Page 1 of Twins for the Enemy

Chapter one

~FARAH~

Running from a burning building and fleeing a crime scene wasn’t exactly how I pictured my night going.

The smell of smoke is deep in my clothes. I run my palms over my shirt like the scent can be wiped away.

My hands tighten on the wheel as the police sirens get closer. I check my rearview mirror. My heart nearly stops as I see a white SUV. But as it turns onto a side street, I see it doesn't have the blue stripe or Chicago Police sprawled across it.

I let out a slow breath and look forward again. The brake lights in front of me flare, and I slam the pedal, but my tires skid over rain-slicked asphalt. I barely register the back of the other car before I plow into it .

The impact jerks my car violently sideways.

My world becomes a symphony of scraping metal and shattering glass.

Pain lingers at the edges of my mind. The glass shards seem to be suspended in front of me, moving at the same rate that I am as my car is hurled into the air.

I should scream. I should be panicked. But my mind can only come up with one thought: Oh.

The passenger window explodes, and glass bursts up at me like a violent fountain at the same time that the side airbags deploy.

The screeching of the car as it slides against the asphalt reverberates in my ears even after it stops, and the seatbelt cuts into my shoulder as it keeps me dangling in my seat.

Pain courses through my arm, but as I raise it, the pain doesn't get any worse. I'd take it as a sign that it's not broken, but adrenaline could work as a better narcotic than any street drug.

Everything sounds like it's underwater. The crash must have overwhelmed my hearing. I fumble for the buckle of the seatbelt, the shards of glass biting into my hand. I need to check on the other driver. I brace my foot against the center console, preparing to fall to the passenger side.

I stop, turning as I hear a small popping noise. I watch the side airbags deflate. The shadow of a broad-bodied person appears on the other side, cutting away at the airbag.

"Are you okay?" a voice asks.

My vision is swimming when I get my first view of the man. My car is compact, but he still must be over six feet tall, considering I can see him peering over the width of the vehicle to see me in the wreckage. "You came out of nowhere."

"I'm so sorry about that," I mutter, my voice barely audible to me. I raise it, almost yelling, "I'm sorry! I don't know what happened."

My eyes start to clear, and I realize that I'm talking to a man who could sell every bridge in Chicago.

A halo of dark sky is around his head, but even at night, his face could con any woman or man into investing in a blatant scam.

It's not that it exudes trustworthiness—the unruly black hair and the stubble indicate more of a devil-may-care attitude—but the concern creasing his forehead and the softness in his dark eyes are enough to make me feel safe.

This man is a stranger, but he could tell me that I need to buy the Michigan Avenue Bridge to save all of the orphans in Chicago, and I'd believe him.

"Miss? Are you okay?" he asks again.

I realize that my hands are gripping the wheel so tight that my fingers seem unwilling to loosen.

"Yeah," I say. "I'm, uh, I'm doing great. How are you?"

"Well, I didn’t plan on testing the safety rating on my vehicle today, but here we are. Take my hand."

It seems preposterous. He'd need to pull me straight out like I'm a potato chip in a bag, but the alternative is falling into a pile of glass.

This was a sign that I should've turned myself in. I'm not resilient enough for a life on the run. I'm not even strong enough to get out of my own car right now .

I look back at the man. He has his phone out.

Like I'm possessed by the worst basketball player on this side of the Mississippi, I smack the phone out of his grip.

"Don't," I say. "Don't call the police."

"It's okay," he reassures me, disappearing from my view as he picks up his phone. "I was calling for an ambulance. They need to check you over."

"No, I'm fine," I insist. "Don't call."

He reaches over the car, leaning against it to grasp my hand. He slightly turns it, looking at where a burn is already blistering. I wait for him to ask about it. Nothing in the car is burning.

"Can you unbuckle yourself?" he asks. "I'll pull you out."

I grapple for the seatbelt's buckle. I repeatedly press down on it, but the seatbelt doesn't release.

"It's stuck," I say, desperation creeping into my voice .

"I'll get it."

Still grasping my hand, he uses his other to pull out a pocketknife and flick it open. I lean back into the seat while he saws into the seatbelt. The back of his hand rubs against my chest.

Heat rushes into my cheeks. I focus on the windshield, which is amazingly still intact considering how easily it gets chips in it from rocks. There are five hundred more important things for me to focus on right now than this man.

As soon as the seatbelt snaps away, he lifts me up.

A pain shoots through my arm, but before I can think too much about it, he sets me on the car door and slides me into his arms. Cradled into his chest, my back leaning against his forearm, and his other arm holding me under my knees, he walks over toward the sidewalk before setting me down. He keeps a supportive arm around me.

"Don't put too much weight on your legs until you're certain nothing is broken," he says .

It's a soft, kind empathy that almost makes me angry. Nobody is this kind without having an ace up their sleeve. Everything comes with a price.

In my periphery, I see the curtains in someone's window move.

Everyone nearby must have heard the crash.

If the cops get to me before I get to them, any leverage I may have is gone.

I won't be the person who made a mistake and was willing to face the consequences.

I'll be the one who was only willing to confess once she was backed into a corner.

"I'm good," I say briskly, brushing away his arm. He hesitantly lets me go. "I have to get going. Thank you for your help."

I take several steps, waiting to feel any pain in my legs, my ankles, or my feet, but I'm feeling surprisingly good.

Maybe it's a good sign that I can survive a car crash without any lasting effects.

Everything else might be going to hell, but my bones appear to be in good enough shape to deal with slamming into a large-ass car .

I glance over toward his SUV. Huh. It makes sense that his car only has a small dent in the back. In any scenario, my junker versus his Mercedes-Benz ends with his luxury vehicle gliding away to some high-end party while I try to bargain with some junkyard to give me ten bucks for the scrap metal.

With that good of a car, maybe he’s a con artist.

It's my last thought before I feel my body cascading toward the ground, and the world fades into darkness.

The snakes are embedded with shards from the wreckage.

Instead of scales, they're covered with the glass from the window, splinters of the mirror, and chips of white paint.

I tuck my legs closer to my body, but they're all unfazed by my presence—except for one of them that slinks up to my sneakers.

An unfamiliar calm washes over me, and I reach toward the snake. It slithers onto my hand .

I expect the fragments of glass to cut me as it glides between my index finger and my thumb, but it's soft enough that I look closer to see if it's made of velvet and only made to look dangerous.

Its beady eye stares back at me, my face reflected over and over in the blackness.

It continues to twist around my palm. It doesn't seem to want to strangle my hand, but it's almost like it wants to force me to shed my skin and become renewed.

It's a tempting idea—discarding who I am now and not carrying it around for the rest of my life.

The snake starts to tighten around my hand. It looks up at me again. It's starting to turn bright red, so much heat radiating out of its body that it hurts. As it starts to burst into flames, puffs of smoke choking me, it rears its head back and sinks its teeth into the back of my hand.

I jerk awake. My hand still aches, but instead of a snake wrapped around it, there’s a white bandage carefully wound around my skin.

One end is still dangling loose. My eyes trail down where the bandage wrap hangs, following across to the right of my body, where a pair of knees in black pants are nearly touching my calves.

I slowly look up, past the white button-up and the black tie, to the gorgeous man from the crash.

I bring my injured hand closer to my chest, looking around.

We're in a bedroom that's much bigger than any bedroom needs to be. The bed I’m in could fit at least four people, the fireplace is large enough for someone to lie down in, and the windows would let in enough sunlight for surgery if it weren’t dark outside.

I jerk upward. It's no longer daylight.

"What time is it?" I ask. I pull off the blanket draped over me, pain striking through my hand.

"Nearly 8 o'clock," he says, slowly pulling the blanket back to where it was.

"Why the hell—" I try to toss my legs over the edge of the bed, but he grabs my knees, pushing them back down.

My father was once arrested over a bar fight.

They'd tracked him back to our house, and he'd admitted to attacking the man when the police arrived.

The lawyer told him it may have helped his case if he'd gone to the police right away, but since he'd waited until they'd built their case and shown up with handcuffs, his confession was just the final nail in his coffin.

I don't want a nail in my coffin. I don't want the legal system thinking I'm some monster who only repented once I was trapped in a corner.

"Stop moving so much." He puts his hand on my shoulder, applying enough pressure that I lean back onto my elbows.