Page 45 of Little Bird
A part of me knows I’m lying to myself and that going home isn’t actually an answer. After all, it’s no better there. Stella and Arden are my only real friends in the city and they chose each other rather than me when the shit hit the fan. I’ve been up here for several days and neither of them has even tried to get in touch with me. And as for my mother and her husband, I’ve been running from them for years, and I’m finally in a place where I might find safety. Going home puts me back in their sphere again, and that’s dangerous.
But staying here doesn’t feel like an option anymore.
Suddenly a cliff rises up in front of me and I jerk the wheel, praying I’m somehow staying on the road. The truck fishtails and I steer into it, remembering the lessons Gunner himself gave me about controlling a car that’s skidding, and the vehicle gets steady again. I peer into the snow and find the road, thank God, then press on the accelerator again.
Fuck, I wish I had a razor blade with me. I need a way to focus my thoughts, dull the pain running through my heart. I want something real to look at. Something that makes sense like a fresh, clean cut. I rub at the marks on my palm and the new one on the pad of my thumb, seeking that flash point, and feel a twinge. Sighing in relief, I push on the newest wound harder, digging my nail in to open it back up. I need a distraction from the thoughts crowding each other out in my brain, the shame and horror at what Gunner said and the realization that I don’t belong here.
I don’t want to go home. It terrifies me, honestly, because of what’s waiting for me. Up here, my mother can’t get to me. But this morning, I realized that there’s another aspect. One I hadn’t even considered.
If she does, she might take Gunner and Gabe out as well.
The moment it’s in my mind, I know I can’t risk them. I have to go home and face the truth. Throw myself on the fire, if you will. But that thought is nearly as painful as the one that tells me I don’t belong in Hawke’s Wood anymore, and intensifies the need for a distraction. I need a focus, and if I can just…
My nail jabs suddenly into the wound, and I gasp in pain and relief in equal measure. The jab of it makes me jerk the wheel, though, the motion sending the truck into an outright spin. I try to steer into it, try to get back out of it, but the tires won’t grip the road anymore and I can feel myself sliding out of control. I don’t know which way is up or down the mountain, or where the inevitable cliff is, and I realize it doesn’t matter.
I can’t control the truck, and there’s no way I’m going to get out of this.
I have a split second to realize the irony here—that I’m crashing the same way Gabe says they lost his mother—and then the truck hits nothing but air, and I’m falling.
Gunner
I watch the door long after Gabe has gone through it, frozen by the fear running through my veins.
And the regret.
Christ, I never should have said the things I did. I shouldn’t even be thinking them. Taryn is my stepdaughter, for fuck’s sake—or she was once—and it’s my job to take care of the girl, not berate her and make her feel worse about her position. She’s in some sort of trouble in the city, and though she won’t tell me what it is—not that I’ve tried hard enough to get it out of her—I need to be making sure she knows she’s safe here. That she can always come here if she needs a place to hide.
A hand to hold.
Someone to watch her back.
And instead I’ve just screamed at her about how she doesn’t belong and is only making trouble for everyone.
I slap my hands to my forehead and start pacing the room, trying to get my brain to come back online. I spent the last half hour consumed and controlled by my emotions, and that’s completely unacceptable. Over the last four years I worked hard to stop feeling, and in the space of two days I’ve managed to lose all that discipline.
Time to get it back.
“Think, Gunner,” I mutter. “Stop feeling. Think.”
Of course it’s not that easy. Now that my heart has remembered how to feel things, I can’t seem to turn it off again. Emotions are rushing through me at a million miles an hour, one after the other, like they’re playing tag and I’m the fucking playground. Elation. Jealousy, Betrayal. Abandonment. Anger. Regret.
Love.
I growl and spin, pacing through the kitchen and then back into the great room, where my eyes land on the Christmas decorations.
Taryn’s hands are all over them, and I can’t be in this room without fucking smelling her.
So I go outside into the snow, where she hasn’t left her mark.
Think, think, I tell myself. What do I do now?
I should have gone with Gabe, I realize instantly. I should be out there trying to find her, tearing through the snow after her. Hell, I should have been leading the fucking charge. But I’ve never been good at playing the hero.
Or rather... I was, once. And then I failed, and it was like my mind forgot how to do it. These days, Gabe is the only knight in shining armor in this house, and there are times that I hate him for it. I don’t like to admit that, but it’s the truth. He’s everything I was when I was young and naive. Before the world beat me down.
Before I realized that no one actually has your back.
But now is not the time or place to think about that because Taryn is the only one who matters. I hate that I’m not out there searching for her. Instead, I’m here in the house, rage and terror at how much I feel for this girl coursing through my veins. And under that, if I’m cataloging emotions and feelings, lies a horrible shame and awareness that she deserves someone better than I am, and a fear that I’ll never be able to fully love anyone again.
