Because there is something that I want to say to him. There is and I can’t let it be.
I can’t keep quiet anymore.
Not when I’ve been wanting to do this for the past two years.
I’ve been wanting to do this since the moment I saw his Mustang disappear into the lake.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt out.
There’s no indication at all that he heard me. He’s staring straight through the windshield. I’m not sure what he’s staring at though; it’s all dark.
But I don’t let that deter me.
I hug my bag to my chest and continue, “About your car.”
Yes, I’m apologizing.
Because I’m a good person. I feel guilt. I feel regret. I’m not like him.
At this, there is some movement — the clenching of his jaw — that alerts me that he’s more attuned to my words than he’s letting on. I’m not sure if it’s a good thing or bad, that clench, but as I said, I won’t be deterred. “You hurt me that night. You broke my heart, and even though you deserved all my hatred and all my anger, you still do by the way, I never should have done what I did. I never should’ve stolen your car and driven it into the lake. I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking, I guess. I was… I was hurt and in pain and I just wanted to hurt you back. And your Mustang seemed like the best way to do that and —”
“I know.”
I blink. “What?”
His jaw moves again, all tight and rigid. “I hurt you. So you wanted to hurt me back. I know that.”
“I didn’t know,” I blurt out.
"Didn’t know what?
"That you’d built your car.” His grip goes tight on the wheel and before he can say anything, I speak. “I didn’t know that. I knew you loved it but I didn’t know that you’d built this car yourself. I didn’t even know that you could do something like that, Reed. I had no idea. I had no idea that you worked in a garage and —”
“Who told you?” he cuts me off.
His jaw is ticking and I fist the fabric of my backpack because I know he’s angry. Extremely angry.
His wolf eyes shine a different way when he’s angered. They become all dark and dangerous, narrowed. His jaw becomes a true V, as if his agitated emotions have chiseled it down.
This is exactly what used to happen back on the soccer field, with Ledger. This is how all their fights would start, and I know from experience that I should back off now.
He wouldn’t physically harm me, of course, but I shouldn’t anger him further.
But I don’t care. So I tell him, “Tempest.”
“Tempest,” he bites out.
“Yes, but you have to know that she didn’t tell me this for the longest time. And she wasn’t going to. She was going to keep your secret. It was me. I forced it out of her. It’s my fault. Not hers.”
Reed watches me in the darkened interior of the car.
If there’s a moon out tonight, it’s hiding in this part of the world. But even so, I know he can see me clearly. I, on the other hand, am struggling.
I only see him in tight lines and shadows and when he moves his jaw, I know he’s going to speak. “Are you done?”
“No.”
A ripple cuts through the still air and I’m forced to look into his glowing eyes that are somehow both dark and bright at the same time.
“Excuse me?”
I raise my chin. “I want to know how.”
“How what?”
“How you saved me?”
At this, his reaction is so unexpected that I can’t breathe for a second.
Not to mention, so violent.
Those knuckles that were already jutting out almost tear through his moon-kissed skin. He almost tears the wheel off with his grip. And when he looks at me again, I flinch at the ferocity in his wolf eyes.
“I saved you,” he grits out.
I’m not sure what it is that I said that made him so angry, that made his cheekbones even more pronounced, but I somehow manage to respond. “I always thought it was you. I always thought that you were the one who reported me, who pressed charges. I guess it was my mistake. I just assumed it would be you. But it wasn’t. You didn’t press any charges against me. You —”
“Get out.”
I don’t.
I won’t.
I have to know. I have to know how.
How did he save me? What did he do?
“Con told me,” I continue, hugging my backpack to my chest, pressing my back against the door, watching his angry frame. “Again, he didn’t want to. He let me believe that it was you who did everything, but he told me the truth. That it wasn’t you. In fact, you came to him with the deal. You made those charges go away. Reed, I need —”
“Get the fuck out of my car, Fae.”
I shake my head. “And it was your d-dad, wasn’t it? He pressed those charges against me. And I know you don’t like to talk about him. But Reed, what did you do? You must’ve done something, right? To make him back off. To get me off the hook. What did you do, Reed?”
Maybe the why doesn’t matter. Maybe his conscience did wake up, as Con said. Maybe he saved me to amuse himself, to do his good deed of the year.
Like he did two years ago. When he let me go, unscathed, from his clutches.
When he left me a virgin.
But I want to know how.
I want to know what he had to do.
Because it’s his father.
The man he hates.
The man I’ve never even met but who wanted to see me punished for what I’d done to his son’s car. Not that I blame him. I take full responsibility for my actions.
But I know, I know, there’s more to the whole story and I need to know what.
“What did you do, Reed? What did you have to do to save me from your father?” I ask when he doesn’t break the seething silence.
And it’s as if that word — save — is some kind of a trigger for him, making ripples cut through the air again. His hands on the wheel vibrate. His entire frame vibrates.
His eyes were already dark, already angry, but now they become bottomless pits.
They become the eyes of a demon. The villain that he is.
Someone so heartless and cold that I almost breathe out in wintry vapors. And when he turns toward me completely, it takes all of my courage, all of my bravery, to stay put.
Not to shrink back. Not to run away.
That’s when he grabs me.
Or rather, my backpack.
When his hand shoots out and fists it.
He uses it to bring me forward.
To bring me closer to him, to his icy heat and his chilly blazing eyes. “You can’t take a hint, can you?”
“I just —”
“Why?”
“What?”
“Why do you want to know what I had to do?” His grip on the backpack tightens and he inches me forward again as he leans over me with narrowed eyes. “Why are you so curious, Fae?”