His Pretty Toy by Shanna Handel

Chapter 13

Ashe

I run through the streets, eternally grateful for the soft leather shoes he bought me. The French don’t run; they move slowly through the streets like cream pouring from a pitcher. I get a lot of strange and amused looks, but I don’t stop.

I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t how I’m going to get home. I just know I can’t be with him. Not for another second.

His words run through my mind, no matter how hard I try to quiet them. New Mexico. The desert. Green paint. Hit and run.

Bile rises in my throat.

It can’t be. It just can’t be.

He’s going to kill them.

My sister, Holly, was always the bad girl. It started in high school, sneaking out with her boyfriends, riding in their fast cars, coming home at dawn. My mom was a single mom, working nights as a nurse and my sister took advantage of that, knowing she couldn’t keep a close eye on us.

I focused on my grades, worked my ass off to get a scholarship to college. My weekends were spent studying and volunteering, not dating.

My sister graduated, moving in with her slick, tattooed boyfriend. When she got pregnant with Charlotte, he bounced. She had to move back in with my mom, taking shifts at the Waffle Basket to make ends meet.

She was miserable.

My mom watched Charlotte while my sister partied. I’d come home and help when I could but it meant everything in the world to my mom that I get my degree, so, after a few hours of visiting, she’d always send me back to school.

Then things got better. My sister met a man we thought was decent. Derik. He had a steady job, owned a house. He even drove a dependable car.

A green Camry.

He’s going to kill them.

My sister got pregnant again. She and Derik eloped at the courthouse. The baby was born. My sister named her Ashley in my honor. I still call her ‘baby,’ unable to call her by my name.

When the baby was six weeks old, my mother offered to babysit so they could go on a honeymoon.

My sister always wanted to go to New Mexico. Derik wanted to make her dreams come true. He picked the dates, the place they would stay, the activities they would do. We all thought it was so romantic.

We had no idea it would end the way it did.

My breaths come in deep heaves. I collapse on a bench. I think I’m going to be sick.

It can’t be.It’s too crazy of a coincidence. But it’s true, isn’t it?

It’s true. And Trent’s going to kill them both.

We haven’t seen my sister or Derik in over a year. They never came back from their honeymoon. We never even bothered to look for them, not after we received their letter in the mail.

Sorry there’s been an accident. Burn this after reading and please, don’t try to find us.

All our love

It was written in Derik’s handwriting. They didn’t even mention the kids. I think about my sister every day. A thousand questions go unanswered in my mind, the most pressing one: where is Holly now?

With my mom’s health declining, she was able to care for the kids from her home. It was easier than being on her feet all day doing nursing, so we struck a deal—I go fulltime at my coffee shop, drop out of school and make the money, she cares for the kids.

I don’t know who cried harder the day we moved me out of my dorm, me or Mom.

I didn’t let myself wallow or grieve for my future. Not when little Charlotte kept a smile on her face. She and the baby were the ones who had their futures taken from them. They lost their family.

I just lost a degree.

There’s no doubt in my mind. My sister and her husband were on their honeymoon, messing around, racing around the desert in Derik’s Camry, and they hit Trent’s car, throwing his brother from it, then took off.

After all, my sister and her men have a track record of avoiding their responsibilities, don’t they?

What do I do? What’s the right thing here?

Tell him, a man who I’ve only known a few days the truth, turning my sister in?

But he’s a dangerous man. He’s going to make them feel ten times the pain his brother felt. He’s said as much.

Or do I protect my sister, the mother of Charlotte and the baby. No matter how wrong she was to run and not face the consequences of her actions… she’s my flesh and blood. How can I send her and her husband to jail?

But there’s one thing I know about myself for certain. I’m a bad liar. And withholding information is lying. If I go back there… if I see him again… I’ll have no way to hide it.

So, to protect my sister, I can never see him again.

I’ll keep on keeping her secret. I’ll keep working away to fulfill her responsibilities. And I’ll hold onto the memory of that one perfect night in Paris.