Take Me On

“Jax!” his dad bellows from the bottom of the stairs. “Come here!”


“Haley,” Jax says, ignoring his father.

“Jax!” This time the glass of the old window shakes with his voice and I shudder.

“Go!” I say to him, preferring not to be the reason the two of them get into a screaming match. “Please.”

He points at me. “This ain’t over.” Jax turns and, like Kaden, bends as he crosses the room.

I brush my fingers against my sensitive cheek. “Jax.”

He hesitates near the door.

“I can’t go down to dinner like this and my makeup’s downstairs. Can you help?”

Jax nods. “Consider it done.”





West

“I think you’re dead.”

My eyes flash open and I scramble up when I come face-to-face with hazel eyes and long dark hair. A quick scan of the room and I discover I’m on a couch in a gray concrete unfinished basement. A single bulb lights the area. Behind me are a washer and dryer. In front of me is a bed and to the side, a TV. Last night, I took a hot shower and crashed.

I scrub my hands over my face. This is bad. Last night happened. It wasn’t a nightmare.

“Damn, I guessed wrong. You’re alive.” Near where my head had been, Abby falls back from her knees to her butt. “I can’t decide if that’s good or bad news.”

“Screw you.” My muscles are stiff. Sore. I hesitantly stretch to see if anything’s broken.

Abby presses a hand over her mouth and mock gasps. “Your mother would be appalled by your manners. Tsk. Tsk. I believe pleases and thank-yous are in order.” She loses the fake sweetness. “Even if you are slumming it, Rich Boy.”

She kicks my shin as she stands. “Get up. I’ve got work to do and babysitting is not on the list.”

Memories of last night crash into my mind. More importantly of the girl who possibly rescued me from dying of exposure on the street. “Is Haley okay?”

Being a damned loser last night, I couldn’t muster enough energy or self-respect to drive her home.

“She was the last time I saw her. Are you dating her?”

“No.”

“Fucking her?”

I glare at Abby, but I can’t throw too much anger into it. She also saved my ass. I pop my neck to the side, hoping to expel the annoying insecurity over Haley’s safety.

“Good. Rumor has it she’s decent. She deserves better.”

She probably does. Haley’s probably one of those dinner, a movie, roses type of girls who take a month to work up to the first kiss. Me—not my style. “What time is it?”

“Too early for my clients to be awake, but they will be soon.” Abby pulls a cell phone out of her back pocket. “Get your ass moving. This isn’t the Holiday Inn.”

I’m 30 percent curious over the word clients, then realize I don’t give a shit. “No continental breakfast?”

“How about you bite me?”

I actually chuckle; then I roll my neck and circle my arms. How the hell did my sister get involved with her? The nonmedical assessment says I’m bruised. Nothing more. “Where am I?”

“Isaiah’s foster parents’ house.”

Damn. I reassess the room, searching for the bastard.

“Don’t worry,” she says as she scrolls down the screen. “He stayed with Rachel at the hospital last night since he doesn’t have school today.”

That’s right. Today’s Saturday. “We.”

“What?”

“You said ‘he’ as if you don’t go to school, or did you lie about being a junior?”

“Meh, I consider school optional, but I am a junior.”

“So everything you told Rachel, besides what grade you’re in, was a lie?”

Abby’s lips form a smirk. “I don’t lie to Rachel. But yeah, you can assume anything that comes out of my mouth to anyone but her or Isaiah is a different rendition of the truth. Maybe also to Isaiah’s friend Logan. I like Logan. He reminds me of hot queso and I like queso.”

The veins beneath my scalp begin to pulse. “So you lied about my mother.”

“No, that was the truth. I do know why she goes to the bar once a month. Third Friday of the month to be exact. Comes around seven in the evening. Sound familiar?”

My shoulders slump forward. Shit, Abby does know. “Why does she go there?”

“They sell awesome snow cones. The red one won a blue ribbon in the state fair last year.”

The pounding intensifies. This girl is like one of those damned flies that swarm your head and your food. “Let me guess—you’re lying.”

She winks. “You’re catching on fast, and here I pegged you for stupid.”

A muscle in my jaw twitches. I can’t stand this girl, but she did give me a place to crash, so I watch my manners and change the subject. “Did he tell you to bring me here?”