Page 20 of Step Alpha

I suppose this whole town, including me, has made Rayne feel like she's less than human, even.

The urge to shake that feeling right out of her comes over me, so I pick her up by the waist, which is easy because she weighs nothing. I walk a few steps around the car then drop her back on her feet and smack her ass. “You're little, Rayne, but you're not incapable of driving.”

I'm slightly disconcerted by how pleasant it was to hold her light weight with one arm. To have her clean spring scent tickling my nose up close.

She whirls and glares at me. “What kind of Neanderthal are you?” she snaps. “You can’t just go around smacking girls’ asses.”

She’s right, of course. And I’m usually respectful as hell with women, probably because Coach Jamison drilled a sense of chivalry into us from Freshman year.

I cock my head. “You’re not a girl, you’re a runt. And mystepsister.So unless you want me to spank you for real, you’d better get behind that wheel right now.”

She flushes, a blotchy pink that travels across her chest and up her neck. Again, unease shifts in my chest.

She climbs into the driver’s seat but can barely reach the wheel. I see panic on her face, like she thinks this is the position she’ll have to be in to drive.

“For fuck’s sake, Rayne. You literally know nothing about driving a car, do you?” I reach across her to pull the lever below the seat and slide it forward.

“Oh,” she says.

“Stop making this so hard.” I stomp around and get into the passenger side, sliding the seat all the way back.

Rayne hasn’t moved since I adjusted her seat. She’s just sitting there, both hands on the wheel, staring through the windshield with big bug eyes.

I let out an exasperated sigh. “Right pedal is the gas. Left is the brake. You use the same foot for both.”

“Which foot?”

I raise my brows in ahow-can-you-be-this-dumblook, and she flushes some more. “The right foot, Rayne.”

“Okay.” She looks down at the pedals and puts her right foot on the gas. The engine revs.

“Yep. That’s the gas. Now press the brake and hold it while you shift into drive.”

Instead of doing what I say, she turns the key. Since the car was already running, it screams at her. She screams back and releases both hands, holding them in the air like she just got burned.

“Fuck,” she mutters. She doesn’t look at me. She's staring through the windshield, breathing hard, like she’s an out of shape human who just ran up three flights of stairs.

“Look at me, Rayne.”

She doesn't look.

“Chill the fuck out. You’re making this too hard. Look at me.”

She turns her head and literally flinches when she sees my face, even though I thought my expression was pretty neutral. “What?”

“You can do this. Humans learn to drive every day, and you’re better than a human.”

Inexplicably, tears fill her eyes.

First instinct–they anger me. Enrage me, almost. Like I want to shift and tear her apart.

No. Not her.

Whatever made her cry.

Which, of course, is me.

In the next breath, I experience a massive subduing of my aggression, like a lead blanket got thrown across me to calm me down. Both impulses were powerful, and the ricochet between them leaves me lightheaded.

---