Wingless Book Series (book 1) (10 page)

“
He was
always laughing and bounding around. Thinking
always thinking. He had a huge heart. He cared about us. He told me
every day that, no matter what, I always had him. But he was
cheated out of keeping his promise to me, and a little part of me
hated him and the world for that. But I kept my feelings hidden. I
hid them for fear my mother would throw me into more therapy
sessions.”

“
Why didn’t he,” he asked, sitting
up and putting his arm around me.

I shrugged. “You haven’t lived
here long enough to have heard about it. My brother worked at a
carry out farther out past Denver. These young kids came in there
to rob the place. He was working with a girl and they pulled guns,
shot them both in their heads. He survived for a bit. We got to
come up to the hospital and see him, but he was barely awake, or
there, I don’t know. His heart stopped, like, ten minutes or so
after we all got there.”

Evan pulled me to him. I
didn’t cry. I was tired of crying about the heartless kids
that now sat in jail. How I believed that
them serving twenty something years for murdering
my brother wasn’t good enough. I had cried so much and it didn’t
change a thing. I gave up.

Marcus wanted to be with us
and now all I had left
was just bitter
memories. Sometimes I thought about how, even if he were here, he
would be gone traveling, so, either way, I wouldn’t have
him.

“
I’m really sorry, Eve,” Evan
said, rubbing my arm, trying to make me feel better.

“
Don’t be, you didn’t do it. You
don’t say sorry for something you didn’t do. I don’t like sorry,” I
insisted, leaning my head on his chest.

“
No, but I do apologize. You don’t
have your brother- probably a brother that was better than Gray.”
He mumbled the last part under his breath.

“
Yeah he was a lot better. Tell me
something about you now.”

“
Okay, see this
scar?” He pulled me off him and lifted his shirt. There was
a large mark right below his bellybutton and a
scar, one that
seemed almost like a burn
or something, and the other like an old wound of some sort. I
touched the scar. It wasn’t smooth like the rest of his
skin.

“
Wow, pretty gnarly. You have a
great battle story to go with it?”

“
I never told you I met my real
dad when I lived with my mom. Well, my replacement mom. He came to
see me when I was like, five. Took me out on his bike. No helmet or
anything. He was plastered and we crashed into a ravine. I don’t
really recall everything, I just know that I skidded on my
stomach.”

“
Wow, you’re lucky to be
alive.”

He nodded. “Yeah that’s not all.
Once we crashed, he tried to drown me.” He laughed a nervous laugh,
pulling his shirt down.

I pulled it back up, touching the
scar again, and then looked up at him. “You were one tough kid.
Your bastard dad couldn’t even kill you as a five year old. That’s
truly amazing.” We laughed.

“
I just never could figure out why
a man would want to drown his own kid. I mean, Donna said he was
like, eighteen or something when I was five, so that would have
made him way young. But still I could never hurt my own
kid.”

He put his hand over mine on his
stomach. I kissed his hand and nestled my head back into his
chest.

“
Your scar makes you who you are.
I really don’t have any, but I think yours is super
cool.”

Chapter 10

Stumble

It was so dark outside of
Evan’s house. I stayed close to him as the wind howled and the rain
beat against
the windows. Evan was asleep
snoring lightly, his chest rising and falling. I listened to the
clock tick until it became so rhythmic I started to doze off
myself. I kept fighting it because I wasn’t sure I wanted to stay.
I hadn’t told my parents I was not coming home, nor would they
appreciate me being out this long with Evan.

My phone buzzed in my
pocket, which was between Evan’s body and me. He jolted
up, giving a small groan. I flipped the phone
open, the light
blinding me in the
darkness.

“
Hello?” I whispered into the
phone. Evan cleared his throat sitting up even more, I tried to
stay leaning against him but he moved me off of him getting
up.

“
Eve, it’s Gray. Mom and Dad are
locking up and want to know where you are.” He more stated this
than talked to me like a human being.

“
I’m over Evan’s. He fell asleep.
It’s late so …I, uh, just think I’ll sleep on his couch and come
home tomorrow.”

“
You’re not coming home? Are you
nuts?” he asked me, scoffing into the phone.

“
No, it’s a long drive to expect
someone to make when they’re half asleep.”

“
Yeah, well, maybe he should have
thought about that before he had you out so long.”

“
Well maybe you should just
respect my choice and leave me be Gray,” I snapped, punching Evan’s
couch pillow.

Evan came up grabbing my phone in
the blink of an eye. I jumped almost out of my skin as he flew out
of the darkness at me like a bat out of hell. I grabbed his arm,
but he batted me away.

“
I can bring her back, it’s not a
problem, but I think she just told you that she doesn’t want to
come back there. So, yeah, if I bring her back how about you are on
the porch when I get there…Why? Because you have beyond gotten
under my skin….Yeah. Yeah….Alright see ya.” He snapped my phone
shut tossing it on the couch next to my leg and sat
down.

“
What was that?” I asked, annoyed
at his manly pushiness.

“
It was me getting really
irritated with your brother,” he snapped.

“
Geez,” I said, curling up on the
couch. Evan laid down wrapping his arms around me, his body
pressing against my back.

“
I don’t like it. He doesn’t need
to treat you like that.” He kissed the back of my head.

“
He is just a moron.”

“
It won’t end well for him is all
I’m saying,” he sighed, probably realizing that it meant more than
he realized.

“
Goodnight, Evan.” I fell
asleep.

Loud banging startled me awake.
Evan was nowhere to be found, at least around me. I sat up in the
dark- apparently it was still night. Half asleep, I held onto the
wall stumbling to find my way through the house. There was a light
coming from a doorway. I made my way, eyes adjusting slowly, and
turned the knob.

“
Please, Evan,” an older man
pleaded on his knees.

Evan stood in front of the
fellow with a look of blankness on his face. Another guy around the
same age as Evan with dark hair and blue eyes, stood there
casually. My arms erupted in a million goose bumps. The door was
barely open, but all three of them seemed to notice my
presence
and stopped what they were
doing.

Evan stormed forward, yanking the
doorknob from my hand. I stood frozen, my hand suspended in midair,
staring into his wide eyes.

“
What are you doing awake?” he
asked, somewhat startled.

I stared past him at the
older man in a suit still kneeling
on the
floor. The man didn’t look back at me, just stared at the ground,
his face cut and bloody. His shirt was ripped at the collar and one
of his black shoes was missing.

“
I heard a noise, it woke me up.
Is everything alright?”

“
Eve, its fine,” he said, stepping
out and pulling the door shut behind him.

“
Who is that man and why is he
bleeding?” I demanded.

“
He works for my dad. It’s a whole
lot of nothing and I am sorry you had to see this.” He grabbed my
arm.

“
You’re not going to…you
know?”

Evan laughed at me pulling me back
down the hall. He opened another door and brought me inside the
room.

“
Come here,” he said, motioning
with his finger. I stared at him for a beat, searching for
something, but I wasn’t sure what- a hint of crazed behavior
maybe.

“
What?” I said,
slowly walking up to him. He pulled me to him drawing my face up to
his; I stood on my tiptoes to reach his lips. His lips were warm,
his kisses so soft they
made my heart skip
beats. It was a thrilling feeling even if I wasn’t sure what was
going on.

“
This is my bedroom, you can sleep
in here. It’s more comfortable. And I’ll be back.”

I grabbed a hold of his belt
buckle not letting him go. “Kiss me again and don’t go.” He very
much obliged backing me up against his bedroom wall- my head hit
with a soft thud. He ran his hand along my face, down my neck and
to my chest stopping before he got too touchy.

“
I got to. I’ll come back, though,
and we can fall asleep together, promise.” He kissed my forehead
before heading out of the bedroom.

I crawled into the huge bed with
its down comforter and snuggled against all the big fluffy pillows.
It was one of the most comfortable beds ever.

Evan blew my mind with his stern
behavior, but at the same time, he was so hard to take my mind off
of because he was just so good looking and charming. I didn’t know
if things would get physical, it was never something I thought
about that hard. I knew that maybe one day it would happen, but I
wasn’t thinking too much on it. I don’t think he was either. He
seemed to be the sort of guy who could wait it out, and he had a
great deal of patience.

I stared at the ceiling. I
couldn’t see it, but I stared anyway. It was hard to fall asleep
when you were unaware of what was going on in the room next to you.
The thought of what might be going on was thrilling and scary all
at once. I was never one to like power, but in the back of
everyone’s mind, you secretly wouldn’t mind having some at one
point or another. To be able to make things the way you wanted them
would be was an amazing thing.

A lot
of people don’t want to be perceived as a heartless, uncaring
person, but if you could have your way and you could physically
threaten those around you to get what you wanted and it would work,
it would be an amazing thing. I was a young girl who hadn’t always
gotten her way and this sort of style or way of doing things seemed
appealing to me. It was nothing like I had ever
known.

I imagined if things turned
out well that I would be brought into the family and I would know
all the truths and I would be just as valuable to them as anyone
else. I secretly liked the thought of that. Maybe power was the key
to all my problems, a simple solution. It must have been enough for
Evan to stay with a family who
wasn’t even
his. Somewhere in him was a person that
enjoyed the dangers and excitement of it all. Or maybe not.
It was hard to say. Maybe he had
been
brainwashed all these years into feeling it was
right.

Power was the one thing that
I lacked. Power to change the way I felt about my family and my
life. If I wanted out, I needed a good reason to change the way
things were. It was a complicated thing; most people would see my
life as a great wholesome family who
cared
about each other. I didn’t because I lived it and knew the truths
behind it. I knew things that would make them think twice about it
all.

My mother was in a deep
depression over the loss of my brother, she had even been
hospitalized over it, which is, of
course,
a normal response to losing a son. She also had a horrible
relationship with her father who brought a great deal of trouble to
our family. Things that no one wanted to have in his or her
life. My father, on the other hand, was a great
man, but even he had made mistakes. These were things that would be
even more of a problem later on in life, I was sure of it. So I
will leave that where it lies for the time being.

Evan came in the room. I
could hear his feet moving
across the
wooden floor, the bed moved and sunk so I knew he was sitting. His
house was so dark at night- somewhat relaxing and a little eerie.
He lay down-I could feel the warmth of his body next to mine-not
saying anything. Maybe he thought I was sleeping.

“
I’m awake,” I
whispered.

He turned on his side, touching my
arm.

“
I thought you would have fallen
back asleep.” He ran his fingers through my hair.

“
I was waiting for you.” I moved
closer to him, finding his chest to rest my head on like always. I
loved to feel him breathe.

“
Anything you want to say to me?”
he asked me in a tired, barely there voice.

“
What happened and who was that
guy?” I asked quickly. It had been bugging me. And if he was
willing to answer me, then I was asking.

“
That man that you saw was a
family friend. He borrows money and my dad has me deal with him. I
didn’t know he would be here tonight and I’m sorry that scared
you.”