I jerk away from my thoughts as the sounds of Luke and Preston fighting stop. Did one of them end up killing the other one? Or did they just kill each other?

“Violet, are you okay?” Luke’s voice, so close, startles me.

I keep my head hung low, taking quiet breaths. “I’m fine.”

His shadow moves over my line of vision in the gravel and then his arms are slipping underneath mine. He lifts me to my feet and helps me get my balance, holding me in his arms. I’d shove him away, but I’m too drained at the moment to do anything but lean against his chest. His arms encircle my waist and for the briefest of moments I don’t feel completely alone. The look Preston’s giving me, however, counteracts the sensation. His harsh expression cuts into me like the rocks cut into my hands.

“Get your fucking stuff and get the hell out of here,” he says, spitting blood onto the ground. His lip is cut open, his eye swollen shut, and there’s a giant welt on his rib cage.

“Gladly,” I reply in a composed tone, but on the inside I want to grab on to him and beg him not to leave me. Tell him I need him.

He wipes his arm across his lip, rubbing away the blood. “And don’t come crawling back to me when you’re homeless and living out on the street, because I won’t take you back.”

“I won’t come back,” I assure him with a harsh glare as tears try to shove their way out my damn eyes. Fucking traitor eyes. I inhale and exhale over and over again, sucking them back until I feel woozy.

“Violet, let’s go,” Luke says softly. The steady beat of his heart hitting my back is both soothing and terrifying.

Shaking his head, Preston stomps back toward the trailer house, kicking the door before opening it up and disappearing inside. Luke’s arms relax around me as I stand there in his grasp with my arms lifelessly to my side. I can barely breathe, let alone talk, knowing that soon life is going to catch up with me and so is the painful reality that I have nowhere to go. I have no car, and only two hundred bucks to my name, which will maybe get me a hotel room for a few days. Then what?

“Are you okay?” Luke’s voice is soft and conveys caution as his arms loosen around me.

“You keep asking me that,” I say as I stare at the shut door of the trailer. My eyes are burning with tears that almost escaped and my throat feels dry.

“That’s because you haven’t answered me.” His breath caresses the back of my head.

“I’m fine,” I say. “So you can stop asking.”

He pauses and then slides his arms away from my waist and winds around to the front of me. His lip is bleeding and his shirt’s torn, but other than that I don’t see any new damage on him. “Do you need anything? Water?” he asks, his lips tug upward as he studies me intently. “A sedative, maybe?” He pats the pockets of his jeans. “I could give you a hit of my cigarette… that might help calm down the anxiety a little.”

“I don’t have anxiety,” I tell him. “I’m completely calm.”

He frowns with disbelief and starts to back up toward Preston’s car. “I know what a panic attack is, Violet, and I know that the only reason you’re calm right now is because you’re exhausted from one.”

I don’t want him to be able to see so much of me, yet as he backs away, still looking at me, it seems like he’s seeing what’s hidden underneath my steel skin. He bends down and picks up my box of stuff, then carries it toward his truck. When he drops it into the bed, I force my feet to move forward, knowing I can stand in the same spot all I want but ultimately I’m going to have to face the bleary future I created for myself. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I head to the driver’s side of the Cadillac and pop the trunk, then weave around to the rear end of the car.

Luke’s boots crunch against the gravel as he hikes back up the driveway, lighting up a cigarette. I start piling the boxes out of the trunk, stacking them beside me. Luke silently starts picking them up and carrying them to his truck. By the time I’m finished unloading the trunk, he’s taken care of most of the boxes. I pick up the last one, head down the driveway, and set it in the back of his truck. Then we climb in and I crack the window as he puffs on his cigarette and smoke fills the cab.

He places his free hand on the shifter and his other on top of the wheel with the cigarette positioned between his fingers. “So… where do you want me to take you?”

I shrug as I stare at the trees lining the yard. “I have no idea.”

He’s silent for a second, then backs the truck down the driveway. He doesn’t say where we’re going, what we’ll do when we get there. Everything is so unknown. Just the way that I like it, yet at the same time it scares me because I’m not walking into it on my own. Luke’s here with me and I have no idea why. No one’s ever helped me out before, not like this. And it terrifies me because I actually want him to be in this moment with me, helping me.

Chapter 8

Luke

It took a lot of energy not to beat the shit out of the guy who was getting rough with Violet. The surprising thing was, as cocky as Violet has always been, she actually seemed afraid of him. She was pretty much going to let him drag her into that house and do who knows what to her, so I intervened, even though I didn’t want to get involved in her obviously messy life. I don’t intervene for just anyone. Maybe Kayden or Callie or even Seth, but for some insane, erratic girl I met only a few weeks ago, no way. Yet I did and now I can tell I’m going to get even more involved because she has no place to go.

The strange thing is she almost looked excited about it. About the old dude yelling at her, getting rough with her, and then when we started to fight. I’m not sure if I imagined it, but if I didn’t, it makes me wonder: Does she like starting trouble? Or is there some other reason?

“You can just drop me off downtown,” she says, gazing out the window as I drive down the highway toward the center of Laramie.

I flip on the blinker to switch lanes and pass a car moving at a snail’s pace “Drop you off downtown where?”

She shrugs, resting her forehead against the glass. She looks exhausted, probably from the panic attack that she insists she didn’t just have. But I’ve seen them before, had a lot myself, especially while I was growing up.

I merge back into the right lane and flip the visor down to block out the sunlight. “Violet…” Stay out of it. “Do you have someplace to go or are you…”

“Homeless?” she asks as she twirls a strand of her hair around her finger. “I was supposed to live back there, but obviously that’s not happening.” She lets out a tired sigh, pushes away from the window, and rotates in the seat to face me. “I’m good, though. You can drop me off downtown and I’ll find a place to crash.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere.”

I slow down as we reach the city limits where seemingly identical houses start to line the streets. “It sounds like you don’t have anywhere to go.” My gaze locks on her.

“I can take care of myself,” she insists.

“I never said you couldn’t.” I downshift the truck and the engine rumbles in protest as I get ready to turn toward the side road that goes past the park and leads to downtown. “I’m just asking if you have somewhere to stay.”

At first, rage crosses over her face and I seriously think she’s going to hit me, but then she recomposes herself, detachment possessing her eyes. “No, I don’t,” she says, then she fixes her attention on the window again. “But like I said, I can take care of myself.”

I’m about to turn down the road that will lead us to the center of town where I can drop her off and let her go, which is what I need to do. She’s unstable and erratic; the last thing I need in my life since I can barely take care of myself. And she has this control over me and makes me do things for her without even asking. I hate it, the way I’m drawn to her, yet I can’t seem to stop the feeling.