Rebel With A Cause (19 page)

Until now.

She couldn’t tell how long she vomited for, but when she woke in the morning, her head was on the toilet seat
, and her neck ached terribly.

“Ugh,” she groaned, noticing the strong stench of her extended vomiting session last night. Her stomach heaved, and she quickly flushed the toilet. She sat up and closed the lid, trying to ignore the rolling in her stomach.

“Katie?”
Carter was looking for her. She realised she hadn’t gone back to bed last night, and he might be worried.

“I’m in the bathroom,” she croaked. Her throat felt parched, and talking made it feel like it was on fire.

She heard footsteps approaching, and Carter soon found her crouched on the toilet floor.

“Katie?” he asked urgently. He sounded like he was panicking. “Are you ok?”

She shifted her head so she was looking back at him. “If spending the night on the toilet floor puking my guts out is ok, then yeah.”

Carter grabbed her in a bear hug. He didn’t even seem to mind the disgusting odour.

She relaxed against him. “I feel so guilty. I should have gone straight to the cops,” she said. “Then De would be locked up, away from vulnerable girls.”

Carter squeezed her briefly. “I know, but we’re racers, we do things differently. We can’t involve the cops in any of our business, because if they find out what we do,
we’ll
be the ones locked up. We have to deal with this
our
way.”

Kaitlyn leaned against his chest and sighed. “I just wish there was somewhere that we could go, a city full of racers, one where there’s no cops, and we’re governed by our own rules.”

Carter chuckled. “Yeah, that would be cool. We wouldn’t have to live in secret then.”

They sat there for a while, just holding each other, before they heard a car in the driveway.
Carter tensed in anticipation.

The engine noises suddenly stopped, and the heard a car door click shut. There was a
beep
of a car alarm, followed by a joyous yell.

Kaitlyn relaxed against Carter. “It’s Jordy,” she said casually. “Don’t worry.”

She got up and went to brush her teeth, when a knock on the door reverberated through the empty house.

“Go and answer the door,” she ordered Carter. “Go on. You have to officially meet my mum
sometime
.
”

He frowned.
“Seriously?
All by myself?”

She shrugged and grinned. “You better hurry, they’re waiting.”

She went off to brush her teeth, and Carter went to the door. His shirt was creased, his jeans were rumpled, and he had a gazillion butterflies in his stomach,
but there wasn’t much he could do about that now.

He ran his hands down his shirt in an effort to flatten out the wrinkles, and nervously patted his hair. He reached the door and opened it, to see an attractive woman and a young boy on the front porch. He recognised them as Kaitlyn’s mum, and little brother.

“Hi, you must be Carter,” the woman said amicably. She smiled at him warmly. “I’m Layla, Katie’s mum. This is Jordan, her little brother. It’s nice to finally meet you for real, with no blustering husband around.”

“Uh, it’s nice to meet you, too,” he said, his cheek
s flaming red. He remembered their last encounter, ashamed of his conduct. He’d been a real jerk back then.

Kaitlyn’s mother was laughing. At him, he suddenly realised.

“Don’t worry,” she said smoothly. “I’ve already forgotten about last time.”

Carter nodded. He swallowed nervously.

“So, is Kaitlyn home?” she asked.

Carter nodded, unable to find his voice. He stepped back and held the door open in welcome.

“She’s uh, she’s brushing her teeth,” he said timidly. This was a huge first for Carter. He’d never been speechless in the presence of a woman before. Of course, it didn’t help that the woman standing in front of him
was the mother of the girl he loved.

Kaitlyn’s mother – he
refused
to think of her as Layla – ignored him. Her eyes were scanning the empty lounge room.

“I didn’t realise quite how much work this place would need. It’s going to be quite an expensive do-up.” She shot Carter a sideways look. “Are you
sure
you have enough money for this?”

He shrugged. “Is two hundred and fifty thousand enough for you?”

She gaped. “How on
earth
did you get that much money?”

Carter shuffled his feet. “My parents left me a trust fund when they died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said quietly. He shrugged.

Kaitlyn re-entered the room, the acrid taste of vomit now ousted from her mouth. Jordy ran towards her and she pulled him into a big hug.
Her mother turned around to face her and grinned.

Carter was thankful for the distraction. He hated people always apologising for his parent’s death; as if
they
were really responsible for it.

Truth be told, he still wasn’t sure how exactly his parents had died. Perhaps the car crash story
he’d been told,
was the truth,
but
he didn’t
really
know. Being in foster care, he’d never been able to figure out the truth.
He just had to do his best to move on.

“What are you doing here?” Kaitlyn asked her mother.

Her mother replied, “I thought I’d come by to figure out what needs doing myself. I’ve already pulled a few strings to get the carpet people to come tomorrow, so the builders should be getting here soon.
Once the carpet is done, we can get the tiling guys in for the bathroom and kitchen, and the wallpaper guys can come in on the same day. I have landscapers coming in a few days to take care of your yard, and maybe your driveway. I think we can build you a better garage if you want to as well, but that’s entirely up to you.”

Kaitlyn looked at Carter. Was he getting all this?

“So, we won’t be able to stay here, will we?” she asked rhetorically.

Her mother shook her head. “No, it’ll be too chaotic. You can both come and stay with me and Jordy, or you can go and stay in
an
apartment .
.
I’ve already reserved a room there for you, just in case.”

Kaitlyn was gobsmacked. “Wow, Mum, thank you. You’
ve obviously given this a lot of thought.”

Her mother hugged her and kissed her forehead. “I just want the best for my baby girl.”

Carter watched as the family embraced. He felt so guilty, and he didn’t know why. He felt so out of place. He needed to get out of there.

Kaitlyn looked over her mum’s shoulder and saw Carter silently panicking. She wanted to reach out and grab him, but his eyes kept darting to the door, and she was locked in her mother’s arms.

“Mum, get off me,” she said lightly. “You’re suffocating me.”

Her mother pulled away. “Don’t be so dramatic, Kaitlyn Johnson.”

Kaitlyn sighed and bent down to her brother’s height.

“Hey Jordy,” she said in a hushed whisper, as if she were conspiring with him. “Why don’t you go outside and play with Carter? You like soccer, right? Well, Carter here used to play.”

Jordy spun around to look at Carter.
“Really?”

Carter looked down at Jordy. Here was a young boy, possibly loved soccer, and who loved his parents.
Except he may have just lost his dad.
Jordy reminded him so much of himself, and he couldn’t help being reminded of innocence lost. It was unfair, and he was sure as hell not letting that happen to Jordy.

He cracked a grin. “Yeah, I love soccer. I used to play all the time.”

Jordy’s mouth fell open in surprise. “I didn’t think adults like you played soccer!” he said, astonished.

Carter grinned. “Anybody can play soccer. Do you want to see my trophies?”

Kaitlyn tipped her head to the side and watched the interaction between her on-off boyfriend and her little brother. It was cute, watching them chat away, as if they’d been friends for years. She could tell that there was some kind of connection between them, but she couldn’t think what.

She stayed crouched as Jordy ran over to Carter and jumped up and down excitedly. She watched Carter lead Jordy into one of the empty bedrooms, where Carter’s unmarked boxes sat. Carter had never told her what was in them, but obviously at least one box was full of trophies.

“They’re so cute together,” her mother commented. “It’s really sweet.”

Kaitlyn rose back into a standing position. “Yeah, it is.”

Her mother pulled out her
touchscreen
tablet
and began tapping away. She pulled a stylus out from the side and scribbled something on the screen.

“Right,” her mother said importantly.
“Time to get to work.
We need to start making notes of what we want done, so when the builders get here, we can see if it can be done or not.”

Kaitlyn’s shoulders slumped, and she wriggled her sore neck around. “Sure,” she replied.

“Now, I see you’ve already started ripping up the carpet. That’s good, it means we can see what state the floor is in underneath.” Her mother walked over
to the rolled up carpet, peered over the loop, and grimaced. “Well, we’ll certainly need
to do something about that floor before we can lay any new carpet down.”

Kaitlyn sighed. Her mother was in business mode, and that fact that her daughter was her client, didn’t make her any less formal.

She looked longingly at the bedroom where Carter and Jordy were. She wished she could join them. It would certainly be better hanging out with them and looking at old trophies, than following her mum around like an overly enthusiastic intern.

“Kaitlyn?
Come on, keep up!”

She spun around to see her mother had already started walking through to the kitchen. When she saw that Kaitlyn had noticed her, her mother retreated back into the small dining room.

Kaitlyn sighed again. This was going to be a really long day.

At the end of the day, both Kaitlyn and Carter were exhausted. Thanks to Kaitlyn’s mother, their house had plans in place to be fixed up, hopefully within the week, but in two weeks at the most. Carter wondered briefly how it was possible to renovate a house in a week, but Layla had explained that she’d been working to deadlines for years, and anything was possible if you scheduled it right. She’d showed him a draft Gantt chart on her tablet, and he’d been baffled.

Not that he showed it, of course.

When Layla had finished going over the house with Kaitlyn
, she’d helped them pack what little boxes they had unpacked, and stacked them in Kaitlyn’s car.

Then, she’d driven over to her mother’s house and left it all there. Carter had followed, and drove
him
and Kaitlyn
to Proximity.

As soon as they walked into their studio apartment, Carter collapsed onto the bed.

“Long day, huh,” Kaitlyn stated.
She
,
too
,
was exhausted.

Carter sighed.
“Yeah.”

Kaitlyn frowned. He didn’t
sound
tired. “What’s up?” she asked him. “You know you can tell me anything.”

Carter looked sideways at Kaitlyn. He marvelled at her calm beauty. She reminded him so much of his mother.

“It’s nothing,” he said quietly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Kaitlyn walked over to the bed and sat down next to him. She took one of his hands in both of hers
. “Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”

Carter looked at her striking hazel eyes. They were so intuitive, so knowledgeable, but their innocence was gone.

He wanted to kill De for what he’d done to her.

“It’s nothing,” he repeated. “I was just thinking about De.” He watched her face carefully as she flinched. That was another reason to murder that sick bastard.

“We need to stop him, Carter,” she said morosely. “He’s going to hurt someone again. We can’t let him do that.” There was a faint hysteria in her voice.

Carter pulled her down to lay with him, and she rested her head on his chest.

“I won’t let him hurt anyone else, Katie. We’ll figure out how to
stop him,” he promised.

They lay there in silence for a while, until Carter heard a sniff, and felt Kaitlyn move. He looked down at her
and saw her bring her hand to her face. She was crying.

“Hey, Katie,” he said, “it’s going to be ok. We’ll get through this.”

She sniffed again and sat up. “Will we?” she asked, looking at him with a tear streaked face and wet eyes. “I can’t close my eyes without seeing his face! I can’t sleep without dreaming about that night! I can’t function properly, Carter! I’m exhausted!”