Wild Girl (Slateview High 2)

“Hey… why don’t we take Cora home and cool down?” Misael suggested, glancing from me to Bishop, and then to Kace, who had remained completely silent through this entire exchange. “I don’t think anyone called the cops—in that neighborhood, nobody really bats an eye at a stray gunshot. You guys got rid of the body, so there’s not much else to be done tonight. Let’s just take a break and figure things out from here, okay?”

“Yeah.” Bishop answered Misael without looking away from me. “Yeah, okay.”

The expression he wore let me know that this conversation definitely wasn’t over, but when he pulled me up from the couch and brushed my hair back from my face, his touch was tender. He stared down at me for a long moment, as if trying to convince himself I was really okay, that I was really still alive, still here with them. Then he kissed me once, palming the back of my head and pressing his lips hard to mine.

When he drew back, I glanced over at Kace. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he gazed back at me, and for a moment, I was sure he was going to walk over and tug me from Bishop’s arms and kiss me too.

I hoped he would.

I needed him to.

But instead, he just dipped his chin in a nod. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Misael kept my hand in his as we headed out to Bish’s car. The cold night air nipped at the bare skin of my legs, and Bishop cranked the heat in the beat-up convertible as we made our way down the streets of Baltimore. The boys all lived close to the small house Mom and I rented in a run-down neighbored that was a far cry from the community of gated mansions I’d grown up in.

Thirty minutes later, I was home—though as I looked up at the squat little house, the feeling of “home” rang hollow.

It was the middle of the night by now, and I noticed a strange new car parked in our driveway as Bishop pulled up. New, as in brand new. My brow rose as I peered through the passenger side window at it, fogging the glass with my face pressed so close to the cold pane.

Does Mom have someone over?

I had no idea who that might be. Almost everyone from our old world had abandoned us after Dad was arrested for fraud. They didn’t care that he insisted he was innocent. No one wanted to be associated with a criminal, so our entire family was cut out of the world we’d once belonged to.

Leaving the boys with a quiet “good night,” I pushed into the house, looking around. No one. Odd.

“Mom?” I called.

“Back here.”

She’s in her room? Does she have someone back there?

My exhaustion gave way to confusion, but I walked down the small hallway to her bedroom at the back of the house, only to find my mom alone, going through her closet. She was pulling clothes out of her closet and sorting through them. I was surprised she was still awake, and more than a little relieved to see that no one else was in the house.

“Hey… I thought someone was here. There’s a car out front…?”

“It’s mine,” she said simply. She didn’t even look at me.

My brows furrowed, and a little surge of adrenaline made my heart beat faster. We didn’t have the money for something like that. Not even for a used car, and certainly not for a brand new one. “Yours…?”

“That’s what I said, Cordelia.”

A million questions flooded my mind. I went for the most obvious one.

“How did we get a brand new car?”

The money we had was enough to cover our living expenses—nothing more than that. Had she used what little money we had left for a car? Why would she do that?

“It’s nothing you need to worry about, Cordelia,” she told me. “I took care of it. Who’s the parent here?”

She finally glanced up at me, red dress in her hands, with an expectant raise of her brow. There was something she wasn’t telling me, and I was too tired and emotionally drained to press for a better answer. Instead, I nodded.

“Okay. Sorry. Just curious.”

Without another word, I turned and left. In my curiosity about the car, I’d forgotten that, despite Misael’s careful ministrations, I still looked worse for wear. My scrapes were clean, but they still stung, my hair was a wild mess, and my clothes were ripped and dirty. Mom had barely looked at me, so she hadn’t even noticed, but if I had stuck around too much longer, she probably would have.

In the safety of the small bathroom, I undressed and stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as I could handle. It made my cuts and scrapes sting even worse, but I ignored the pain, scrubbing at my skin with soap as if I could wash the entire night off of myself.

When the water began to run cold, I stepped out and wrapped a towel around myself, padding to my bedroom to put on sleep clothes. A loose shirt and clean underwear. My lids were heavy and my body was more so as I fell into bed, crawling up the mattress and pulling the blanket over me like a protective shield.