WANTED (The Runaways Series Book #2)

Chapter 9 (Part 1) *NEW*

Caleb

For the first time in five years, I’d run out of places to run to. Heading back to Georgia’s without Hailey just didn’t feel like home.

The June-bug heat hung heavy on my shoulders as Hal walked me back to my truck. He told me to cool off, to slow down, to take some time to get myself together like he understood my trouble.

He didn’t know a goddamn thing. Pulling all my pieces back into place would’ve been a hell of a lot easier if Sawyer hadn’t cut the strings.

I climbed back in my truck, slumped across the steering wheel, and waited for the whiskey buzz to fade so I could wander around the roads. I threw my keys into the back just to keep from jamming them into the ignition and taking off towards Charlottesville.

Leaving her with Sawyer was a mistake, I felt it deeper than my bones. He the same kind of trouble in his eyes Liam used to—the kind men with switchblade tempers carried around. He could take it out on me, but I sure as hell didn’t want him touching Hailey twice.

I slammed my fist into the dashboard once, twice, five times ‘til my knuckles bruised to the point of bleeding. The whiskey running through me wanted blood, it wanted pain, it wanted to pound the hopelessness holding my life hostage to pieces.

I’d never not been there for her. I’d never not been able to take a bullet when she needed me to. She needed me today. She’d needed me for longer than I wanted to admit, and I wasn’t with her then. I wasn’t with her now. I was alone, stuck in a damn parking lot, making my dad’s mistakes.

               “You like hittin’ stuff don’t you?”

The spitfire blonde from Hal’s bar snuck up on me before I could sneak out on her. She swayed her way over to the truck and slung her arms through the open window. I backed further into my seat, further into myself, and further away from her. She looked like the kind of girl who’d get the wrong idea from just about anything. So I gave her nothing.

                “I like being left alone.”

                “Nobody likes being lonely, Cal.”

I hated hearing my name come outta her mouth. She made it sound small, like something she could put in her back pocket and keep if she wanted to. It wasn’t her’s to own. It wasn’t her’s to play with.

                “Don’t call me that,” I said.

She leaned her head against the windowpane and shot me the kind of grin that probably got her everything she wanted.

                “Why? You don’t like nicknames?”

                “No, I just don’t like strangers.”

She reached into the car and snatched my keys off the seat.

                “Then you’re gonna hate me. Move over, we’re going for a drive.”

I wanted to stop her, to lock my doors and drive off like common sense said to. But the second she slipped into the driver’s seat and on top of me, my body responded to her hips, lips, and hair in all the wrong ways.

I pulled myself out from under her and into the passenger’s seat before the whiskey tiptoed me into trouble. I had enough trouble in my blood for two lifetimes. I didn’t need anymore today.

               “Before you get too mad, Hal gave me the afternoon off to keep an eye on you.”

               “Did he tell you to crush me too?”