Page 33 of Wild Like Us

Dead to Ryke Meadows.

None of that will really matter—because if Sulli died on our watch…it’d kill me in the end. My duty is to protect her, and I wouldn’t…I’d never go back to security.

I couldn’t.

I’d be done.

A withdrawn fucking hermit fixing beat-up Hondas for a living.

Akara can barely keep his head upright; his eyes are bloodshot. Chest collapses, but he fixes his gaze on her dad.

Ryke looks to Akara. “I love you like a son, but I love her more.” He pauses. “So now’s your chance. You can give her another two bodyguards for this trip.”

The risk has always been clear to me.

To Akara too. Strongly, he says, “I’m not giving this to someone else, Ryke.”

Her dad turns to me.

“Respectfully, sir, I’d rather be there for Sulli.”

We’re all living on the edge of death. And Ryke nods in acceptance of the road we’re driving down with his daughter.

If only he knew about the funhouse.My brain is trying to crack a joke, and it lands flatter than a fucking pancake.

6

AKARA KITSUWON

I love you like a son,but I love her more.

Ryke’s words stay with me as we exit one state and enter another. Miles and miles away from the REI, from Philly, they still sit inside my head. Even as we stop at a gas station in the Ohio, Midwest countryside.

Fathers.

I used to have one. He was the kind of father that would watch morning cartoons with me. That would pick out all the oat pieces in the Lucky Charms, leaving me with a bowl of colorful marshmallows. I’d see him in the early mornings before school and then in the late evenings after long hours at his office.

He was the kind of father that demandedhe’dbe the one to teach me how to drive, even though he barely had the time. So I learned in the dead of night, and he was right by my side. I rammed the Mercedes straight into a trashcan on my first try. He laughed.

After his death, relatives would come up to me and tell me that I was lucky. He passed away when I was seventeen. I made memories with him that I’ll rememberforever.But it was a load of shit. In those memories he’s faded. Like a blurred image that I can’t quite make out.

What good is remembering, if I can’t even have the full picture?

I’m twenty-seven now.

No one can replace my dad.

But I can’t deny how much Ryke’s words have crashed into me. I’ve been on Sulli’s detail since I was twenty-two. I’ve traveled the world with the Meadows family. They don’t have legions of children like the Cobalts. They’re not rooted to Philly like the Hales. I was the youngest bodyguard to be on a Meadows detail.

Ever.

In a way, I alwaysfeltlike a part of the family. Ryke would tell me over and overand overhow he sees me as Sulli’s big brother. How I’m that protector in her life.

But I’ve never actually heard him say those words until today.I love you like a son.

My phone rings in my back pocket just as I remove the gas cap to Sulli’s Jeep.

Sulli jumps out of the backseat, saying, “We’re going to have to put aNo Fucking Phonespolicy on this trip.”