He lurches back in and grabs the wheel in an iron grip. His face is hard and his eyes flash as he peels us out, whipping the Charger past a car-full of more guys with guns and roaring towards the far end of the lot.
“Nice work,” he says curtly.
I’m just nodding, half frozen in shock again and starting to shake, when the back windshield shatters. I scream as Connor suddenly shoves my head down, slamming on the gas. We tear out of the old factory parking lot, tires squealing on the sudden change from gravel to pavement as we roar towards the I-90 interstate entrance.
“Where are we going?” I say it quietly, hugging the oversized shirt around myself. After twenty minutes of me shivering in my “going out” clothes on the highway with the wind from the shattered back windshield whipping through the car, Connor ignored my protests and shrugged off his plaid shirt and passed it to me.
The same plaid shirt that smells like him that I’m currently wearing, feeling more and more like this is some sort of high school romance movie cliché - the girl that’s way out of her league wearing the big quarterback’s shirt to keep warm.
Only, you know, less quarterback, more scary mobster.
Same out-of-her-league girl though.
“A safe place.”
“Oh, okay.”
I’m barely hanging on and barely keeping it together. I’m in a daze, shaking even with the warmer shirt on.
“Why were those guys-”
“Jesus Christ,” he growls. “What’s not to understand?”
I break, and suddenly despite every single piece of me telling me not to, I’m sobbing.
Connor swears under his breath, and suddenly we’re pulling off the highway, roaring down the exit ramp, blowing through a stop sign and coming to a screeching stop at a gravelly rest area.
“I can’t- I mean, I can’t-”
I’m hyperventilating, my vision blurring as I suddenly just kick open the door and jump out of the car. I can feel the adrenaline roaring through me, and I’m unsteady on my feet as I go stumbling away from the car, to where I don’t even know, I just know I have to get away from it all.
“Sierra-”
“No, just-” I’m shaking my head, waving him off behind me as I stumble on. “I won’t tell anyone, I won’t- I mean-”
I shriek as he grabs me, whirling with every intention of fighting to the death to get away from him. But when he hauls me against his chest, I break, and instead of fighting, I grab his t-shirt tightly in my hands and sob into his chest.
“I gotcha, sweetheart.” His voice rumbles through me, his arm going around me as he strokes my back. “Let it out, I’ve got you.”
He holds me like that for how long I don’t know as my breath hitches and the tears bleed hot into the cotton of his shirt.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “Look, I act, and I forget that not everyone knows how to act the same way. I don’t - I mean it just doesn’t shake me anymore. I just react when I have to.”
His arms tighten around me, my breathing slows, and the dark spots swimming in front of my face begin to fade.
Panic attack over.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
I pull away from his soaked shirt, my brow furrowed as I look up at him.
“How is this normal to you?”
“It just is.”
“How?” I slowly shake my head, biting my lip. “I’ve watched you shoot people, and get shot at and-”
“Because it’s me, sweetheart,” he growls. “Because when I was ten, both my parents were gone and I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to lie to teachers and neighbors about where our folks were so CPS wouldn’t break up me and my brothers. Because when I was twelve, I got jumped by three older kids in a bad neighborhood and almost bled out from the knife they stuck in my side when I wouldn’t give them my lunch money.”
His face hardens, his eyes flashing this intense fire.
“Because when I was seventeen, I shot a guy before he could do the same to my brother. Because by the time I was twenty-one, I’d done more shit that you’ve ever seen in all the mob movies in the world. That’s why it doesn’t faze me.”
His voice is hoarse, his face hard lines and shadows. His hand comes up to cup my jaw possessively.
“Because this life is burned into me, Sierra. Because I’m not like you, or your perfect little town, or your awesome family. Because I’m broken, and I’ve glued myself back together, but I’m not like people like you.”
“People like me?”
“Loved,” he spits out bitterly. “Surrounded with kindness and goodness. That’s not me, and that’s why this doesn’t shake me.”