diary

He’s back. It’s been ten months, eleven days, and fourteen hours. There have been cops and reporters and even a special news bulletin. There’s been a freaking manhunt. But he’s still back. He still slips through.

I want to laugh, but I don’t let myself. It might turn into a howl. This is what the cops will never understand and I can never properly explain. You can’t catch my dad, and you’ll never be safe.

Not as long as he wants you.

“Wow. It’s been a while.” I try to look him up and down without meeting his eyes. “How did you get here?”

“Magic.” My dad’s eyes slide over my shoulder. “Since when did you get friendly with Joe’s new whiz kid?”

I look around, suddenly remembering Griff. He’s closer than I thought. I clear my throat, turn away. This is a loaded question. I’m not supposed to have friends. My dad doesn’t allow us to have anything he hasn’t given us.

“We’re not friendly.” I force myself to walk into the living room only by sheer willpower. “So are we going to start this or what?”

But my dad isn’t looking at me. He’s studying Griff, and the hairs on my neck and arms go rigid. This isn’t good. I don’t like the expression on my dad’s face. He’s watching Griff like he’s a threat.

I know that look. Too well.

My dad’s in that dark place now, that rotten place that lives under his heart until it blooms and he can see nothing but his rage. And I don’t want Griff anywhere when that finally happens.

I take another step into the dark. “I don’t have time to hang around. I have to be back or my foster mom will get suspicious.”

It’s an aggressive push and I know better, but I don’t stop. I force my eyes to meet his, turn my body so I’m squared up with him. I make myself bigger instead of smaller like he prefers, and the result—sudden tightness in his shoulders, and tensing of his hands—ripples through him. In some ways, this is too easy.

Until he looks at Griff again.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Dad says.

Griff snorts. Not good. When Dad’s like this, you don’t want to draw his attention, and that’s what Griff keeps doing. He doesn’t know the rules—that he should be
avoiding
my dad’s gaze. He should be making himself unobtrusive.

Not copying me.

“No one’s going to fuck up anything,” I spit out, drawing myself up. “In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t need you here to babysit. We were doing just fine without you.”

It works. My dad’s gaze meets mine, and immediately, I want to look away. My brain is screaming for it. When he’s like this, you should never question him, never meet his eyes.

“Is that right?” The question is so soft I think my plan didn’t work.

But then he launches.

I make it two steps before his hands lock down on my upper arms, before his weight shoves us backward. We plow into the wall behind us. Dad hits me hard enough to knock the air from my lungs, and even though I know I’m supposed to be the strong daughter, I tear up.

He leans in close and wrenches my right arm back, back, back until the shoulder starts to give in the socket and my vision spots from pain.

“Answer me,” he says.

Dimly, I’m aware of a crash, and Joe starts swearing. It makes my father’s eyes skate away from mine, assess something I can’t see.

“What the hell is that about?” His attention pivots to me. “Did you find yourself a hero, Wick? Did you think your little boy could save you?”

I don’t answer, so he digs his fingers into my jaw, twists my head around so I can see Griff.

Griff, whose temple is inches away from the end of Joe’s Glock.

Dad wrenches my head around. “You were always my favorite, do you know that?”

He whispers the words like they’re some secret, but he’s loud enough so everyone can hear. The room is too quiet.

I think of Griff—staring at us, seeing what I hide from the world—and know that’s exactly what Dad wants.

He’s showing me, showing all of them how I belong to him.

As if I needed reminding.

“I love you, Wick.”

Love? How can he even talk about love?
He’s just using it ,as a reason to do damage. He doesn’t understand it.

Then I think about how much I love Lily, what I would do for her, and I want to sob. I am my father’s daughter.

“I love you because you’re just like me.”

Just like him.
Dad sees my wince. I’ve been away from him too long. I don’t remember to mask it, but the backhand reminds me. It brings it all to the surface.

I don’t bother putting my hand to my mouth. Not because it doesn’t hurt.

Because it does.

And not because I can’t taste the blood.

Because I can.

I don’t move because now everything really has returned. I suddenly feel stronger. I find my own phantom, the girl who was in danger of disappearing at Bren and Todd’s. I find her right under my heart, and she stands up to fit inside my skin. She looks out of my eyes, and we both promise that while he may use me, he will never break me.

Dad leans in again until I can smell the whiskey on his breath and the sour stench of his skin. “So you’ll do as you’re told?”

It’s a question, but we all know it’s really an order.

“Yes . . . of course.”

It’s the answer he wants, but Dad grabs my throat anyway. His long fingers skim up into my hair until they grip hard. “Face it, Wicket. You need me. Our kind needs each other.”

His voice is actually lower this time. The words are meant only for me, and I recognize the tone. I can even name it: reasonable.

Rational.

Like all this was inevitable.

Because I’m just like him.

I blink back tears. “Yeah, I am like you, Dad. You’re right.”

His hand loosens. His eyes search mine, and whatever he sees there makes him smile. He pushes away from me and retreats into the kitchen, where we all listen to the scrape and slide of the bottle. If this is my family reunion, then that noise must be our favorite tradition.

“Make sure you have the coding finished by the end of the week.” Joe hands Griff a jump drive, and when Joe turns to give me mine, I study the sweat darkening his T-shirt so I don’t have to look in his eyes.

“Fine.”

“Text me before you come,” Joe adds.

“Fine.”

Griff follows me down the porch steps, keeps reaching for me, and I keep stepping away because I don’t want to be touched.

“Just give me a minute to start the bike,” he mutters.

I nod, but I don’t wait. While Griff is turned, I take off and run the whole way home alone.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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I can’t even imagine what life would be like
if he hadn’t happened.

—Page 23 of Tessa Waye’s diary

I’m shouldering open the front door when Griff’s fourth text message lights up my phone:

r u ok?

No, I’m not, but thanks for asking, because now I know you are. Griff’s okay. He didn’t go back in there, didn’t try to be a hero for a girl who doesn’t deserve him.

I make it upstairs on noodle legs. Bren’s heard me come in. She starts calling my name, and I’m scared shitless she’ll follow. I don’t have an excuse yet. I don’t have my lies straight. If she sees my face . . . Someone’s footsteps stop right outside my bedroom door.

“Wick?”

“Lily?”
Thank God.
I start crying.

My sister opens the door, and once she sees me, shuts the door tight behind her. Locks it. She takes one look at my face and knows.

Another text:

Wicked?

I delete it. Lily sneaks up ice from the kitchen. She tells Bren I’m tired from Lauren’s party and am going to lie down for a while. This will buy us a few hours. I will come up with an explanation for my bruised mouth. I will fix this.

And another:

Wicked?!

Stop calling me that. Stop acting like you know me. Except now he really does, doesn’t he? I fold onto the floor, push off my shoes with one hand.

The only person who knows you any better is Lily, and now they both know you shouldn’t be allowed to protect anyone. You can’t even protect yourself.

I pull my arms around my sides, even though it makes the muscles in my right shoulder scream.

Five minutes later:

please call me

They just keep coming. I delete them one by one, but it doesn’t matter, because he only sends more.

I take two of Norcut’s pills and drag myself into bed. My phone vibrates. The screen says I have one new text:

i’m coming over

I flip my cell onto the floor. Bury it under a dirty T-shirt.
Go ahead,
I think.
Doesn’t matter. I’m not really here, and I won’t be here for you ever again. I can’t be. He destroys everything I care about. I can’t give him you. I
won’t
give him you.

I roll into a ball, stuff a blanket so far into my mouth no one can hear me cry.

It’s something else my dad taught me.

I wake up
after just after two o’clock in the afternoon. My phone is still on the floor, and I ignore it. I pad from my room to the bathroom, keeping the lights off so I don’t have to look at myself. But after a few minutes, I know I need to man up.

I flip on the lights, look at my reflection.

Jesus. I get a little closer to my reflection. Between Lauren’s black eye and now mine, we’re going to look like bookends.

“Wick?”

Bren. I rub the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. Do I have some sort of invisible bell on me? How does she even know I’m up?