Falling Away (Fall Away #3)(40)
Author: Penelope Douglas

“You already know me. Intimately.” He smirked.

Several bystanders laughed, and I glared at Jax.

“That doesn’t mean you know me,” I bit out.

He stepped into my face. “And witnessing me pummel a nineteen-year-old guy who gave a sixteen-year-old girl GHB so he could do who knows what to her body doesn’t mean you know me, either, K. C. Carter.” He drawled out my sister’s name, trying to piss me off. “You can leave now.”

“Ohs” filled the air around me, and I stared at Jax as I ran my tongue along the back of my teeth, fuming.

I could say it was the fight that had pissed me off. Or I could say it was the plethora of questions without answers that had made the bug crawl up my butt.

But it wasn’t either one.

If he had come up to me and put his arms around me, looking at me as if I were the Christmas present he’d been waiting for as he had done in that room, I would’ve folded. I wouldn’t have cared that he got into fights or that he was a complete mystery.

What shut me down was the fact that I was disposable to him. Just like to my mother. To Liam. To most people who looked through me as if I were a piece of glass.

Fuck him.

I walked past him, not saying a word as I headed toward Tate’s house.

“Are you okay?” Fallon rushed up and touched my shoulder. “I just came out and caught the tail end of that. Anything I can do?”

I nodded, still walking. “Yeah. Get Madoc’s car keys, and get Shane. We’re going on a midnight run.”

Homicides occur more frequently during the summer. Little-known fact, but it’s true.

The irritation of the heat drives people to lose their cool—no pun intended—and they end up reacting in ways they might not in more temperate conditions. Sunshine blinds you, sweat trickles down your back, and your body heat rises, making you uncomfortable. Given the right circumstance—the right person getting in your face—your brain is pushed beyond the breaking point, and you snap.

All you want is to feel better, and all it takes is a twist of the screw to drive you over the edge.

Well, all I wanted was to feel.

Not feel better or feel good. Just feel something. And while I definitely wasn’t itching to kill anyone, I could understand how a little thing like the weather drove people to do things that were out of character.

It might’ve been Jax who got my blood pumping again, or it might have been being on my own, without my mother or Liam. All I knew was that something was twisting my brain tighter and tighter, and I couldn’t not react anymore. Almost as if it was all out of my control.

“How many times have you driven a stick?” Fallon asked beside me as we both bobbed forward in Madoc’s car.

I licked my lips, tasting the sweat on my upper lip and Jaxon Trent still in my mouth. My stomach growled again, but I ignored it, punching into fourth gear.

“Shut it,” I warned, joking. “I’m still learning.”

“Madoc’s going to kill me,” she complained, and I saw her cradle her forehead in her hand out of the corner of my eye. “You should’ve let me drive, K.C.”

“Leave her alone, Fal,” Shane piped up from the backseat as I rounded onto my street. “And her name’s Juliet.”

I glanced at Fallon, who looked over at me, her light brown hair fanning around her eyes. “Juliet?”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “No jokes,” I ordered. “It’s my real name.”

“Why don’t you go by it?” Fallon asked.

A smile played at the corners of my lips. “I do now.”

Pressing in the clutch and downshifting, I cruised to an easy stop in front of my—my mother’s—brick Colonial. Looking past Fallon out the window, I found it hard to believe I was only here this afternoon.

“So, what’s the plan?” Shane asked.

“You don’t have to come in,” I explained. It was too much to ask them to get involved with this. “I just need to get my journals out of my room. It’s more than I can carry in one trip. If you’re willing, I thought we could all do it quickly,” I said as more of an apology but quickly added, “But you definitely don’t have to. My mother will be a pain the ass.”

“Ooooh.” Fallon rubbed her hands together, smiling. “Pain-in-the-ass moms. My specialty.”

“I’m down.” Shane leaned over the seat, looking at me. “Let’s do this.”

I inhaled a deep breath and tucked my chin down to calm my nervousness. Climbing out of the car, I stared at the dark house as I waited for Fallon and Shane to follow me out and then started around the car toward the front lawn. I smiled to myself, kind of liking the feeling of them behind me. Kind of as though they’d catch me if I fell.

It reminded me of Tate, and I wished she was here.

“How’s your dad doing?” Tate asks me as we walk home from school.

I shrug, holding on to my backpack straps. “The same. Sometimes he remembers me. Sometimes he doesn’t.”

It’s Monday afternoon, and we’ve just finished our last class, freshman PE. And thank goodness for that! If I had PE earlier in the day, my mother just might show up to ensure that I showered, and then she’d bring me a freshly pressed set of clothes. At least this way, I can just come straight home, shower, and never have my friends find out what a spaz my mom is.

“It’s hard to think of you as Juliet,” Tate teases. I’d only just told her about my dad and the deal with my name a week ago.

“Just stick with K.C.,” I tell her. “It’s what I’m used to.”

“Out of the way!” someone growls, and we both jump, huddling together, as Jared Trent zooms past on his dirt bike. He stands up, pedaling and scowling back at Tate. His deep brown hair blows in his eyes, but you can still see the hatred blazing out of them.

“Jared Trent!” I belt out. “You’re so dumb you’d trip over a cordless phone!”

I hear Tate snort, but then she chides, “Don’t piss him off. He takes it out on me.” But then her eyes dart up. “Oh, crap.”

I look up the street to see Jared swerving his bike in a circle and coming back at us.

My eyes go round. “Run,” I order.

And Tate and I shoot off, up the sidewalk and into the grass, as my backpack bounces against my tailbone and Tate grabs my hand, squealing.

I start laughing as we scurry, and I don’t even look back to see where Jared is. Vaulting up the steps, we crash through my front door and slam it shut, gasping for breath and laughing.