Silver Bastard(116)

My voice rose at the end to a shriek. Tears started rolling down her face and she reached for me. I flinched back, realizing I was on the brink of losing it.

“I’m sorry,” Mom said, her eyes darting. We were creating a scene. Too bad. “I have to go.”

Stunned, I watched as she jerked the gas nozzle free. Then she climbed into her car and pulled out with a screeching of tires, gas cap flying. It rolled across the pavement, coming to a stop about six inches from my foot.

What the fuck had just happened?

“Becca, you okay?”

I looked over to find Puck staring at me, confused. No. I wasn’t okay. Tears started to build in my eyes, then I was in his arms, crying.

“Baby, you gotta tell me what’s wrong,” he said after a few seconds. His entire body was tense—ready for a fight. Shit. I needed to pull myself together.

“It was my mom,” I said, forcing myself to stop sniffling. “She’s alive.”

Puck stilled.

“What?”

“I was getting out of the truck to go to the bathroom. Then I looked over there and saw my mom.”

Something crossed his face, a hint of shock tempered with . . . pity?

“Sweetheart, it’s not uncommon for someone to think they’ve seen someone who died.”

“No, it was her, Puck,” I said, my voice forceful. “I talked to her. She called me by name, said she was sorry. Then she got in her car and drove off. That’s her fucking gas cap right there.”

“What the hell?”

“It’s a con,” I said, feeling like the stupidest person on earth. “She’d been calling, begging for money. I kept telling her no so I guess she raised the stakes.”

“That fucking cunt,” he growled. He let me go, spinning toward his truck in helpless, frustrated anger. For a minute I thought he might punch it. Then—just like that—he pulled it together.

“Get in.”

“Puck—”

“Get. In. The. Truck.” Rage covered his face, along with that terrible darkness I’d seen from him a few times. Oh fuck. This was bad. Really bad.

Wait. Mom was alive. That was good. I didn’t want her dead, did I?

Mixed, confused emotions crashed through me as I climbed into my seat. I was vaguely aware of Puck outside, gassing us up. My thoughts flew too fast to catch as I tried to understand what had happened.

Mom was alive. She’d pretended to be dead. Told her daughter that she was dead.

For three thousand fucking dollars.

Pain sliced through me as it fell together. Pain. Relief. Shock.

Hurt.

How could she care so little for me, put me through that kind of hell for money? Because she’s a junkie and a crook. She doesn’t care about anyone but herself. Fucking bitch.

The rig swayed as Puck climbed in, looking straight forward. Rage radiated off every square inch of his body.

“This ends now.”

“What?” I asked.

“This shit with your mom,” he replied. “She’s cut off. Today. You’re never talking to her again. That woman is fucking toxic and she’s out of your life.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, turning on him. My head was a swirl of a thousand different emotions—Mom had been dead and suddenly she wasn’t. She’d tricked me and used me and treated me like I wasn’t even a real human being whose feelings mattered. Now Puck was going to tell me how to feel, too?

I didn’t need this shit from him and I didn’t care if he was right—it wasn’t his decision to make.

“It’s time to end this. I’ve watched that bitch jerk you around for five years and I’m sick of it. No more. I’ll get you set up at the hotel and then go straighten her ass out. We’ll leave for Idaho in the morning.”

The swirl of confused feelings in my head came together, turning into anger. I couldn’t turn it loose on Mom because she’d run off, but Puck? He’d just painted a big ass target on his forehead and I didn’t give a shit if attacking him was fair or not. I was an adult and I’d make my own damned choices.

“Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?”

The muscle in his jaw flexed as Puck turned the key, the big truck roaring to life. “I’m your old man and it’s my job to protect you. I’m serious about this, Becs. We’re leaving tomorrow and you are never going to communicate with that bitch again.”

Oh no. No way. He did not get talk to me like that.

“Fuck you,” I growled. “You have no goddamn right to tell me what I can and can’t do. You don’t own me and you don’t get to control me.”

He turned to look at me, and the raw anger on his face stunned me. Holy shit. A small part of me wanted to cower back, to beg him not to hurt me. No. I wasn’t that little girl anymore and Puck Redhouse didn’t get to push me around.