Page 91 of No Fear
“Y-you don’t scare me either.” She shot back though she was fairly certain the stutter negated any and all of her confidence.
“Uh huh.” He snorted, “So, tell me, what can I do for you, Rachel?”
She straightened her spine and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding, “Y-you said earlier that.. that… you need my help.” He was silent and she groaned, “With Craig? You said you need me to help draw him out.”
“Did I?”
“Lincoln, please. I’m calling to help.”
“You are. I didn’t expect to hear from you. My cousin seemed highly opposed to the idea. How’d you change his mind?”
“I… uh… I didn’t.”
“Hmm?”
“He uh… He doesn’t know I’m calling.” She chewed on her lip and looked out at the dark woods all around her, “I snuck out. We need to do this tonight. Can you send someone to pick me up?”
Nothing but silence greeted her again and she grit her teeth, trying to figure out the best way to get through to Lincoln. He seemed to hate her and honestly, she didn’t blame him. He was the eldest Bomar, their leader. He was responsible for protecting his brothers and cousins and she had become a liability if not an outright threat. She reminded herself that it didn’t matter if Lincoln liked her or not and tried again.
“Lincoln, send someone to get me. I’m leaving Remy’s, walking up the road. I need a ride or it’ll take me half the night to walk… back to the trailer park.” The wordhomehad gotten stuck in her throat and she struggled to finish her sentence.
That shitty trailer in the park wasn’t her home. Not anymore. Not since the first night she stayed with Remy. It hadn’t felt like home even before that but it had been where she lived because her mother had left it to her. Now it only seemed like another dark part of her past that she needed to get rid of once and for all.
“Yeah. Okay.” He finally cleared his throat, “I’ll send someone your way but you’re not going back there. Not yet. We need to talk first.”
“Fine. Just send someone. It’s fuckin’ cold.”
He chuckled, “You’ve got a mouth on you. Who knew? I thought you were just some shy, timid, little thing.”
“Not anymore.” She forced her chin up even though she was alone.
“Good. You’re gonna need that spine when my cousin finds out you snuck out and called me against his wishes.”
Rachel’s confidence wavered, “Y-you’re not… not gonna tell him, are you?”
“Let’s talk first. See if we can’t work something out. I’m intrigued. I wasn’t expecting you to call, like I said. But since you have, I’ll give you a chance to redeem yourself.” He muffled the phone and spoke to someone else before coming back on, “Your ride will be there shortly. See you soon, dollface.”
“Don’t call me…” She started but the dial tone was the only response so she dropped the phone and cursed at the night sky.
What was she doing? Risking everything she’d built with Remy for a chance to redeem herself in the eyes of a family he didn’t even like all that much? No. She reminded herself. She wasn’t doing this for Lincoln or for Remy. She was doing it for her. Because if she wasn’t strong enough to do this, she wasn’t strong enough to be with Remy. And she wouldn’t lose him. Not because of her own failures and not because he only saw her as a victim. She wasn’t. At least not anymore.
When the sleek, red, muscle car pulled up beside her on the road, she didn’t have to look inside to know which Bomar boy had been dispatched to pick her up. She didn’t even hesitate to crawl inside the car and slam the door shut behind her. She was half frozen from the cold, shivering and shaking and it wouldn’t have mattered if Freddy Krueger himself had stopped to pick her up. She would have gotten in the car.
The heat was running and she put her hands in front of the vent before even glancing at the driver’s seat, “Hey Ford.”
He gave a slight nod and then shifted and whipped a U-turn to get them going in the right direction.
It took a couple of miles for her to fully warm back up and even still, she shivered slightly. She figured that had more to do with what she was doing than with the weather though so she finally sat back in the seat and crossed her arms over her chest. Her driver hadn’t spoken a single word so she turned to take him in.
He looked just as big and imposing as always but oddly at ease driving the old car. In the faded black leather, one big hand on the shifter and a tattooed wrist thrown over the wheel, Ford looked more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. As if he were only out for a Sunday stroll instead of picking up a scared girl on the side of the road in the middle of the night for his gang-leader brother.
“Stop staring. It’s rude.”
Rachel’s lips quirked at the growl, “I can’t figure you out.”
“Maybe because I’m not a fuckin’ puzzle.” He shot her an annoyed look out of the corner of his eye, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“You just picked me up.” She snorted.
