Chapter 20: Rebel Revenge: Chapter 20

With Rebel, Fang, and Vaughn all out of the house, I got on with my usual tasks. The lawn needed mowing. The pool needed autumn leaves scooped out. Garden beds needed tending to, readying the plants to survive the winter. With a property this size, there was always plenty to do.

It hadn’t been my dream to follow in my father’s footsteps and spend my life waiting on rich folks. But not everybody got what they wanted in life. Some of us needed to work in order to keep food in our mouths and a roof over our heads.

Basic survival outweighed hopes and dreams every time.

At least this place was familiar to me. I knew every nook and cranny like the back of my hand after living here for as long as I could remember. We’d moved in here when my mom had died, and my father couldn’t afford the rent on the little three-bedroom house we’d had in Saint View. I’d been eight and in awe of the massive house my father worked in.

The day we’d moved in was the day I’d met Vaughn.

We were the same age. Young enough to not see our differences, and we’d become fast friends.

Oh, how that had changed.

I slammed my shovel down into the ground, put my weight on the edge to get it right down deep, then turned it over. The ground was getting hard. I’d really left this a few weeks later than I should have, but if I’d known Bart and Miranda were going to die, I might have done a lot of things differently.

Rebel’s car flew in the driveway at pace, bouncing over the curb with a squeaking protest from her suspension.

I jumped away from the erratic vehicle, choosing life over being flattened like a pancake, and stared at her as she got out.

She was grinning like the Joker.

It was entirely disturbing.

I put the shovel down and wiped my hands on the back of my pants. “Why do you look like you were just in a real-life episode of Grand Theft Auto? You’re supposed to slow down for driveways, you know.” I toed at the driveway with the toe of my work boot. “I think that’s part of your undercarriage marking the pavers.”

Rebel just laughed. “You know when I said we were going for a drive? Yeah, well, that happened. But it was just a drive with cops chasing us!”

I widened my eyes at her. “What the fuck, Rebel?” I glanced down the road, like a swarm of police cars might descend upon our quiet suburban neighborhood at any moment.

Fang slowly got out of the car, his face a little green. He leaned heavily on the doorframe. “She’s exaggerating. There were no cops chasing us. Though she certainly drove like there were. If you have an anti-nausea tablet, I could use one.”

I didn’t even think he was joking, but Rebel scoffed, her eyes bright with delight.

“Okay fine, maybe there weren’t actual cops chasing us, but there could have been! You don’t know that sedan behind us wasn’t an undercover car.”

“It was driven by an eighty-year-old lady with blue hair, Pix. I think we could have taken her if it had come down to that.”

Rebel punched her fist into the air and gave a victory crow. “Hell, yeah, we could have! Old bluey would have gone down! Pow, pow!”

I shot Fang an alarmed look. “Is she always like this?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much.” He walked by me and slapped me on the shoulder. “Get used to it if you’re going to live with her. She’ll keep you on your toes.”

“I can see that.” I watched Rebel dance around like a fighter, taking swats at her imaginary opponent. “What really happened?”

“Saw one of the fuckwits who hurt her. Tried to kill him. Ended up hiding in a closet for a bit while the cops searched the hospital, but they didn’t have the manpower for anything too thorough. We got out unseen. Not that I could convince Rebel of that. She drives like a chipmunk hopped up on cocaine.”

“I heard that!” Rebel complained, shoving her hands on her hips to glare at him.

He just gave her an indulgent smile, then dropped his voice and spoke to me, “You around for a bit? I need to crash. I think I really do have a concussion. I can barely keep my eyes open, and this hand is throbbing like a motherfucker. I don’t want to leave her alone though. Seeing him again…”

I understood, and the guy really did seem like he needed to be horizontal. “Go. I’ve got her. She’ll be okay.”

He went inside, the door closing behind him.

I slid my attention to the wannabe car racer. “So. You had an adventure, huh, Little Demon?”

She winked at me. “Story of my life. There’s always something.”

“What are you doing now? You gotta go into work yet?”

“Not ’til five. I’m on night shift. You want some help?”

“Gardening?”

“Yeah, why not. I need to burn off some off this energy before I explode. Give me something heavy to swing or some pavers to lift. Boulders to roll. Whatever. That shovel will do.” She grabbed it from my fingers and drove it erratically into the ground, spearing one of my baby plants in half.

She cringed. “Oops. Was that a weed?”

“A weed I very carefully planted during the summer…”

“Ah, shit. Sorry. Got a carried away. Adrenaline makes me jittery.”

I took the shovel from her hand. “Maybe, for the sake of all these other little plants that have not yet had the pleasure of even reaching their first birthdays, we do something else.”

She cracked her neck. “I’m wired.”

“I can see. I get like that too. But you know where I channel it instead of being a psychopathic plant murderer?”

She gave me a questioning look. “Sex?”

I blinked but then realized she wasn’t actually far off base. “Well, yes, but that isn’t what I was going for here. Fighting. You said I could train you. You still up for that?”

I frigging missed fighting. I was just searching for any excuse to get back into it and to have something in my life other than this job and this house, and bloody Vaughn resurfacing out of the wild blue yonder.

Her shoulders slumped at my offer. “When I saw that guy at the hospital, I froze. He looked right at me, and I just sat there and did nothing, trembling and contemplating pissing my pants. It was Fang who did all the impressive stuff.”

There was so much regret in her voice. I hated that for her. “We can fix that, so next time you don’t freeze.”

She bit her lip. “I forgot how much bigger he is. How much bigger they all were. I’m so fucking short and weak. It never seemed like a problem before. I had my knuckle-dusters, and that was all I needed. But I had so much false confidence. I know I’m not a complete pushover, but every time I went up against some big guy at Psychos, there were other people around to back me up. Nash—that’s the guy who owns the bar with my bestie, Bliss. Or Vincent, the security guard. Or Fang and his guys from the MC. The one time none of them were around, look what happened.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, the shame in her stance killing me.

I couldn’t help it. I stepped in and put my finger underneath her chin, hoping like hell Fang wasn’t watching me touch his girl through the bedroom window. “Hey.” I lifted her face to stare down at her. “You got overconfident. It’s a danger, sure. And this time, you got beat. That doesn’t have to be the case during the rematch, okay? You know your weakness now, and it’s not that you’re small. I’ve seen women take down men twice their size. It might actually be your biggest advantage, because they’re going to underestimate you.”

Her expression hardened. “I hate being underestimated.”

“Yeah, girl. That’s the spirit. So show me what you got.”

She gazed around. “Right here on the driveway?”

“Why not? You think the next time they come at you they’re going to politely ask you to step onto some cushy mats?”

“Fair point. I suppose the same would apply if I complained I don’t have my knuckle-dusters.”

“The little demon learns quick.”

She grinned. “So, what? I just come at you?”

“Why not? Give it a go. See what happens.”

She made a show of stretching her arms over her head and linking her fingers together to stretch her back. She stuck her hips out to one side and leaned to the other, her shirt riding up over her hip and showing off a sliver of her belly.

Like a moth to a flame, my gaze dropped to that tiny strip of skin, caressing every inch of it, because my fingers couldn’t.

Fuck, she was hot. Cute as hell, but with a banging body. Tight thighs. A barely-there handful of tits. All big sass and smart-mouthed. Just like I liked them.

Her shoulder rammed me right in the stomach, winding me before I even realized what she was doing. I spluttered, taken by surprise, only to find her tiny arms wrapped around my neck in a chokehold.

Jesus fuck. She’d said she was scrappy. I’d made the very mistake I’d said her attackers would.

I’d underestimated her.

I broke the hold she had on my neck, and she backed off, letting me breathe.

Good of her.

She grinned at me with that wicked, hyped-up smile from earlier. “Come on, Kian. Don’t go easy on me.”

I coughed, sure my throat was bruised. “I wasn’t,” I said honestly.

She may as well have been a rooster preening.

That was all I needed to sweep her feet out from under her with a low kick. She fell onto the grass at the side of the driveway, groaning at the impact.

“Come on,” I encouraged her. “If you aren’t broken, get up.”

She glared at me, eyes suddenly burning with anger. “I’m not fucking broken. Don’t say that to me.”

“Then get up and prove it.”

She pushed to her feet, fire flashing in her eyes.

“What?” I taunted her. “You didn’t think I’d fight back because you’re a girl? I wouldn’t disrespect you like that.”

She charged at me with a yell that would have woken Fang if he wasn’t half out of it.

But unlike the first time she’d gotten her shoulder to my gut, this time, I was waiting for it. I caught her mid charge, and spun her, so her back was to my chest. I pinned her arms beneath mine and held her tight, not letting her move.

“Your hand is on my boob, Kian.”

I’ve never let someone go so quick. “Fuck! Sorry. I didn’t mean it. I swear, I wasn’t trying to catch a grope. I’m just not used to fighting women. I don’t normally have to worry about where I put my hands—”

Her kick was sharp and strong, and aimed at my knees.

Only I made the painful mistake of crouching at the same time, trying to catch her expression to see how badly affected she was by my ill-placed hands.

And the kick caught me straight in the crotch.

Pain splintered through me, taking out my vision for a second. When it came back, Rebel was staring at me, white-faced.

“Fuck! I’m so sorry!” She jerked forward.

I could only put it down to instinct when she rubbed at the spot she’d kicked.

I was instantly hard, despite the pain. “That’s my dick, Rebel,” I said in the same dry tone she’d used a moment earlier.

Later, when I replayed the moment while lying in my bed with an icepack on my junk, I would swear she gave it a single extra rub before she called practice finished for the day.