So for some odd reason, last chapter wouldn't update the way I had expected it to, so if you missed reading the entire situation when Stef found Christina with Vico, I would definitely go back and read it. Each chapter is crucial to understand where I'm going with this story, so it'll be really confusing if you skip the important parts.

Chapter 10

Stef's POV

After leaving the pier with Christina, the car ride had been a long and silent one. This was mainly my fault. I had been driving around aimlessly, contemplating on what I should do with this girl. The easiest thing would have been to tell Bill to come and get her, to tell him that she had been causing too many problems, which in no way is a lie.

She disappeared on us twice in three days.

But every once in a while, I glance at her face, while pretending to check for cars in the side-view mirror. She still has her arms crossed and is staring straight ahead. Not once, willing to make eye contact with me, but her eyes tell a different story. To my surprise she looks terrified. And even though its dark outside, I can still see the red mark on her left cheek from where Vico hit her.

"Where are we going?" she asks. "You're going the wrong way. The police station is back that way," she claims matter-of-factly.

When I don't answer her, she turns her head to face me, "Uh, hello? I demand to know where you're taking me." The sternness in her voice really makes me want to laugh. I can tell she's frightened when I don't answer her, because she sinks back down in her seat.

Long silence.

She turns to face me again. "Can you let me out of the car?" she asks.

"No," I reply, which causes her face back forward.

Long silence again.

She faces me again, "Look lady, whatever you're thinking about doing. Don't do it, okay. I know people. BIG people. And they know exactly where I've been staying. So whatever plan you've concocted in your head that'll result in my demise, forget it, okay? If anything happens to me, they will come after you. I can promise you that. So, your best bet is to let me out of the damn car, before you do something that you'll regret."

I try my best to keep a straight face and stare at the road, but her soliloquy was too funny, and I have to burst out laughing. What exactly does she think I'm going to do? I wonder.

Christina looks astounded that I think her behavior is hilarious.

She tightens her eyelids together, "Oh my God. Help me Jesus. This woman is out of her damn mind."

I reach my hand over to touch her arm and relax her, but she opens her eyes and starts screaming at the top of her lungs, "Ahhhhhhhh! GET OFF OF ME, YOU PSYCHOTIC BITCH!" She immediately pushes my hand away.

Her screams make me nervous and force me to pull over. "Christina, relax," I say in a stern voice but make sure not to yell, because I know that would only make matters worse.

As soon as I pull over, she tries to open the passenger side door, but I put the safety lock on ahead of time, so that she wouldn't try anything stupid. This seemed to have stressed her out more so, because now she's banging on the glass window attempting to break it.

I'm forced to pull her arms backward, so that she doesn't hurt herself, but she doesn't stop ranting, "Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me. Look, I'm sorry about whatever I did to you to piss you off. But please don't kill me and burry me out here in the middle up nowhere. Please, I'm begging you," she sobbed.

What? was all I could think.

I could tell by her voice that she was seriously frightened of me. So, I pull her all the way back, so that I could see her face fully. Her eyes were shut completely and I can see tear streaks on her face.

I release her slowly and she backs up against the passenger door. She opens her eyes and I can see her looking at me frighteningly.

"Sweets, I wasn't going to hurt you," I try to soothe in my most calm and unthreatening voice.

"Then, where were you taking me?" she asked in between breaths. "The police station was in the other direction." She points behind us.

"I was thinking of what to do with you," I reply, which I suddenly realize was the wrong thing to say.

"Oh my God, you were going to kill me," she covers her mouth so that she couldn't scream, and I can see more tears start to form in her eyes.

I try to reach my hand out to her, but she lifts her arms up in defense mode and shuts her eyes again, as if anticipating an attack.

"Okay, okay. I won't touch you." I reply with my hands up in front of my body, so that she could see that I was harmless. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that."

She opens her eyes and moves her arms from covering her face, but she keeps them in front of her body, as if she is waiting for met to go back on my word. "I just want to go to the police station. Please just take me there. Please," she pleads.

"Okay, okay," I reply to keep her calm. I turn the engine back on, make a U-turn, and start driving in the opposite direction. Eventually I can see that she's no longer crying, but she's still backed up against the passenger door and her eyes are fixed on me."…You know it's not good to sit like that. It's quite dangerous actually."

"I DON'T CARE!" she yells.

This surprises me, because I was only looking out for her wellbeing.

We sat in silence throughout the majority of the drive, until I finally decide to speak again, "Okay…You know, I wasn't going to hurt you. I'm not crazy. I was just laughing because I thought what you said was funny. I didn't mean to scare you." I keep glancing at her while I'm speaking to pick up on her reaction.

"Then, why were you going the wrong way?" she snaps.

"Because I was confused about something and I was thinking about it, while I was driving."

She remains silent, but I was honestly burning to ask her my question, "Why would you think I was driving you out here so that I would kill you?" As soon as I finish asking the question, I pull into the police station's parking lot and put the car in park.

"No reason," she replies and I know that she is lying. My cop instincts tell me that something must've triggered her to react that way. No one breaks out in a mess of tears and throws a tantrum for no reason.

"Are you sure about that?" I ask as I try to put my hand on her knee, but suddenly remember that she's not too good with physical contact.

She sees my hand come close toward her and instinctively moves her knee out of the way. But she calms down when she sees, that I put my hand back to my side, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to try to touch you. I just communicate a lot physically… But why were you so afraid of me? Is it because I'm a cop?"

"No," she says flatly.

"Then what?" She doesn't answer me, and I'm not sure if I should press her anymore than I already have. I know that she's had a tough day. Especially after the pill thing happened, then Vico, and then me. But I ask her again anyway, "Why did you think I was going to hurt you?"

"Because of my mom," she replies and tries to wipe away her tears.

I can't help but be confused. "What do you mean, your mom?"

She let out a deep breath, "She tried to kill me, okay?"

Just as I was about to say something, she continued, "…She got really mad at me one night, and she drove me out into the middle of nowhere. She tried to hit me with a shovel, and I knew that she was going to burry me right then and there. So I ran from her and I never saw her again after that."

It takes me a little while to process what Christina had just confessed. And then suddenly, her reaction to my driving her out into the middle of nowhere makes perfect sense. She saw me as a threat because I was an older woman, her foster-mom, who was angry with her and driving her to an unknown destination with no explanation.

"Look Christina, I'm sorry for making you feel that way. But I promise you that that was not my intention. If I had known about this—"

"It doesn't matter," she shakes her head and leans up from her position against the door, wiping her tears from her eyes with her sleeves.

"Yes, it does matter. If Bill would've told me then I wouldn't have—"

"Bill doesn't know."

I glance at her strangely, "What do you mean, he doesn't know?"

"I didn't even know him then. I didn't meet Bill until a year later, when—"

"You were living on your own," I finished for her.

"No, when I was living with my friends."

I nod my head, even though I didn't see much of a difference in those two statements. She wasn't living with an adult, so she was living on her own to me.

"Okay, can we go inside now, I'm really cold," she says and I can tell she is because her goose bumps are clearly visible. But her tone was almost nonchalant, like she hadn't just been crying just a few seconds ago.

I stare at her for a second, astounded at how she could collect herself in so little time. She acted as if she had not just revealed to me that her own mother tried to burry her alive. She looks at me with her hand going for the door handle, waiting for me to let her out and book her.

But I do something that I never thought I'd do when I left the house in search for her.

I turn my car back on, crank the heat, and start backing out of the parking space.

"What are you doing?" she asks me, with that terrified look back on her face. And it just makes me sad that she still thinks that I would try to hurt her.

"I'm taking us back home. Seat belt please."

She looks at me as if she's about to protest and tell me to let her our of the car and take her in. But after a few seconds of deliberation and a long staring contest with me, she leans back into her seat and pulls the seatbelt over her body.

I wanted to smile at the sight of her actually listening to me, but I didn't want to freak her out as I did earlier. So I do my best to conceal it and continue to drive back to the house.