Page 31 of Violent Skies

“Then tell me!” I bite back.

“No.” He stares me down and I can see the inner battle he’s fighting to keep the secrets. I just need to push a little more.

“I’m not naive, Riggs! I know you guys weren’t upstanding members of society,” I say and he starts to laugh. “Oh please. I know you were stealing cars. You don’t need the plate numbers to collect change.”

The quarters.

“We stole cars every day for a month.” Riggs explains, his voice laced with venom. “Until that wasn’t enough. Koa proved himself to Westfall and we were upgraded to bigger things.”

“Stealing electronics.” I shrug, who cares. I care. A lot. It’s a terrifying darkness that I didn’t know about them and it feels like a looming cloud charged with electricity. I’m just waiting for either the storm to cause destruction or for the clouds to part and more secrets to spill out.

“Drugs, Cress.” He rides a vicious line, “murder, extortion.”

“You’re trying to scare me,” I fight back.

“No, Koa was the ring leader for it all! He didn’t know when to stop and it got him fucking killed!” Riggs spits and rakes his hands through his hair before walking away from me before I even respond.

“He wouldn’t do that.” I argue. “Koa was the most gentle person I knew.”

“Because he spent an hour washing the blood off his hands before he crawled into bed with you, Cress.” Riggs lowers his voice. “He kept his vicious side from you on purpose, for this exact reason.”

“You’re such a liar—and for what? Because you’re pissed off that things were handled without your go ahead?” I question.

“Who the fuck do you think made Birdie the way she is?” He asks.

“You. It’s clear she resents you for a reason.” I accuse him and an icy laughter leaves him.

“He’s got you so tangled up that you don’t even want to know the truth, none of this fucking matters.” He shakes his head in disbelief.

“Stop talking to me like I’m an idiot,” I demand. “I knew Koa better than any of you.”

He huffs, clearly frustrated with me as he paces away further into the garage, crashing his hand across a bench and knocking its contents to the floor.

“That’s it. Throw a fit like you always do.” I shake my head. “Riggs doesn’t get his way so he loses his mind!”

“You think this is about control?” He whirls on me, stalking me in four easy strides. Chest to chest he raises his arms out to the side. “About being in charge of all this?”

“Isn’t that what it’s always been about? You hated that Koa was the boss. That he took care of everything, that he was who people thought of first. He was who you wanted to be! You can admit it, Riggs, he’s gone. You have everything that belonged to him, what more could—”

“You.” Riggs cuts me off abruptly—without hesitation. “Cress, God damnit. You.”

I open my mouth and close it again, biting down on my tongue. I shake my head and am the first to step back because I can’t handle the heat rolling off his chest. You. It’s the same story, the age old tired argument that sends us into a dance neither of us want to be a part of.

2008

“Hey,” Riggs appears in the doorway in a band t-shirt that hangs over him a size too big, his hair so long it can tuck behind his ears but he leaves it messy around his face, and a ring on almost every finger. He taps them against the frame and waits for me to set my homework down in my lap.

“What do you want?” I smile at him and he can’t stop the mirrored grin that appears on his face as he comes to kneel beside my bed.

“Do you want to go for a drive?” he asks, tilting his chin up to look at me as his hand creeps across the pink bed spread toward my thigh. Instead of touching me he snatches the pile of foil from my gum and starts to fold the little hearts as I make my decision.

If Koa found out…

“It’s almost midnight,” I whisper, looking at the clock on my side table.

“Yeah, everyone is asleep.” The moon from the window catches in his irises and reflects back at me. As if mother nature is calling my bluff: you never say no to him.

“Alright,” I whisper and he excitedly takes my book, dropping it to the chair near my closet before grabbing me a jacket and helping me into it. “Be quiet though. If you wake my Aunt she’ll flip.”