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“Really?” I ask. I’m not trying to sound that way, but it just all seems so far-fetched to me. Like something out of a movie. Except this is real life.
My life.
“You don’t have to believe me,” Jax says. “A lot of people don’t. Not that we tell very many people about us. I think you’re the first girl.”
My chest rises in defiance. “Because no one else lives long enough to find out?”
Jax smirks. “There’s no point telling anyone who wouldn’t understand.”
“And what makes you so sure I can?”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Trauma recognizes trauma. You aren’t fragmented the same way we are, but you’re just as broken.”
I think back to my childhood. To the dorms at college. And I realize...he’s right.
Chapter Eighteen
Kane
We drive by the sign for my favorite diner between here and my hometown in Texas. I’ve taken these interstate systems a million times, and I’ll take them a million times more. By now, these highways are as familiar as the veins in my arm. I could drive this route in my sleep.
My eyes harden on the sign. The corners have begun to peel away from the metal, but that doesn’t dictate the state of the food, which is always fucking incredible. Mashed potatoes that are just stiff enough to stick to your ribs but soft enough to go down smooth. Steaks seasoned to mouth-watering perfection. And the steamed broccoli. I don’t normally enjoy green vegetables—I’m a meat and potatoes kind of guy—but the cheese sauce they slather over the little green stalks is like liquid pleasure. Aside from killing, eating at the diner is the closest I’ll ever come to having an orgasm.
I’m fucking starving. That much is clear. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and had a good meal without being disturbed, but it’s been too long. My head is quiet for once, so I take the turn and head toward the diner.
Dropout rattles the handcuff on her wrist. She stares straight ahead as if she’d like to be anywhere else, which is probably accurate, but she needs to learn her place. She’s with me now, and that won’t change until I hand her off in Texas.
Meeting The Nameless isn’t my only reason for heading back to Texas, and Jax wasn’t lying when I spoke to the DOT officer. I managed to broker a load between here and Texas, which means I need to clean out the trailer before we get there. Having a reefer unit means the distributors want proof of a clean trailer before they stock perishables inside. Which means I need to actually clean that trailer before I get there. It’s dirty in more ways than one.
“You’re bringing me back to New York after this, right?” she asks.
“Sure,” I say. It’s a lie to keep the bitch calm for my sanity. And hers, I guess. Is it wrong to feed her little nibbles of hope for the rest of the trip? I can only see the benefits. It will—hopefully—stop her from running off again, which means I can sleep without keeping one eye open. If she needs to think this is a detour on our way to New York, then so be it.
I pull into the truck stop and stare at the sign for the diner. I can already smell the sizzling meat
“You gonna be good, dropout?”
“Stop calling me that.”
I grip her chin. “Are you gonna be good?”
When she doesn’t respond, I tighten my grip and nod her head for her. If she isn’t good, she should already know what will happen to her. Yeah, I’ve already sold her to The Nameless, but I have no problem doing what I love if she can’t act right. She’d look even prettier dead.
I unchain her wrist, and she rubs the sensitive ring of red skin. I may need to keep her untethered when we’re on the road. If she gets an infection or gets too dinged up, The Nameless won’t give me enough for her.
We get out of the truck, and I grab her arm to keep her close to my side. “Look like you want to be here,” I say, jabbing my fingers into her side.
“I absolutely want to be here, thank you very much. I’m sick of munching on the expired gas station food you’ve stashed in the cabinets like some sort of psychotic squirrel.”
I almost smile at her little jab. She’s got spunk, I’ll give her that.
We walk inside, and a bell tolls overhead. A familiar waitress scurries around behind the counter. She’s nearly always at her station when I visit, almost as if she lives here. Her graying black hair sits in stressed curls on her head, and she glances up as we pass the counter.
“Kane, how long has it been?” she asks, a hint of flirt in her eyes. This poor old hound is baying up the wrong tree. If I have no attraction to Aurora, she doesn’t have a chance in hell. I’ve never been attracted to anyone. Not like that, at least.
“A year? Maybe more,” I say as I sit in the booth farthest from the door. Aurora sits across from me. Her hands go into her lap, and she stares out the large window beside our booth.
“Your daughter?” the waitress asks, her eyes falling on Aurora. I kick her beneath the table, and she turns toward the woman with a fake smile.
