AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This wasn’t happening to me.
It couldn’t be him.
There was no way I was that unlucky.
But I knew when my eyes settled on the tall guy waiting at the start line that it was him. It was the way he moved and the set of his shoulders. It had been years since I had last seen him, and even though he had grown, I could still see the thirteen-year-old boy I had once befriended.
I closed my eyes, and time seemed to stop. I was no longer with Sadie at the place she called The Strip. I was lost in the hell he had sentenced me to.
Think of Gracie.
Those were the words that ran through my mind as I went away from my current situation. I could get through anything if I thought of my little sister.
My dad had only been in prison for four months, and already I was in foster home number three. It wasn’t me. It was the families they stuck me with. The first had been shut down and jailed for drug use—the second for filthy conditions. I had never lived so terribly in all my life.
The third place was better. I was happy to see the new home was clean when I arrived. I was relieved that it was on the nice side of town, and my new foster parents seemed friendly and drug-free. I was glad to see other kids my age already living there.
I imagined a better life for myself—where I could be under the same roof with my sister again and achieve some normalcy. Those imaginations were stolen from me the second my foster brother, Donald, covered my mouth with his palm and held me down. The moment he entered my young body—sending a piercing pain through my insides and stealing my young soul.
I tried to scream, but only muffled cries pressed against his smoke-stained palm. He was only two years older than me. When I arrived, he was a welcoming kid—smiling and showing me around the place. Yet he was someone else entirely as he glared down at me and lodged my small frame into the plush mattress.
I fought until my muscles ached, and then I left myself. I closed my eyes and thought of Gracie, finding relief in her angelic features until another face entered my mind. The person I blamed for my entire predicament. The person who ruined my life even though I had been kind to him. The liar. The son of the devil himself.
Koah Saint.
The irony of his last name was a slap in the face.
A gunshot echoed through the night, pulling me from my hideous memory and returning me to the moment I had hoped would never come. The pair of bikes roared to life and screamed over the start line. I held my breath as his yellow bike flew down The Strip. Pink neons glowed from beneath him, lighting the asphalt and the finish line as he crossed it way ahead of the motorcycle he raced.
The crowd went wild, cheering and screaming, boosting the energy surrounding him. I could hardly believe we had somehow managed to be in the same place simultaneously, but it was him. He showed off like the arrogant piece of shit I imagined he would grow up to be and making me shiver with hate and annoyance.
He pumped a glove-covered fist into the air when he crossed the finish line before turning and doing a wheelie back down The Strip. He balanced on his back tire like it was easy, and when he reached the end, he laid his front wheel down on the asphalt, raised his bike's rear, and spun. It was impressive, and the crowd cheered for him, making my stomach ripe with rage.
He ripped his helmet from his head before pulling his black and white cross-covered handkerchief down, exposing a straight nose, perfect white teeth, and thick lips. He smiled at everyone around him and bumped fists with a few guys approaching him.
Koah Saint.
He was the bane of my existence and the person who ruined my life. I despised him beyond the word's definition, and the fire simmering in my stomach at just the sight of him proved that.
As the group I was with moved to gather around him, I stood in place. I couldn’t go near him. It was as if we were two magnets turned backward, and a force kept me from approaching him. Instead, I stayed put, glared at him, and allowed the memories to rush over me like a debris-filled wave.
As if feeling my burning stare against his bronze skin, he turned my way, and his eyes connected with mine. His olive complexion paled before his cheeks filled with red heat, and he narrowed his eyes. He scowled back at me, and I felt his rage like I had walked from an air-conditioned room and out into the southern heat of the summer.
He loathed me, too.
Good.
I wanted the feeling to be mutual.
I needed the feeling to be mutual.
He had grown a lot in the past ten years. He was still handsome, even though I would never admit that to another human being, but he was taller and darker. I had always known Koah was a menace, but he looked dangerous these days. It was strangely appealing, which made my stomach turn. It was evident by the women's reactions surrounding him that they felt the same way, but I knew what slithered beneath his good looks and electric charm.
A snake. A venomous predator capable of murder and destruction.
He looked away from me when a pretty blonde flung herself into his heavily tattooed arms. His life was nothing like mine. He was admired and respected—put up on some motorcycle king pedestal and hailed as a god, which sent a spiral of fury down my spine that paralyzed me.
Bikes. Women. Good looks. He seemed to have it all.
