Chapter Three, or 'The Reason Boys Should Never Be Given Keys'

There are points in a girl's life when all she can do is close her eyes, grab a handhold and pray to God she'll feel the sweet, sweet ground again.

This was one of them.

"Reid, slow down," Tyler gritted as we rocketed around another corner. Squinting, I could see Reid's hands on the wheel, fingers half-covered by retro black cut-off gloves. His sleeves were rolled up, and the tendons in his forearms stood out as he leaned back in his seat.

"Yeah! Woo-hoo!" I took it he wasn't planning on slowing down.

"Fucking hell," Tyler snarled, "if you crash my car to impress some-"

"Shut up and enjoy the ride, Baby Boy," Reid called, and I could practically hear his grin. Losing all hope, I started my whole deep-breathes exercise.

"Oh god," I was muttering. "I am gonna KILL this boy." Apparently
I wasn't the only one with excellent hearing in the car, because Reid shot me a quick middle-finger. Tyler whacked him in the back of the head.

"Is it impossible for you- holy shit, watch out!- to be in ANY way polite," he shouted. I heard a snort.

"Where's the fun in that?"

And now comes the awful part. The horrible, terrible, no-good part that I really, really did not want to admit. Despite the terror, despite the annoyingness of the driver…

It was…

Oh, fine.

It was kinda fun.

There, see? I said it. Thought it. Whatever.

Let no one tell you I am immature.

Finally, finally we got onto the residential streets and Reid slowed to a mild 40 mph as opposed to, oh, 90? I sat back, and, able to think coherently again, remembered why I had refused the front seat.

Well, other than the fact that I seriously doubted I would be able to sit beside this kid I had known for only about thirty minutes without causing myself a world of pain. I hear it's frowned upon to disembowel teenagers these days, so I figured I should avoid temptation.

It was his scent.

Well, it was all of their scents, but his especially. Something… something strange. Something I couldn't place. It was like… God, I don't know. Like honeysuckle and iron and a faint, heady smell that made the animal in me want to either run with its tail between its legs or rip something's throat out. It was practically nothing, this smell, but… it was just enough. The other three boys had it too, but they were wearing some kind of cologne that seemed to mask it more than on Reid. Or maybe I'd just gotten a better sniff of the blond. Either way, there was definitely something off-putting about his smell. It made me both desperately curious and desperately nervous, both of which I mentally crushed without hesitation: I could not afford to take any risks. Not after almost getting caught back in California. It didn't matter how enticingly, dangerously different these… these Sons of Ipswich smelled; there was no way I could compromise myself in any way.

How to accomplish this?

The answer was easy. Simple. Embarrassingly juvenile, but I explained that away by telling myself it was the only option. (And by completely, blatantly ignoring the unhelpful little voice in the back of my mind that told me it knew perfectly well that there were other, more teenage-girl-ish reasons for doing what I decided to do.) I would simply avoid them. All of them, but Reid more than the others. It would solve the problem of my possible future in juvie for first degree murder, as well as the urge to both fight him and discover what made him smell so… so… so other. And, okay, fine. It would stamp down the stupid, purely hormonal attraction that wouldn't seem to go away, despite the whole almost-got-us-killed-by-DWS (Driving While Stupid, coined by yours truly) thing.

So that was that.

Yeah, like that's ever that.

Quashing my doubts, I directed Reid to my house and thanked him, politely, I assure you, for the ride. Tyler waved goodbye, and Reid started to say something, then gave a fractional pause that I just barely caught. His eyes, those startlingly blue eyes, seemed to narrow just a tad, and I felt the familiar rush of fear in my gut. I knew that look.

Suspicion.

But why? I had given him nothing, no reason to suspect me. There was no way he could know anything.

"Yeah, see ya," he finished, recovering completely. With that, the truck turned the corner and was gone. I went slowly to my new house, my home that I didn't think would ever really be my home, and stood for a moment on the porch. My heart was pounding, the blood rushing to my head. I pressed a hand to my temple, and shook my head sharply.

Stupid. This was stupid. There was nothing to be afraid of. He was just a teenager. Sure, there was something weird about his scent, but that could be anything. Hell, it could be the fabric of his clothes polluting his smell. That could be it. That could be.

Still, as I finally pushed open the door and walked in, I was remembering the utter, animal-like terror of being hunted, of being caught. The feral feel of running, running, turning, cornered, fighting, fighting, falling. Something I had never felt, and never wanted to feel. I had come close, too close, in my home in California only a few months ago.

And now, on the other side of the country, I found yet another reason to stay away from the Sons of Ipswich.

Because if Reid suspected me, then who was to say the others wouldn't, too?

"So how was it, Furball?"

"Fine, Dad."

"Make any new friends?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Are they nice?"

"Sure, Dad."

"How are your classes?"

"Fine, Dad."

"Are you suicidal?"

"Yes, D- Hey!" My father, so happy here, tossed me a popsicle with a grin.

"It's alive," he shouted. "Not just a robot!" I stuck my tongue out at him from my seat on our new couch, opening the wrapper of the popsicle. Taking a lick, I focused on my father's smile, and pushed all thoughts of the night, the hunt, and clear blue eyes firmly out of my mind.