"I'm not so sure that's good news. Odina may be a handful, but she's still their daughter. She just... needs guidance," I sighed. Chloe and Odina were not fans of one another. In fact, they were more likely to tear each other's hair out than have a conversation.
"She fucked your boyfriend, Isa. When she got caught, she said she felt sorry for the guy because nobody should have to be frozen out by the ice princess."
"To be fair, he wasn't much of a boyfriend if he couldn't tell the difference between Odina and me," I said with a laugh.
"You're identical twins. If you two stood in a room in the same clothes, I'd never know who was who, and I've known you both since we were six."
"Is your nose broken? Odina smells like pot, booze, and cigarettes more often than not. I've never even had a glass of wine." Chloe laughed at the ridiculous polarizing nature of the two of us as we turned the corner. A few steps passed in companionable silence, my gaze drawn to the boxing gym across the street. Fists of Fury had always caught my eye when we came to our favorite diner, the tiny Filipino woman who ran it inspiring the part of me that could never come to the surface. Kickboxing lessons weren't something I could afford, and I hardly had the need for them when I didn't believe in violence.
But something about the way she owned her body and turned it into a tool appealed to me on a dark level, wanting the ability to protect myself from harm. Women who looked like me went missing every day, and the rape statistics for Native American women were horrifying.
One in three.
The odds weren't in my favor to walk through the rest of my life unscathed, even if I wasn't as limited in access to justice as those who lived on a reservation.
A man stepped from the passenger side of an SUV in the parking lot, unfolding his long suit-clad legs to stand behind the door until he closed it and stepped around. My eyes trailed up over the way his body moved as he buttoned his suit jacket, the glare of the sun in my eyes shielding his face from view as he stepped forward to the sidewalk on the other side of the street.
I waited for him to emerge from the shadows, willing back the rare sunshine so I might see the face of the man who captivated me. He remained faceless, an enigma that I couldn't quite grasp as darkness clung to him like a second skin.
As I watched, his gaze felt heavy on mine, regardless of the fact that I couldn’t see it. I felt it, and I knew, without a doubt, that he could see me. Unfairness settled over me, his eyes an assessing stare. I could almost feel the tendrils of darkness enshrouding him, reaching across the street to wrap me in his endless night.
Another man stepped up to him, resting a hand on his shoulder in the fuzzy peripheral of the sun glare. The weight of the man's stare left me for a moment, and I drew in a ragged breath, the first sign that he'd stolen the breath from my lungs.
The weight settled back on me once more, only Chloe's voice at my side turning my attention away finally. She nudged me, taking my hand in hers and pulling me away and toward the diner. I turned my head and watched over my shoulder, waiting for the moment when I might see the man I could never know.
The one who had danger written all over every sinful line in his body.
My vision turned white as we made our way into the little diner. The owner, Damek, greeted us, and Chloe spoke in hushed tones at my side as my ears rang. The pounding of my heart in my chest echoed through my body and made it feel impossible to catch my breath. "What's wrong with her?" Damek asked. His firm hand came down on my shoulder, sending me tilting backward as the force brought me back to reality. He took one look at my eyes, his brow furrowing in concern. "Her pupils are dilated. What's she on?" he asked Chloe.
"Nothing!" she protested, shaking her head. "You know Isa better than that."
"She looks like she's seen a ghost. Sit her down. I'll grab some malinovka. She always loves it," he murmured, patting my head affectionately. He walked to the kitchen, leaving Chloe to drag me over to a booth as far from the windows as she could manage. I flopped down into the booth, grateful that I didn't need to support my weight anymore. My entire world had flipped upside down, with only a glance from a man I couldn't even see.
All the more reason to stay away from men like that.
"What the fuck was that?" Chloe asked, scrubbing her hands over her face as Damek slid two glasses with the Czech raspberry soda we loved so much in front of us.
"You okay, Isa girl?" he asked, staring down at me.
I sipped my soda, nodding my reassurance as the carbonation grounded me and reminded me of who I was.
Just Isa.
Nothing special, and the idea that a man who wore a suit and rode in a luxury SUV like that would be interested in an almost seventeen-year-old girl with no makeup on and her hair in two braids was comical.
"It was like you were gone," Chloe said. "You didn't even hear me calling your name."
"I'm sorry," I said with a deep exhale. "I don't know what happened. I've never—"
"Wanted to run across a busy street and jump a man at first glance? Yeah, I'm aware," she laughed. "I couldn't even get a good look at him."
"Me either. The
