Author: Nyrae Dawn

My aunt grabs my hand. It’s shaking. Or maybe that’s hers. Or both of ours. I look almost exactly like her—her and mom both, but there’s a sadness to her I’ve never seen before.

“We got a visit from the police today.”

Oh my God. They had to have found my mom. She must be in jail. Has she been locked up all these years? No, that’s impossible. If she was, I would know. Papers were filed when she left. Everything is official and on record.

“Okay…where is she?” I don’t know what emotion to focus on: Anger or pain.

Lily starts crying harder and my uncle takes over. He shifts his weight, looking nervous. “Cheyenne…sweetheart. There were bones found.”

My breath cuts off. My vision gets blurry. My heart stops. Bones!

“They’d been there a long time, sweetie…but there were teeth. They ran tests and—” He takes a step toward me, but stops as if he’s unsure.

“How long?” How long, how long, how long?

“Ten years,” he replies. Lily lets out a sob, but I can’t manage to do anything. Ten years. Ever since she left. My mom has been dead since she left me and I didn’t know. And I hated her for leaving me. Hated her for something she might not have done. Or she might have. Now I’ll never know. Never know if she planned on never coming back or if something else took her away from me.

But all this time, I hated her.

“Everything’s not always black and white, Princess.” Colt’s words slam into me.

“I’m so sorry, kiddo,” my uncle says.

My aunt, Mom’s sister, clings to me. Pulls me into a hug and cries on my shoulder.

“Mommy has some things to do, Cheyenne. I’m going to bring you to see Aunt Lily. You want to see Aunt Lily, don’t you?”

“No… I want to stay with you.” I grab onto her hand. Pleading. “I miss you when you go. I’ll be good. I won’t cry this time if we go out. I’ll even stay by myself at home just to show you I can.”

I’ll be a big girl. I won’t leave the room at parties. I won’t call 911 if I get scared. I won’t freak out like I always do.

“Oh, sweet girl. Don’t cry. You’ll have fun with Aunt Lily. You can’t go where Mommy’s going.”

I wrap my arms around her waist and cry into her belly. Cry because she’s leaving me and I want nothing more than to go with her.

She didn’t say she’d be back. At nine-years-old, I lost her. Not that she’d been there when I needed her two years before.

“Everything’s not always black and white, Princess.”

“You can’t go where Mommy’s going.”

It could mean she knew she wasn’t coming home…or it could have slipped her mind. Been something she thought she didn’t have to tell me because I should know she’d be back.

But I never thought of it that way. I hated her.

“Do you understand what we’re telling you?” my uncle asks. He looks small. It’s the first time I can remember him ever looking that way and it makes me want to lose it.

I manage to pry myself away from my aunt. Still no tears. I have to hold my hands together to try and keep them from shaking though.

“She’s dead. Been gone ever since she left.”

She’d left before for days at a time. Even for a couple weeks. Is that an excuse for assuming the worst? That she’d planned on throwing me away and never looking back?

“The police are looking into it. They cautioned us, we’d likely never know what happened to her.” Mark’s voice is steadier than mine could ever hope to be.

“Where?” I manage to creak out.

“Cheyenne—” my aunt starts.

“She’s old enough to know, Lily.” He looks at me, no nonsense like always. “Wilsonville. In the woods.”

One town over. Was she leaving? Was that on her way out of town and she got a flat tire? Someone pulled over to help? Did she go into those woods planning it on her own?

“I have to go.” My chest tightens, so tight I can hardly breathe. I yank my cell from her hand, which is hard because my fingers just want to curl.

“What! You can’t leave. Not after this. I want you to stay home, Cheyenne.”

“I can’t.” Blurry vision again. I’m somehow breathing too hard and can’t get enough air at the same time. Don’t panic. Not until you leave. “Someone’s expecting me. I have to—I can’t. I need to go.”

“Wait, honey. Don’t shut me out. You have to let someone in.” Lily’s words are close to what Andy said. They make my chest feel tighter.

I run out the door. Lily calls my name behind me. Both my aunt and uncle stand in the doorway as I rip out of the driveway. I only make it about a mile away before I hit the curb when I pull over. I hardly get the door open before I’m vomiting all over the road.

It’s dark out now, no sounds besides my retching. Bones. Woods. We’ll likely never know.

Was she alone like this? Did someone sneak up on her? Take her against her will?

I slam the door, fighting back the tears. Fighting back the panic. I put my car into drive, hit the gas and go.

~CHAPTER THIRTEEN~

Colt

“Colt. Man, that chick from the party is here for you,” Adrian yells through my bedroom door.

Shit. Just what I’m not in the mood for today—dealing with the Princess. I’m a little surprised though. I didn’t expect to see her again. I don’t know how I feel about her being here now.

I open the door.

“I didn’t want to let her in, in case you weren’t alone.”

“Though you didn’t mind risking whoever I might be in here with knowing someone else was here for me?”

Adrian winks. “Only because party girl seems different.”

“Her name is Cheyenne.” I don’t know why in the hell I just said that. Pushing around Adrian I head for the door. “You closed the door on her? You fucker.”

A laugh is his only reply. I pull the door open. She looks different than usual—her hair is a tied back and she’s wearing faded shorts and a t-shirt. This doesn’t look like the kind of clothes she’d ever let someone see her in. I don’t know why, but it makes my skin feel tight.

“Back to give me more shit?” I ask, leaning my hand against the doorframe.

“No. I came to tell you its over.” Her voice cracks slightly.

“Shit,” I ground out. “Let’s go in my room. I don’t like other people in my business.”

I’m surprised when Cheyenne pushes past me. I ignore the room full of people who watch as we walk by. “Last room on the right.” Once we’re in, I close the door behind us.

“It’s really clean in here…and white.” She has her back to me.

“What? A guy like me can’t like his shit clean?” I don’t care how I look, but I like my stuff to be in order.

“The rest of the house was trashed.”

“I don’t have control over the rest of the house. I doubt you came here to talk about my white sheets though.” I lean against the old desk in my room. Mom got for me at a yard sale, all stoked because she knew I’d need somewhere to do my homework.

“I already told you what I came here to say. It’s over. The charade.”

I laugh and scratch my head. “Yeah I figured that out when you got all pissed at me the other day and then didn’t give me my next assignment.”

Which should be a fucking blessing to me, but for some reason, I find myself annoyed about it. “You still owe me money though. I played your little game for a few days.”

Cheyenne snaps her head toward me. For a second, I think she might cry, but instead she rips open her purse. “How much do you need, Colt? Is this enough?” She tosses a wad of cash at me. “Or do you want my credit card too?” The plastic rectangle bounces off the wall as she throws it. “Is there anything else I can give you? What else do you want from me!” she screams.

I have no idea what the hell is going on here, but it’s obvious something’s up.

“Feel free to take it all!” I dodge her purse that flies at my head. She’s not crying, but it looks like she wants to. Her chest rises and falls with big surges. Something twists in my gut.

“Hey. Is it me or did we just step into the Twilight Zone or something?” I take a step toward her. The look of rage—or pain, maybe both— in her eyes slices through me. “What’s wrong?” Another step.

“You mean besides the fact that my mom is dead, I didn’t know and I’ve hated her for years? Nothing,” she snaps, her voice like acid.

Those words slam into me like nothing else she could have said. Nothing else anyone could have said. My body wants to tense up and slacken at the same time. “Fuck,” I run a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry.”

I’m not good with words. I’ve never cared about it before, but in this moment, I wish I knew what else to say.

Cheyenne shrugs. “It’s not like you did it. Can’t change it now.” Another shrug. “So yeah. I blamed her for leaving me, wanted to prove I didn’t care about anyone else leaving me again, when the whole thing was a lie. Needless to say, I don’t need that anymore.”

Her words grate on me the wrong way. She wants them to be real, but like everything else she does, they’re fake. “So…you’re all tough then? You’re just pretending this isn’t a big deal? Eh, I found out my mom’s dead, but I’m just going to go about my business.”

“You smug son-of-a-bitch.” She tries to slap me, but I grab her wrist. Like always she didn’t hold back. It was a full swing. “Don’t do that. You’re not better than I am, hiding behind the fact that you’re an asshole.”

“There’s a difference because I’m not in denial about it.” The way her eyes dim, sad and acknowledging my words, does something to me. I feel them on me…in me. It’s fucking ridiculous and I’m the last one who should be consoling this girl, but I grab her hand and pull her to me. “Come here.”

She comes. Her arms wrap around my neck and mine around her waist. She feels small—smaller than usual, but soft and feminine tucked against me. “Life’s shitty sometimes.”

I expect her to cry. Wait for it. Mom’s always been a crier. Real emotional about stuff, but there’s no wetness seeping through my shirt from where her head rests on my shoulder.

No sniffling or shakes. Just…nothing.

Damn, this girl is shutdown tight. Which I should be thankful for, that way I don’t have to deal with it. I find myself running my hand up and down her back though. Her grip on my neck tightens, the only sign I have she’s comprehending anything.

“Your mom…what’s wrong with her?”

Her question is a vise-grip, squeezing the life out of me. “Cancer. What else?”

“I’m sorry,” she says, looking up at me.

“Me, too.”

She dips her head and I know what she’s going to do before she does it. Her lips brush against my neck and I squeeze her waist. Christ, this is fucking dumb. All kinds of dumb, but I don’t pull away when her lips skate over my throat again.

I don’t let myself think, but tilt her head up and take her lips. I’m not slow about it either. I’m hungry, needy for her. My tongue pushes into her mouth. A little groan escapes from the back of her throat and damn it turns me on.

Her nails dig into my skin and it only spurs me on more. I kiss her deeper, studying every part of her mouth. With my lips on hers, nothing else matters, but what we’re doing. I lift her up and her legs wrap around my waist. Stumbling, I walk to the bed, our mouths never parting.