Page 5 of Dark Knight

Looking at him from the corner of my eye, I catch the way his firm, freshly shaved jaw tightens. But that’s all that happens. He doesn't say a word. I might as well have never spoken. Heat stirs in my chest, and I'm suddenly more convinced than ever that this is not going to work. This was my stupidest idea yet. We'll be lucky if we don't kill each other in the first few days.

What's the alternative, Tatum?No surprise, my thoughts mock me. There is no alternative except to hangaround the house while receiving increasingly threatening messages from my ex-boyfriend's father. Even thinking about him makes my skin crawl.

In the end, that's all I could do regarding Kristoff. Brace for impact. It's been months since I packed my things and pretty much fled in the wake of our last disastrous trip together, and I haven't seen him or heard his voice since, but I know that's not a good enough excuse for his father. Not when Kristoff has essentially fallen off the face of the earth since then. His father wants answers I can’t give him, and if Jefferson Knight doesn't know where I am, he can't get to me. I need to keep telling myself that.

“I'm sure your dad will find a way to shut Jefferson up for good,” Romero offers, almost like he's reading my mind.

You mean the way you shut Kristoff up for good?No, I don't know that for sure, but I don't need it spelled out, either. I knew once I confessed what Kristoff did to me during that awful trip to Europe that I was jeopardizing his life. Still, the other option was to keep everything bottled up inside, and that wasn't helping any more than the stupid anxiety meds. Which only dulled the pain yet didn’t take it away. I was falling apart—I still am.

And I can't exactly tell Jefferson how my dad probably killed his son due to him being an abusive asshole, leaving me with no choice except to get out of town until things cool down. Plus, I need the space.

When I don't offer any rebel, he continues, “And then, you can get back to your life. Put all this shit behind you.”

He probably thinks it would be that easy, too. If I had it in me, I would laugh.

“You can, you know, maybe see about getting that internship back. Starting a career.”

“No offense, but I have to ask why you seem to care,” I blurt out. “I'm not a child. You don’t have to offer me ice cream and a pony as long as I behave.”

Slowly, I turn my head to find him staring straight ahead while his jaw works like he's grinding his teeth. Five minutes in, and I’m already tired of him. “If I want to get a job and move on with my life, I will. I don't need you to encourage me. I will pass on the pep talks since you suck at them anyway.”

His lips press into a firm line. That seems to have shut him up. There's not much I hate more than being patronized, which is precisely what he's doing with all this fake positivity shit.

“You have to do something with your life,” he declares because, of course, he has to have the last word.

“By all means, let me take advice fromyou,” I snarkily reply while staring out the window to my right. “Maybe one day I, too, can be a glorified babysitter.” Finally, I have to close my eyes. At least he'll stop talking to me if he thinks I'm asleep, so that's a bonus.

The babysitter. That's what he is, too. And I'm the baby, as always. I mean, I know I haven't really taken good care of myself lately. However, having people assume I need a caretaker is insulting. It amazes me that it took so long to figure out what my father does for a living. For years I was naive to the darkness that surrounded me, instead telling myself he was in business and made a lot of money and that money was what put us at risk. Hence the guards and the extra security. I told myself you can't build an empire without making enemies. I'm sure that's true, but it was a convenient excuse I used to comfort myself while ignoring the brutal truth.

That brutal truth is staring me right in the face now. It wasn't enough that my boyfriend hurt me—badly, repeatedly, when I was thousands of miles away from home. I had to be kidnapped by one of my father's enemies. I had to lose my absentee mother in the process. I know it was her fault for working with an evil man so she could get back at Dad, but that doesn’t erase the pain of knowing I will never get to tell her all the things she needed to hear. There's no such thing as closure. There's no moving on. The weight of it all rests heavily on my shoulders.

She never even had a funeral. Her murder had to be a secret. She was cremated and delivered to the house in a little box. Until now, I didn’t understand that funerals are for the survivors, not for the people who died. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I blink-squeeze my eyes closed and will back the forming tears away. And Bianca wants to know when I'm coming back? It would be better if I didn't. I don't know if I could stand to lose anything else, all because my father is an arms dealer with layers and layers of blood on his hands. I'm sure he never imagined blood splashing back on me the way it did.

I must drift off for a while because a sharp right turn startles me awake. A look at the clock on the dash tells me an hour has passed, and as I peer around at my surroundings, I discover we’re no longer on the interstate. I can’t say I’m impressed with what I see around me now: tiny homes sitting behind chain link fences, scrubby front lawns covered in kids’ toys, and rusted swing sets. Looming in the distance is what looks like a factory or a steel mill, something industrial like that. The morning has gone cloudy, adding to the gloomy sense of foreboding that plagues me.

“When I said I wanted to get away, I was thinking of something a little… less like an episode ofDateline,” I murmur, noticing a pair of scrawny kids smoking on the corner. Their shifty eyes make me nervous. Where the hell did he bring me?

“Sorry, Princess.” We turn onto a narrow street where the houses look at least slightly nicer. Not bigger, but better cared for. The siding is clean, and the windows are intact. “If you think what you’re seeing now is bad, you would’ve lost your mind if you saw this place years ago.”

I turn in my seat, staring intently at him. “Wait… you’re familiar with this neighborhood?”

“Sure am—or rather, I was.”

Holy hell.“Okay, where are we, exactly?”

“Just across the state line.”

He pulls the SUV into a shallow driveway beside a neat-looking two-story house that’s in better condition than anything I’ve seen thus far on the block. The light blue siding is newly updated, and the windows are clean. There’s not so much as a single weed coming up from the sidewalk, and the front porch is free of the leaves that have started to fall now that autumn is here. From where we’re seated, I can make out what appears to be a small garage ahead of us.

I mean, this isn’t what I had in mind when we discussed my leaving, although it could be worse. Now, the only thing I can think about is the million and one questions rushing through my brain.

“What is this place?” I pause. “Is this another safe house? Who does it belong to? Does Dad know about it?” I don’t mean to bombard him with all the questions, but I need to know an answer, at least something.

At first, he only sits in silence, staring straight ahead. I can’t read his expression—is he pissed, frustrated, or just full of dread? It might be a mix of all three and then some. Knowing him, he’s probably regretting he ever agreed to do this.

All his silence does is intensify my curiosity. “Can’t you tell me anything? You expect me to live here, but I’m not allowed to know what made you choose this place?”

He releases a long sigh before speaking—and when he does, I can barely make out his words thanks to how he’s clenching his jaw. “I chose this place because it’s mine. I grew up here; it belongs to me.”

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