Page 62 of His Trick

“Why, my sister, Shiloh?”

That was unexpected. I had been with Xanthy for so damn long that I couldn’t really comprehend being with anyone else. It was a comfort…a shield. She was easy to hide behind. Her charm and beauty kept everyone looking at her, and they didn’t study me too hard. I was simply an accessory to the beautiful Harding princess of Normal.

“Why not?” I said, running a hand through my hair absentmindedly.

Carrington nodded, somewhat pleased with the answer, but likely sensing it wasn’t the full truth.

“It’s my turn now. Why the nickname?”

He cracked his neck and opened a pack of gum he had rummaged up from the glove compartment. “Next.”

I looked at him, throwing three fucking pieces in his mouth and chomping like a damn cow.

“Next? You can’t do that, asshole.”

He just grinned, still smacking that fucking gum loudly with his mouth open.

“You really wanna know?” he questioned, a tenderness entering his voice that took me off guard.

“Yes…”

“Good. Then neeeeext.”

This man will be the death of me. I fucking swear it.

“Fine, you fucking toddler. Why forensics? Do you like it?”

A few minutes went by, and the only sound was that ridiculous chomping before he said, “I did. My father hates people poking around. He has the entire police department and courthouse paid off to play dumb about anything that could connect him to a crime, no matter how small. So, I went to school and got into forensics. I wanted to show him he isn’t as invisible as he wants to be, and at any point I can shine a bright fucking light on him for all to see.”

“Mayor of daddy issues,” that’s what he had said. It was gnawing at me, wanting to know how deep down that ran, but I also wanted to keep that in my arsenal for now—not knowing if I would need it later on.

But do I really want to hurt him?

Who the fuck am I kidding?

I needed a weapon against him. He was unpredictable and so damn cold. He didn’t ask for anything. he just took it. That couldhave been my body or my fucking mind. And if I didn’t protect myself with whatever I could, then…

I can’t complain when he decides it is time to destroy me.

The highway stretched out like a strip of gray nothingness, the kind of endless road that made your eyes heavy and your mind wander to places you didn’t want it to go. The hum of the tires on the asphalt was steady, hypnotic, and almost enough to drown out Carrington’s presence beside me.

Almost.

But, just like this entire week, the asshole was truly impossible to tune out.

I kept my eyes fixed on the road ahead, watching fields blur past in the fading light, trying to ignore the itch under my skin.

Tomorrow I will be face-to-face with my father.

The man who sat behind steel bars and concrete walls in Kentucky. The man who managed to haunt me even though I hadn’t seen him in years.

“You’ve been sulking for two states,” Carrington said, voice smooth and smug.

His hand rested lazily on his lap, fingers tapping in rhythm to the beat of the music as he kept fucking flipping through the radio stations.

One minute we would be listening to classical, with him doing some ridiculous impression of a violinist, and the next he would put on screamo and headbang long enough to give me a headache.

Is this how parents of fucking kids felt on road trips? Geez-us, a family vacation probably needed a vacation from the vacation if the kids were anything like Carrington.