Page 79 of Reckless Wolf

“Fuck you, Eugene!” I screamed, trying to kick it back open.

The shotgun was in my face again, and I grimaced, pulling back into the car.

“Drive, you stupid idiot!” my father yelled at Joey, who shrugged at me from the driver’s seat.

He put the car in drive, speeding off from the site as I again kicked out at the seats.

“Keep it up, girlie, and I really will shoot ya next time,” Dad promised. “You’re lucky that one didn’t hit you.”

“You mean you’re lucky you didn’t return to Jesse with more damaged goods,” I corrected him. “How much money did he take off for Dahlia’s wound?”

“Shut up, bitch!” Eugene barked, balking when Joey glanced at him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. I set up a good life for you and your sister, and you two go and ruin everything.”

“A good life?” I spat back. “Is that what you call murdering our mother and shooting Dahlia?”

“You shot Dahlia?” Joey asked in disbelief.

“It was an accident!”

“Was shooting Mom an accident, too?” I choked, tears flooding my eyes. “Fuck you!”

“Don’t talk to your father that way!” Eugene snarled. “I’ll show you some respect!”

He turned to slap me, but I was ready for it. My punch landed directly on his nose, and as blood spurted all over Joey, the kid swerved the car in disgust. I lunged for the shotgun.

“Watch where you’re going!” Eugene howled, swatting at me with his left hand while he tried to manage the bleeding with his right.

I shot forward, my head hitting the dashboard and dazing me for half a second, but I managed to curl my fingers around the barrel of the gun—just as Joey grabbed for the trigger.

I stared at the young man, his eyes darting back and forth between the windshield where he drove and me.

“Leave it, Bianca,” he said with surprising calmness. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Then don’t.”

“Don’t make me.”

“Let me out of this car, Joey.”

“I warned you this would happen. I told you to just come back peacefully.”

“You’re a son of a bitch.”

He shrugged. “My mother really wasn’t very nice,” he agreed. “But let’s leave her out of this for now, okay?”

He raised the barrel, my sweaty hands slipping off the front. “Sit back like a good girl, and everything will be okay.”

I snorted. “Maybe for you.”

“I got in a lot of trouble for letting you go. This is my redemption,” he admitted.

“I’m so happy for you,” I replied sarcastically. “Maybe Jesse will give you a gold star and one of his slave wives.”

Joey frowned, but he didn’t respond.

“Sit back, Bianca,” he ordered me again, steel in his voice. Gone was the admiring kid who had chased after me in the wastelands. He wasn’t afraid of me here, not even with Eugene bleeding all over the interior of the Jeep.

“When Atlas learns who you are,” I promised him, “he’s going to make you wish you were never born.”

---