AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"No."
"No?" I huff. "Just no. Why not?"
"Because I fucking said so."
I shake my head. I am too tired to argue anymore with him, so I just eat my chips in silence, making sure I drop crumbs all over the seat just to piss him off further. I see his nostrils flare as he watches me out of the corner of his eye. I smirk, licking my fingers, and then wipe them across his seat. I am pretty sure he just growled at me. I can’t help but laugh to myself. Game on, butcher! By the time we get to New York, Luca Valsetti will wish he had just killed me back in Atlanta.
Nine
Luca
I try to stretch out my cramping leg, but the damn seat won’t go back any further. I’ve been driving now for nearly eight hours with only one break to get gas. Five hundred and fifty-one miles and still at least five hundred to go. My eyes feel heavy, and the fuel lights on. I need food and sleep.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, I was traveling in the opposite direction, heading to Atlanta, Georgia, from New Jersey. There were no last-minute flights yesterday, so my impatience got the better of me, and I drove. I don’t mind the drive so much. It gives me time alone to think. Something I don’t get very often. With the constant chaos of my life, the silence is golden.
Having not a wink of sleep in two days, the white lines on the tar road are starting to blur. I blink rapidly, trying to stay awake, but the more I blink, the blurrier my vision becomes.
“Hey.” Scarlet wacks me on the arm, jolting me to attention. The car swerves to the curb a little before I straighten the wheel. “You need to pull over, or you're about to have your first unintentional death on your hands.”
I don’t entertain her. Quite frankly, I am too fucking tired for the banter right now. “There’s a motel a few miles ahead in the next town. We will stop there for a few hours.”
Those few miles feel like an eternity, but as soon as I see the illuminated lights to the motel up ahead, I breathe out a sigh of relief just as my stomach growls, reminding me we need to eat before settling down at the hotel.
I pull into the drive-thru of KFC, putting my window down just enough for the teenage boy in the drive-thru to see my eyes. The smell of fried chicken whoofs through the window, filling the car, making my mouth water.
“You hungry?” I turn my head briefly to Scarlet, who is licking her lips.
“Oh my God, am I. I was starting to think if boredom didn’t kill me first, then I would starve to death.”
“That's a little overdramatic, don't you think?” I shake my head at her with raised brows. “What do you want?”
“I’ll take a large box of take me the hell home, with a side of go to hell, and a large cup of you won’t get away with this,” she answers smartly with a scowl.
I glare at her with warning, ignoring the boy speaking through the microphone, asking if he could take my order.
“If you don’t shut the hell up, I will be having Kentucky Fried cat for lunch.” I grit through my teeth.
Scarlet rolls her eyes, sighing. “Now who’s being overdramatic?”
I growl at her with frustration. The young boy clears his throat through the microphone and repeats himself, “Your order, please, Sir.”
I place a large order and collect it at the next window. Scarlet has a piece of chicken in her mouth before I even have a chance to place the bag down. With a mouthful of chicken, she tips her head back with a long moan. Licking the grease from her lips, she pauses mid-chew, turning to look at me like she knows I'm sitting here staring at her eating her food like a wild caveman.
“What?” she asks, her mouth half full of chicken.
I shake my head. “Can’t you wait until we get to the motel? You're going to get greasy chicken all over my car.”
She stops mid-chew again and looks at me. It’s a look of mischief. God, no, she isn’t, is she? I watch in horror as she places the piece of chicken down and wipes her oily, salty fingers down the sides of the seat.
“Sure, I can wait.” She smiles proudly, eyebrows arched.
If I didn't need to get the information from her that she is keeping tight-lipped, I’d shoot her right here and now in the KFC parking lot, and the smart-ass little devil knows it.
Ten
Scarlet
Luca rattles the key into the old lock and opens the door. If I were smart, I’d just abandon the cat and run. I can’t do that, however. It would be betraying my brother. Torn between holding onto the last thing my brother cared and nurtured for and saving myself. I look down inside the box I’m holding at the big green eyes staring back at me so innocently. I know that I can’t exchange his life for mine. I suppose it is easy to have an opinion or say you would do certain things in a given situation, but until you’ve actually faced that yourself, you don’t know what it is you’d truly do. I would never have guessed I’d be more protective over a cat's life than my own. Yet here I am.
