Path of Destruction (10 page)

“You’re mad at me,” she said quietly, not a question, just an observation.

“No.” He paused and took in a seemingly much needed breath. “I was mad that you ignored me, mad that you didn’t tell me about your brother, and okay, kind of mad that you didn’t come to my grandpa’s funeral. But this?” He thrust a hand out erratically toward the train as the caboose disappeared from sight. “I’m
livid
about this. How could you even
think
of doing something like this?”

She stepped close enough to touch him. He was shaking.

“You’re shaking.” Apparently, all she could do in that moment was state the obvious.

He continued yelling at her in a pitch she’d never heard from him before. “Do you have any idea what it was like to pull up and not know where you were? Only to glance over the ridge to see you running like a crazed maniac toward your death in front of a fucking freight train?”

She’d watched one come flying straight at her brother, the one that had knocked him beneath what was once her truck just after he’d shoved her out of the way. So yeah, she could imagine how Hayden might have felt. Except she wasn’t dead. He didn’t have to carry her lifeless body through the woods to the main road while screaming for help that wouldn’t ever come.

Her emotions returned to her previously numb body in a rush. “I can, actually. I can imagine what that was like. Because I lived it. I lived through watching a train hit someone I love. And I lived it because I was stupid. Because I was dumb enough to think what we had this summer actually mattered, because I thought maybe you were worth waiting out the storm for, because instead of being home where I should’ve been, I was here. The fucking truck got stuck and
he
came to help me. Do you hear me?
He
came to help me. Not you. Not Cooper.
Kyle
. Kyle came to rescue my stupid self and he got killed instead.”

She was nearly screaming, her voice shrill and breaking on every other word.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.” Her legs began to give out as he came at her, arms outstretched, braced for a hug but unprepared for the hard shove he got instead. She continued shoving him, slapping at him as he wrapped his arms around her despite the abuse she was inflicting.

“Shh. I’m so sorry, angel face. I’m so damn sorry.”

Didn’t matter. All the I’m sorrys in the world weren’t bringing Kyle back.

She threw everything she had at him, screaming until she was completely depleted, but he stayed there, holding her and whispering over and over how sorry he was.

He lifted her from the ground and carried her to her truck. How he kept his footing up the ridge, she didn’t know. She sobbed softly against his chest until he sat her down beside her truck. Kyle’s truck, really, but hers now she supposed.

“I don’t know that I was really going to…to really do that,” she told him, nodding toward the tracks.

“I’m glad you didn’t have to find out. But, Ella Jane, promise me you will never ever do anything like that again. Promise me right now.”

She nodded, but something flashed in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. His expression faltered, as if he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“What is it?”

His gaze returned to meet hers. “We have to talk to your parents. You have to tell them about—”

“No,” she said evenly. “We don’t. And we aren’t going to.”

“I have to. I’m sorry,” he said, sounding like he meant it but not like he was changing his mind.

She gaped at him. Surely he wasn’t serious. They’d had sex. She’d given him her virginity. And now he was going to tattle to her parents?

“Hayden? Tell me you’re joking?” She reached for his arm, but he stepped out of her grasp and into his Jeep. “I’ll never forgive you!” she yelled as he cranked it up.

“At least you’ll be alive to be pissed at me. I’ll have to live with that I guess.”

After jumping in her truck, Ella Jane followed him to her house. Surely he was just messing with her. He wasn’t really going to rat her out for something she hadn’t even technically done. Was he?

Gravel flew, stirring up dust around them as they pulled into her driveway. She watched him park behind her dad’s car and get out of his jeep. He walked purposely toward the porch.

Holy hell, he was serious.

Ella Jane moved as quickly as she could, throwing herself onto his back just as he reached the front door.

“What the—”

“Wait. Hang on, Hayden. Just wait. Please.”

He stilled as she detached herself from his back and slid down to standing.

“I’ll tell them. About everything. Just…just not right now.”

He snorted. “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

“No,” she lied. She didn’t exactly think that, she just hoped maybe he could be persuaded. Things were crazy enough at her house as it was without him adding her suicide mission to it. Her mom was a zombie, her dad was a dictator, she was mostly mute at home, and Kyle haunted all three of them. “I just… I need to talk to my mom alone. I don’t want my dad to stay here any longer out of guilt.”

“I can’t have a heart attack every time the train runs or because you’re absent or late to school. And after that? After seeing…
that
, I need to know that someone else knows how you’re feeling so that I don’t lose my damn mind.”

He was pleading with her, begging really. He was cute when he was concerned. She didn’t know what to say to that, so she did the one thing she knew she shouldn’t.

She kissed him.

Hayden didn’t respond at first, due to the shock maybe, but when his lips moved against hers, his kiss served to breathe the life back into her just as it had in the hallway at school. She let loose this time, raking her hands into his hair, pulling him closer while pushing her body against him.

“I know what you’re doing,” he mumbled against her lips. “But this is serious. You can’t distract me from—”

She interrupted him by plunging her tongue deep into his mouth, tasting him the way he’d done to her all summer. The familiar way he wrapped his arms around her made her knees even weaker than they already were. Hayden’s hands dropped lower, gripping the underneath of her thighs and lifting her onto his waist. He walked them over to the porch swing and sat, the old chains that held the swing clanging in protest.

Ella Jane moaned into his mouth when she felt his arousal beneath her. It felt just as it had before, being with him this way. She felt loved and cherished and not at all like a thing on the side.

Maybe they could go back. Maybe it could be like it was. Maybe tomorrow she’d wake up and it would all have been a dream. Maybe it was still the night before the party and there wasn’t a storm at all.

“Ella Jane Mason, get inside this house right now.”

Her dad’s voice effectively sliced between them, clearing the lust-filled fog she’d fallen into. Her entire body flushed as she wondered how she could’ve been so stupid. It wasn’t last summer, a kiss couldn’t turn back time.

Hayden set her gently beside him on the swing and stood slowly. “Mr. Mason, I swear that wasn’t what it—”

“What it looked like?” her dad sneered. “Well it sure as hell couldn’t have been homework, now could it? Guess that means I’ll be making that call we discussed after all.”

“What call?” Ella Jane felt like they were speaking a secret language she couldn’t understand.

“Say goodnight, Ella Jane,” her dad demanded without taking his eyes off Hayden.

“You don’t get to just waltz back in here and start giving orders.” She stood, ready for Hayden to leave so she could put her humiliating slip behind her but not ready for it to be on her dad’s terms.

“I should go anyway,” Hayden said, giving her a small smile. “I’ll call you, okay?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. In a way, he’d saved her life. But it was still too hard. He was still so much a part of something that hurt so bad, and he always would be.

“Just go,” she said softly, not looking him in the eye.

“Ella Jane,” her dad barked. “House. Now.” He held the door open as he waited for her to fall in line. She sighed and glanced back at Hayden.

“You can talk to Cami if you want,” Hayden told her before he walked down off the porch. “She can explain everything. We weren’t together this summer, I promise.”

Cami.

Ella Jane had nearly forgotten her. She had some questions for her all right. They just had nothing to do with Hayden.

S
he hadn’t touched her cell phone since Friday. She knew how rare and strange this was. Considering she was a seventeen-year-old girl, this was almost unheard of, but since she’d dialed Kyle’s number and his sister had answered it, she couldn’t bring herself to touch the thing.

Ella Jane had called back as soon as Cami had hung up and left a pretty intense voicemail demanding answers as to why the Summit Bluffs’ princess was calling her dead brother’s phone.

“What do you want? How did you know my brother? We need to talk. Call me back.”

Cami noted the desperation in Ella Jane’s voice—a familiar cadence she’d noticed in her own voice as of late. She considered calling her back and telling her everything, but the idea of finally vocalizing the feelings of her broken heart or letting anyone into the perfect, yet all too short, summer she and Kyle had shared together sent her right back to a place she was trying to avoid. She’d switched the phone to silent and left it on her dresser all weekend, avoiding it like the plague.

She deserves to know the truth.

Ella Jane might have deserved to know what had happened between Cami and Kyle that summer, but as far as Cami was concerned it was her secret to keep. She’d loved him—still loved him—and no part of her wanted to share that with anyone. Not her parents, not Hayden, and especially not Ella Jane Mason. That girl had been nothing but trouble since she’d walked through the doors of SBHS.

It irked Cami that Ella Jane had two great guys up in arms over her. She knew why it bothered her that Hayden liked the unstable chick so much. He’d been her best friend long before he was her boyfriend. It was Brantley Cooper that she couldn’t understand why she gave a damn. She’d talked to him one time—during the social committee meeting—and it hadn’t even been for very long. Aside from his blatant hatred for Hayden, he was nice. And funny. And better looking than ninety-nine percent of the school population—with his short, dark hair and dark-brown, see-right-through-you eyes. He even managed to make the whole corn-fed, farm-bred thing appealing. He shouldn’t have been wasting his time on some girl that obviously didn’t know a good thing when she had one. Hell, she had two good things and she didn’t want either of them.

Monday, Cami had managed to convince her parents she wasn’t feeling well and stayed home. But Tuesday morning was a different story. When Cami had left for school, she grabbed her cell phone, but not because she was finally ready to talk to anyone. She’d seen the forecast the night before and, according to the weatherman, the area had a chance for strong storms.

Last year, she would have just gone, letting the weather gods determine the outcome for the day, but now... She didn’t want to take any chances. Not being prepared had almost cost her her life and it had taken Kyle’s. If a tornado was about to rip through town, she was going to be ready for it. She downloaded every weather app known to man onto her iPhone. Like a walking weather station. She wandered down the hallway, toward her locker, her eyes focused in on the screen.

“Morning, Cami,” a voice called out.

“Hey,” she answered robotically, not at all invested in who had greeted her. She had other things to worry about. According to the latest radar image, the storms were taking shape and due in the area in the next hour or so.

Her stomach knotted and she could feel a sheen of sweat slick her hands. She let out the breath she’d unconsciously held in as she double-checked her findings.

I should have stayed home.

Of course, when she mentioned to her mother that there was a seventy-percent chance of storms this morning, she’d laughed off her concern.

“I saw the weather report, dear. It’s nothing to worry about. Just thunderstorms,” her mom had reassured repeatedly.

Just thunderstorms, her ass. How was she so nonchalant about this?

“You don’t know that it’s just going to be a thunderstorm. Conditions are favorable for—”

“Cameron, you’re going to school,” her mother stated flatly. “You are not going to hide that pretty little face every time it thunders around here. You’ll be safe at school. Now go.”

She’d thought about arguing with her, bringing up statistics about school shootings and storms that had hit when school was in session, but she didn’t have the energy. She’d gone to school as her mother had wished. The high school had a basement, so if it got too bad, Cami would skip class and head straight for the utility closet she knew Raquel had used to make out with seniors in freshman year.

Cami shoved her belongings into her locker and tucked her cell phone into her back pocket. As she pulled out her school-assigned iPad and readied herself for her morning English class, she wondered exactly how long it would take to download the radar app onto the tablet. With a bigger screen she could zoom in on the exact path of the storm. She felt a soft smile tug at her lips at her genius idea. She’d be able to stay up to date with the weather during class with her teacher being none the wiser.