Family Comes First

B16

I stared at her blandly, shrugging my shoulders as Caroline followed behind me towards my car.

I got a car for my seventeenth birthday. It was a gift from my entire family, and to be honest, it was extremely useful.

Caroline was fan-girling really hard right now.

After their dinner together, Caroline had called me to pick her up. Nader had a car, so he had brought Caroline to one of those popular dinner places. Lucky them, they had a spot immediately upon their arrival because Nader was smart and reserved the spot for them.

I, on the other hand, had to park streets away, and since I had no interest in going to the restaurant, I decided to wait in my car. When they were done, Caroline needed me to pick her up because she came in my car and still did not trust Nader enough to tell him her address.

It was understandable, and as her best friend, I did not mind. However, since I did not want to drive up to them as I'm sure Nader would have his pride wounded if I were to drive up in my... expensive car, I decided to walk down the blocks to the restaurant to bring Caroline back with me.

I'm such a good best friend.

Surprisingly, the guy stayed with her the entire ten minutes, not leaving until I had arrived. The fact that he waited with Caroline... It made my respect for him go higher.

However, she's been blabbering about Nader for the past ten minutes, and it was grating on my nerves.

"Are you done?" I asked, giving her a raised brow.

Caroline pouted, before grinning. "You're just sad you don't have a love life." she stated proudly, flashing me a smirk.

I shoved her on the shoulders. "Well if you know, don't rub it in my face." I huffed.

"Aww," she said. "You're jealous aren't you."

"Of course I am." I all but replied, rolling my eyes as we arrived at my car. "Shit. What the hell happened here?"

My entire car looked bombed, from crashed windows and broken shards of glass all over the place. My door was barely hanging onto the hinges, and the car seats were scratched from glass.

Caroline's good mood immediately dropped, her eyes surveying the entire street. Her entire body stiffened, and her once happy expression dimmed and turned cold as she regarded the street we were on. There was the old Caroline I knew. The Caroline who was able to hide her emotions like it was second nature to her.

I had no idea how she taught herself to do that, or why she would teach herself to do that, but now was not the time to ask. Anyway, she'll tell me when she's ready.

Not like I couldn't do that. I was proud to say that I was now able to hide my emotions, even if it was still a tiny bit difficult. Not the time, Amara... You can flex later.

"Something is wrong." she commented, eyes surveying her surroundings.

"No shit." I deadpanned, reaching for the knife strapped to my thigh.

The ends of my hair rose as I bent down, prepared to defend both Caroline and myself if necessary.

"We should go." Caroline said abruptly, about to turn away. "We should not be caught here."

"Agreed." I nodded my head. "I'm going to call Salvatore. He'll pick us up, and we can figure out who decided to break my car."

"Good idea." Caroline muttered, taking my hand and pulling me along with her.

I reached for my phone, when a sudden rush of black caught my eye. I barely dodged it in time, jumping out of the way and bringing Caroline with me to the floor as a knife embedded itself into the stone I was just standing on.