When the Night is Over (Blackbird Series Book 1) Read online

  When the Night is Over

  Lily Foster

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part One : Romeo, Meet Juliet

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part Two : Plan B

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part Three : A Sort of Homecoming

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Also by Lily Foster

  Helpful Links

  Prologue

  You Don’t Know Me Anymore

  The scenery whips by in a blur of brown branches and gray asphalt. I’m numb, so I can still think about today from the vantage point of a nameless spectator, as if it wasn’t me watching you. The feelings, they’ll come I guess, but for now it’s better like this. I can dissect every moment, view each and every one of them in still frame.

  A chance encounter? No, I can’t call it that. A sighting, that’s all it was. You had no idea I was there—that we were there. I’ve imagined the reunion, conjured up countless fairytale versions of how it would go down. But not one of my daydreams played out like today’s reality: a nonevent.

  What was that when you turned her way and smiled? And when she gave you a playful swat on the shoulder, you shook your head and laughed. Were you just giving her something in return, being easygoing and friendly, or is it her? That girl with the golden hair, is she someone to you?

  I willed you to look my way. Every muscle in my body coiled tight, teeth clenched and brows narrowed in concentration. I thought my telepathic energy would zip through the air and land on you, that I still had the power to reel you in. When it didn’t work, I was tempted to scream your name, drop the bombshell. But the moment passed and you just kept on walking.

  And what if you had turned your head? What would you see? What would you have done once you recognized me, a ghost from your past?

  I caught my reflection in the lobby window after you passed by without a backward glance. Couldn’t help but compare myself to the shiny penny walking beside you. That girl, she is California. She’s tangerine flavored optimism, animated and bubbling over. And me, the one you left behind? I’m western Pennsylvania in the dead of winter: barren, disillusioned and weary. Not even twenty years old, but I’ve witnessed and experienced more than most do over the course of a lifetime.

  “We should get going, Charlotte. Long drive ahead of us.”

  I follow, push my precious cargo while weaving around the young, carefree people crowding the narrow sidewalk as they chat and catch up with one another. Suddenly the noisy banter and the crowd feel oppressive, suffocating. I want out but I’m moving in slow motion. There’s a weight pushing down on my shoulders, and my steps are sluggish in boots that feel as if they’ve been filled with sopping wet earth.

  I knew seeing you again would be painful, but I truly believed I was stronger than this. No, just one look and I’m sixteen again.

  I remind myself there are good memories from that time: dizzying laughter, soft touches, words spoken in hushed tones and breaths that were hard to catch. But those are all buried deep in the muck of that riverbed now, and I can’t drag them to the surface for the life of me. When someone you love turns their back on you, it does that. It eclipses everything that was good.

  You turned your back on me.

  I should be used to it by now.

  Part One : Romeo, Meet Juliet

  Chapter One

  Charlotte

  “Why him? I don’t get it.”

  “Hmm, what?”

  “That boy you’re always staring at has a giant stick up his ass. Meanwhile Adam over there, one of the few boys in this school who isn’t a total Neanderthal destined to work in a steel factory, follows you around like a puppy and you ignore him.” Daisy turns my chin, giving me no choice but to abandon the object of my fascination. “Earth to Charlotte Mason.”

  “I like to look, that’s all.” Flicking the strap of her backpack off her shoulder, I add, “And for the record, that Neanderthal is in the honors program…No different from you or me or Adam.”

  Daisy huffs out a breath, grabbing her bag up off the floor. “Is not.”

  “Yes, he is. You’re judging him because of his…I don’t know, his clothes, his attitude—”

  “The fact that he never seems to be carrying a book, that he doesn’t appear to own a comb, that he’s twenty-four-seven surrounded by girls who I know for a fact can barely read.”

  “He doesn’t need a comb.”

  We both turn to check him out. No different from any other day, he’s the center of attention without even trying. Leaning back against the lockers, he offers a lazy smile to some girl. She’s resting her hand on his shoulder, leaning in close to tell him something private.

  Daisy’s right, his hair just might be in need of a comb, but the way the longish strands shade his face, leaving just one steel blue eye visible to his adoring fans—it works.

  With satisfaction, I note that this girl is vying for his attention but not holding it. Two guys in football jackets cackle while one shows him his phone screen, and he bursts out laughing along with them. The football players seem beefy, like stuffed sausages standing next to him. He matches them in height, but his muscular build is leaner.

  And though I’ve never seen him barreling over an opponent wearing school colors, I know he’s powerful and strong. I’ve seen the boy unload truckloads of merchandise at the hardware store—enormous bags of feed or fertilizer or whatever—tossing them as if they weigh no more than a feather. I’ve open-mouth stared from across the street, eyes glued to the muscles that strain and flex beneath his snug thermal shirts. Most people would be bundled up in a parka, but it has to drop below twenty degrees or so for him to wear even a fleece-lined flannel. He’s tough, impervious to the elements.

  He’s smiling now, which makes me smile. Seeing him happy is rare from what I’ve observed, and it’s infectious. So when his eyes lock on mine in a way that punches the air from my lungs, I know I should turn away but I can’t. In that split second his smile drops and his laughing eyes turn stone cold. He makes me feel stripped down and ashamed.

  “Let’s go,” Daisy whispers, tugging on my wrist with urgency when the bell rings. “What the hell was that?” she says on an exhale as we rush into our last period class.

  I shrug, pretending I have no clue what’s up, when in truth I have a fairly good idea as to why Simon looked at me the way he just did. The name Wade was never spoken in my home without a curse word preceding it. Makes sense to assume he’s grown up on a steady diet of hatred for my family in return.

  I was just a kid, so this Hatfield and McCoy idiocy is ancient history as far as I’m concerned. Whatever it is that happened, I wasn’t there, I had nothing to do with it. He has no right to hold some stupid grudge against me, or to look at me the way he does. He’s wrong.

  He’s wrong about me.

  Simon
/>   I watch her every damn day, and I hate myself for it.

  What is she doing here? She lives one town over, the decidedly better of the two that feed into our school district. On top of that, her father owns the only car dealership in Fayette County. She has no business working the ass crack of dawn shift every weekend at the diner.

  Probably my imagination, or just my frustration and anger run wild, but it seems like every time I go to unload a delivery, to shovel the sidewalk, or to arrange whatever seasonal goods my boss wants displayed—rock salt at the moment—she picks that exact same time to take a break. She doesn’t smoke, doesn’t check her phone. No, she just steps outside like she’s doing right now, hugging herself and shifting on her feet to keep warm, watching her breath float up as she exhales out into the cold. Not two minutes later, she fixes her gaze back to the ground, smoothes her apron and skirt down over her hips, and heads back inside.

  Her mere presence ticks me off. Poor little rich girl. The way she smiles at everyone and makes small talk? It’s fake as shit. I used to grab lunch at the counter during my break, but I don’t anymore.

  That’s the kind of place where I belong, not her. The short-tempered cook and those older, world-weary waitresses are my people, but right off the bat she wormed her way in. Not a week later and she was already their little mascot, the one they watched over. I couldn’t stomach it. It’s the same with the customers. Rushing in from the cold, they greet her with a smile. I can see her through the plate glass window of the restaurant, pausing to laugh and joke with the regulars, or stopping to fawn over the babies in their high chairs. When it’s still dark outside, the bright lights in the diner make it easy to see her every move, the expression on her face so clear it’s as if I’m standing right beside her. And I can see their faces too. She thinks she’s special but she’s not. I’ve witnessed middle-aged men smiling at her in a fatherly way, only to ogle her ass like it’s a medium rare porterhouse the second her back is turned.

  What burns me most, though, is the little ritual she’s established now that the frigid February weather has settled in. I start my workday early, but not as early as she does. I pull up outside the hardware store at six-thirty, and that’s when I see her, stealing outside with a to-go cup in one hand, a paper bag in the other. Breakfast for Rudy Wallace. The guy looks like he’s pushing a bad version of fifty with his stooped posture, missing teeth and roughened skin, but I know for a fact he’s not even ten years older than me. Nothing but a loser junkie who—because of her—has recently made a habit of trolling this street. I want to knock the last of his remaining teeth down his throat for it, for forging some kind of twisted relationship with her.

  Does it make her feel better? To be charitable to people like Wallace, or to work when she clearly doesn’t need to? When she has everything just…handed to her? She’s a puzzle I can’t figure out, and at the same time, even sparing her a second thought makes me want to punch myself in the face. Why do I even give a shit?

  Sometimes I catch sight of her walking across the parking lot at the end of her shift. Her head is usually cast down. She looks at the pebbles, kicking a few as she makes her way towards her car, never in a rush. And that car—a little compact thing, but shiny and new. I want to look away, but my eyes always zero in on the Mason Motors logo. It feels like a kick to my gut every time.

  She carries that name, and for that alone I can hate her.

  Chapter Two

  Charlotte

  “Eyes on the road, gorgeous.”

  The wooly mammoth-sized jerk and his buddies have the nerve to laugh as I crouch down to pick my stuff up off the floor.

  I hate Mondays.

  No, usually I look forward to returning to school after the weekend, but this morning I’m dragging ass. I look up when I can still hear them cackling from a good twenty feet away.

  Simon and three football players are stopped in front of Sienna’s locker. Sienna is the captain of my dance team. She’s kind, she’s beautiful and she’s a great dancer. I’m pretty sure the entire student body has a crush on her. Sienna shoots me a sympathetic smile before knocking one of the guys on the shoulder hard. He stops laughing, looks over at me still down on the ground and gives me a head nod. It’s a lame substitute for an apology, but it’s all I’m going to get. Sienna bestows an approving smile on her loyal subject and he beams back at her like a damn puppy. I wish I wielded that kind of power. Then she turns to Simon, but his attention is elsewhere. Ugh, his eyes are fixed on me. Hard eyes. My hands shake as I finish gathering my belongings. He rattles me. What’s worse is he knows it and uses it against me.

  The way he rakes his eyes over me and then shakes his head is becoming familiar. It’s as if I’m being appraised, and the sum total of who I am is deemed severely lacking. The fact that I willingly risked running into him yesterday is testament to how desperate I was.

  Making my way into enemy territory, I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw a different clerk at the register, a woman. I wandered around for a few minutes before going back up front to ask for help. Just my luck, it was Simon putting a fresh roll of tape into the cash register.

  “Can I help you with something?” he asked as he clipped the roll into place. The smile died on his lips when he looked up to see me standing there. I wasn’t smiling either. My nerves were on edge, I hadn’t gotten more than two hours sleep the night before, and I didn’t want help or anything else from Simon Wade.

  “I need a lock, like a chain.” My words were clumsy as I motioned with my hands to describe the item I was looking for.

  He cleared his throat. “Something with a key? A deadbolt?”

  “No.” I shook my head, looking away. “Simple. Something I can install by myself, I guess.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. When I looked back up, he asked, “You need to put this on a door?”

  He studied me, waiting on my response, but the words were trapped in my throat. I felt as if he could see right through me, as if he knew exactly where I needed to install a lock and why. Eyes narrowed, two deep lines etched between his brows, just waiting for me to confirm what he already knew.

  “Look, I’m on break…Just a basic chain lock. Do you have them?”

  He was back a minute later with the lock and some extra screws. “These are sturdier than the ones that come in the package.”

  He rang up my purchase and handed me my change without another word. When I took the bag from his outstretched hand and our eyes met, his were cool and impassive. Screw you, Simon. Did my look convey what I intended, or did my flaming red cheeks and shaking hands give me away?

  After work I slipped in through the garage to bypass the living room. When I pulled in, I saw my brother and half a dozen of his friends sprawled out on the couches drinking beer and watching football. Typical Sunday. I could hear my brother cursing out the referee over a blown call and Wes asking someone to grab him another beer from the fridge. I went right to work installing the lock.

  Wes Keller would not be tucking me in again tonight.

  Christian doesn’t like my company, but he doesn’t like to be alone. Sometimes my brother just has a few of his boys over, but more often than not it’s a full-on blowout. When Saturday nights involve kegs and body shots, I normally hide out at Daisy’s, but this weekend she was out of town with her parents. Without that option, I was stuck eating cold pizza and catching up on homework in my room, watching the clock and praying they’d clear out soon. When midnight passed and the music was still blasting, I put my earbuds in and tried my best to fall asleep.

  Wes has been a fixture in our home for as long as I can remember. What’s more, he’s consistently shown me kindness. I can still remember Wes helping me carry my fifth-grade science fair project to school. He made sure I got my display board into the classroom in one piece before heading off down the road to the high school. And before I started driving, Wes used to catch me at the bus stop and give me a ride home when it was raining. Sometimes he�
�ll pop over after his tour just to hang out, entertaining me with wild stories that seem to happen on a regular basis when you’re a police officer. He’s the one who thinks to ask if I’ve had dinner, and orders take-out when he sees the refrigerator is empty. And Wes is the only person who will step in and correct my brother when he’s being miserable. He’s the only one Christian will listen to.

  He wasn’t acting all that weird. Being freaked out is crazy on my part. This is what I’ve been telling myself.

  With the party still raging, Wes knocked on my door and came in, sitting on the edge of my bed as he pulled out an earbud. “What are you listening to?”

  “Nothing, just classical. Trying to drown out the noise.” I burrowed deeper into my comforter when his glassy eyes moved down and away from my face. “I have to be up early.”

  “I hear you. I’ll see what I can do to clear the place out.” I shrugged, knowing there was nothing anyone could do if my brother was holding court. Smiling, he asked, “How was work today?”

  “Fine. I like it.”

  “You make good tips there?”

  “Decent, I guess.”

  “I’ll stop in next time I’m on a weekend shift.”

  “That’s not in your area, though, right?”

  He reached over and ran a hand through my hair, twisting the ends between his thumb and index finger. “It’s a little bit out of my way, but I’d like to see you in action.”