Real Girl (Aston Creek High 4)

I don’t stop. Not when I get to the main gate, not when I pass Luce’s home, and not when I reach the outskirts of town.

I can’t risk staying here. My head is telling me to turn back and go to Luce’s place to where I can have a warm shower and sleep in a bed that hopefully smells like Slade, but my gut is telling me to keep running.

Luce’s home is going to be the first place Lucien looks and as much as I don’t want to bring that down on her, I have no choice. She’ll understand and after tearing her place apart, he’ll realize that she doesn’t know where I am. He’ll leave her alone and if he doesn’t, she has her father who will take care of her.

As for me, I’m just going to keep running until I can’t physically keep moving. I have to.

Hours pass by the time I reach an old gas station at least ten miles out of town. It looks like the kind of place junkies come to get their fix but I honestly couldn’t give a shit. An armed man could come at me right now and I’d probably tell him to go and get fucked. I’ve faced worse than this shit. Hell, I could handle a place like this in my sleep.

I drop down onto the pavement and look at my feet. They’ve been aching since I first passed Luce’s house. I rub my hand over them to find them all cut up and bloodied. I didn’t realize how bad they were getting. My only focus was to keep going, but now with the sun over the horizon, the damage is clear.

I don’t think I can physically keep going like this.

I need help.

I spy a payphone across the road and my eyes instantly well with tears of happiness. My head falls into my hands and I sit there for at least ten minutes crying while desperately trying to find the energy to get up off the dirty ground and search for some damn coins to make the stupid thing work.

I wipe my tears on the back of my arms. I’m so close. I can’t fail now.

Forcing myself to my feet, I cringe with the pain and start searching around the empty gas station. Cars are starting to pass on the road, getting ready for their busy days, blissfully unaware of the evil that surrounds them.

I find a quarter and after a minute, I find another. I could keep searching but I don’t have the patience. It’s just going to have to be a quick call.

I start crossing the road and get honked at by the busy drivers who have to slow as I pass in front, though I’m sure if they knew that I spent my night becoming a murderer on the run, they’d rethink their choices.

The cars finally pass and when I reach the payphone, I quickly start loading it up with my quarters. I hash in the one number I have memorized and as the phone starts ringing, I sink down to the ground with the phone glued to my ear, crying for the promise of freedom.

“Hello,” comes a groggy voice, clearly my call waking him.

“Blake,” I say, my voice sounding alien to my ears. “I need your help.”

Chapter 16

Slade

I sit up in bed staring at the wall just as I’ve been doing all fucking night. It’s just after eight in the morning and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what last night meant for Skylah.

She’s fucking married to a rich prick who would have tried taking advantage of her the second he could. He’s been waiting four years to take her and I can guarantee that he wouldn’t have waited a second longer.

The moment Skylah walked through the doors of his big ass home, she would have been raped while I was sitting here in my fucking bed not able to do a goddamn thing about it.

It makes me sick. How could these people be so fucking wrong? She’s a beautiful woman who deserves to be treated like a fucking queen. Why can’t they see that? All they see her for is a sexy as sin body with a pair of tits that needs to be dominated. They don’t see her kind heart, the compassion in her soul, or the way she desperately needs to be treasured.

Yesterday was a fucking joke. I don’t know what I was thinking barging into that wedding with Shay and Damian but it was my last chance at getting her back. We’ve tried everything over the last twelve days to the point that I nearly got my best friend killed.

I’m fucking surprised the security guards let us go yesterday. Don’t get me wrong, Shay had to watch as Damian and I were ‘punished’ for destroying the ceremony, but after a thorough ass-kicking, they tossed us out as they had a wedding reception to attend.