Wild Girl (Slateview High 2)

“We kinda just use this building as a place to lay low if we need it,” he explained as he wet some paper towels and knelt before me.

He carefully brushed them over my scraped and crusting knees, making sure to be slow even with the sting. He cleaned dirt and grime—and blood—away from my pale skin. My leggings had torn in broad swaths, leaving large patches of my legs bare.

I held onto the sink with one hand and his shoulder with the other, letting the softness of his touch warm my numb body.

When he moved up toward my thighs, where the scrapes were intentional, he looked up to me.

I nodded. “It’s okay.”

As calmly and carefully as before, Misael cleaned where Flint’s nails had dug. I kept my breathing steady, focused on how much I preferred Misael’s familiar, careful, tender hands to Flint’s violent grip. The panic raging through me began to wane beneath his touch, more so when he stood and dabbed away the blood that had crusted at my nose with a fresh paper towel.

He tossed the bloodied towels in the metal trash bin before threading the fingers of one hand through mine. Then he looked back at me, his gaze tracking over my body before moving up to my face.

“There,” he said with a soft smile that didn’t quite hide the pain in his expression. “All better.”

He pressed a kiss to my forehead, then brought me to a lounge-like room that had plush chairs and a couch. It wasn’t high-end, but it was comfortable. He settled me on the couch and sat beside me, letting me lean on him as he stroked my hair.

We sat close to each other in stillness, our breath slowly falling into sync, and with his comforting arm around me, I let my eyes drift closed.

Part of me thought I would never sleep again, but with Misael’s warm body beside me and his protective embrace holding me close, blackness stole me away.

Two

My dreams were disjointed and vivid, flashes of sound and color that made terror choke my chest. It was as if the events of the night were a puzzle, the pieces scattered all over, and my mind was slowly putting them back together to create a complete picture.

It wasn’t a picture I wanted to see though.

Even in my dreams, I tried to change the outcome, tried to warn myself to run from Flint before it was too late. I tried to grab the gun from Kace’s hands.

But the sharp sound of the gunshot split the night air over and over. No matter how hard I tried, I could never stop it.

I jerked awake when I heard the comfortingly familiar voices of Kace and Bishop.

“Cora? Misael? Hey, where you at?”

“In here.”

Misael’s voice rumbled in his chest, and I stirred in his hold, blinking away the last vestiges of my horrible dreams. I must have slept hard.

“Bishop?” I muttered, my voice still thick with sleep.

A hand fell on my shoulder as Misael and I sat up.

“Yup. Kace and I are done.”

He didn’t elaborate as he and Kace sat down in the seats across from the couch Misael and I occupied. A dozen questions hovered on the tip of my tongue as my gaze darted between the two of them.

Did everything go as planned? Did anyone see them? What would they say to Nathaniel if this came up? What was going through their heads after disposing of the body of a man they had killed?

I was tempted to let all of those thoughts pour out in a torrent, but I was calmer now, and with that calmness came a clarity. Those questions could wait. There were other things to worry about first.

“I’m glad you guys are back safe,” I said quietly. “I… I was worried about you two.”

“Yeah, well, we always know how to get ourselves out of trouble.” Bishop shrugged. His hazel eyes had been soft as he looked at me, but now they hardened like glass. “Which brings me to what the fuck you were doing with Flint in the first place, Cora. How’d you even get in touch with him?”

I averted my gaze, unable to bear the weight of his heavy stare. My own guilt was sitting on my chest like a slab of cement already.

“How did you find me?” I answered instead. “You showed up at just… the right time.”