Rebel With A Cause (24 page)

“Because Kaitlyn wanted me to!” he interjected angrily.

Bekah pulled on his ear. “Shut up and let me finish.”

He pulled away, shutting up and nursing his sore ear.

“The point
is
,” Bekah repeated, “you saved Aria. But no one was there to save Kaitlyn. She had to deal with it on her own, and she feels even more alone, knowing that Aria is here, in this house, getting all the support that Kaitlyn needs. Aria has all of us, Carter. But Kaitlyn has no one.”

“She has me!”

Bekah sighed again. “Don’t make me slap you again,” she warned.

He shut up and scowled.

“Kaitlyn doesn’t have you Carter, not completely. She needs your help; she needs a hug. And yet here you are, alone in a bedroom with Aria, and not out there with your girlfriend.”

“Kaitlyn wanted me to be here!”

Bekah dragged her face down her hands. “Ugh, Carter, you are so frustrating!
You should have said no, or that you’d be out there, with her, when Aria fell asleep. You just don’t understand, Carter, and now Katie feels more alone than ever. She needs someone to love her, Carter, but she can’t tell her parents, so all she has is you.”

Back in the lounge, no one was talking about De. The latest mundane topic was the latest episode of
a pathetic new Australian TV show
.

The mindless chatter was getting ridiculous.

“Guys, what the hell are we doing here?” she asked, exasperated. “We’re supposed to be thinking about ways to stop De, not discussing crappy TV shows.”

Brady smirked. “I agree.”

Kaitlyn felt glad he agreed. It was nice to have a sort of
comrade-in-arms
.

Bekah came back into the living area, washed the empty glass in the sink, and sat next to Katie.

“I think we should leave this to the cops,” Bekah confessed. “We’ve had enough trouble because of De. Let’s just tell them what’s going on, and leave it up to them.”

Kaitlyn was outraged, and Brady snorted.

“Yeah, like the cops will be able to do anything,” he scoffed. “They don’t do shit.”

“Brady’s right,” Kaitlyn blurted. “The cops can’t do anything. It’s too late, and if we go to them now, Carter will end up in jail, Brady will be sent back to prison, and De will get off scot free.”

“Not to mention, the cops play by the rules, and criminals don’t,”
Marcus piped in. “De will outplay the police, and he’ll go free. We need to do
this
ourselves, but keep it on the down low.”

“Impossible,” Bekah replied stubbornly. “There’s no way we can do that. We’ll get caught.”

“No, we won’t,” Carter interrupted. Everybody looked up to see him standing in the doorway, arms folded across his chest.

Bekah tried to reason with her cousin. “Carter, of course we will. De’s too smart for us.”

“De’s only one person,” Carter said evenly. “There are six of us. Seven if you count Aria.”

“We can outsmart him,” T-Man said. “Six heads are better than one. We can set a trap. Trick him into hurting someone
, and then call the cops. The cops will find him doing it, and he’ll be arrested.”

Bekah bit her lip. “But the cops will wonder how we knew, and when they find out what we did, how we framed him, he’ll still go free.”

“The only way is to murder the piece of scum,” Carter spat bitterly. “And we’re gonna have to be smart about it.”

Kaitlyn shook her head. “No. No, I won’t let anyone kill him. He’s not worth going to prison for. I think we should stick with T-Man’s idea, except instead of calling the cops, we let De hurt someone, and they can go to the cops afterwards.”

She looked at Carter meaningfully, and she saw his eyes widen.

“No! No way, Kaitlyn! You are
not
getting hurt again. I won’t let you.”

“Carter,” she pleaded, wanting him to understand. “It’s the only way. If I do this, De could be off the streets in no time. And when Aria comes forward, he’ll be locked away for life. Please, Carter, it’s the only way to stop him.”

“NO!”

She sat back and closed her eyes. Truth be told, she didn’t want to repeat her past experience with De, but she had resigned herself to the fact that she had to. Aria was in no state to go through it again, and she refused to let Bekah go through the same thing
, so that only left
herself
.

She opened her eyes to see Carter glaring at her. She scooted back from the table and walked into her and Carter’s bedroom. She closed the door behind her and slumped down against it. She buried her face in her hands and let out a huge breath.

She didn’t know how long she sat there for, but she must have fallen asleep, because a soft knock on the door woke her up.

“Katie,” she heard Carter say quietly. “Come on, it’s time for dinner.”

She wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks, and looked in the mirror.
There wasn’t much she could do for her puffy red eyes.

Carter opened the door and entered their bedroom. He shut the door behind him and walked towards Katie. He grabbed her neck and pulled her face towards his. Their lips met, and it was the sweetest kiss they’d ever shared.

“I love you,” he said, resting his forehead against hers and staring into her eyes. “I love you so much, Katie, and I want to protect you. I don’t want anyone besides me ever touching you in that way. I can’t let you go through with that ridiculous plan of yours.”

She sighed and closed her eyes. “I have to, Carter. I don’t want to, but if I don’t, he’s going to keep hurting other girls. He hurt Aria, and she won’t be able to go through with that again.”

“I don’t think you’ll be able to either.”

“I have to.” She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“I don’t want Bekah or anyone else going through what I went through.”

“There has to be another way,” he insisted stubbornly. “We can kill him, making it look like an accident. We can make it look like he did it himself.”

She shook her head. “No.
No way, Carter.”

He closed his eyes, as if he was in pain. “Look,” he said finally. “Can we just forget about this? I went out and got
takeaways for dinner
, and it’s just us. Bekah went over to Marcus’ for the night, and Aria’s asleep.”

She pulled away. “I don’t know, Carter. I’m not that hungry to be honest.”

He grabbed her hands and pulled her close to him. He let go of her hands and pulled her into his arms. He rested his chin on the top of her head.

“Come on, Katie,” he said. “You have to eat sometime.”

She closed her eyes. She just wanted to be alone, but Carter wasn’t taking no for an answer.

“Ok,” she groaned, giving in. “What’s for dinner?”

He grinned. “I got us some burgers.”

She raised her eyebrow at him.
“Burgers?
What happened to eating healthy?”

He shrugged. “After the day we’ve had, I think greasy, easy food is just what we need.”

She groaned.
“Only if you go to bed early tonight.
No races.”

He grinned.
“Deal.
I’ll be in bed by ten ‘o’clock.
Promise.”

She rolled her eyes. “Sure you will.”

He faked hurt. “I will! We’ll have dinner and dessert, and then we’ll get ready for bed. It’s eight-thirty now, so we have an hour and a half.”

She shook her head. “It is
way
too late for dinner.”

He chuckled. “No, it’s not. People who work the nightshift
are eating breakfast, so it’s never too late for dinner.”

She followed him into the kitchen, where dinner was laid out on plates. He’d
unwrapped
the burgers and emptied the fries onto the plate.

Carter grabbed their dinners and carried them over to the coffee table in the lounge. She grabbed their drinks, and they settled in front of the TV with their dinner, watching a cheesy crime-solving show.

It was an easy way to end the day.

The next day
, everyone came around again, to discuss strategies. Kaitlyn felt this was a bit ridiculous. What were they, spies?

Secretly, she was also planning to go through with T-Man’s idea. She would go and attract De’s attention, leading him straight into
a trap, and afterwards, she wasn’t going to waste any time crying about it. She was going to go straight to the cops, and that would be that. She wasn’t going to let anyone else get hurt.

She would do it tonight, before De had the chance to hurt anyone else.

“
I say we do some recon,” Brady said.

Just like yesterday, everybody was around the dining room table, enjoying a fanciful notion that they were crime solvers. It was ridiculous, and she scoffed at them.

“Come on, what are we?
The
Spy Kids
?
Newsflash guys, that movie franchise ended decades ago.”

Everyone stared at her.

“What is wrong with you, Katie?” Bekah asked incredulously. “We’re working here, trying to stop Deangelo from attacking other girls, and all you can do is laugh?”

Kaitlyn stood up and walked away from the table. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t stop him. I’m just saying that for us to do a seriously good job, we’re gonna need to
be
serious. You guys are like little kids with the way you’re acting! Get a grip! Real life is not all about planning and executing, it’s about using your gut instinct to do what you can!”

Bekah walked over to Kaitlyn and got in her face.

“What would you know,
Kaitlyn?
” she snapped. “You’re just a baby compared to everyone else here! We have more experience, so you need to go away, and grow up!”

Kaitlyn screamed. “What would
I
know? Hello!
I
was attacked by De!
I
made it away by myself!
I didn’t need anyone to rescue me! I used my gut instincts, and I got away. So stop with all the planning and strategizing! It won’t work.”

Bekah sneered.
“Brat!”

Kaitlyn just stared right back at her. “Look who’s talking.”

Carter had to do something. His cousin and his girlfriend were supposed to get along! Bekah shouldn’t be bullying Kaitlyn!

“Girls, come on,” he begged. “Can’t you just get along? What happened to all of that ‘united by a common
enemy’ kind of thing you girls are supposed to have?”

Bekah scowled. “Not when she’s an attention seeking cow.”

Kaitlyn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m out.”

She walked into the bedroom and changed into a sexy but safe outfit. She had to look the part if she was going to spy and seduce.

She laughed at herself. Only moments ago, she had accused the group of thinking of themselves as spies, and yet here she was, planning to go out and spy. She felt like an idiot, but at least she didn’t
consider herself an amateur crime solver. She knew she was just a seventeen year old girl, and didn’t know if she could pull this off. But she
did
know that she had to try.

She changed out of her ‘fat pants’
for some black and gold patterned tights, an old
Rolling Stones
t-shirt, and a grey denim jacket. She pulled on some black, flat boots and picked up her small school backpack. She pulled all her old schoolbooks out and replaced them with a canister of pepper spray, some deodorant, a digital camera, and some binoculars. She jammed a baseball cap onto her head
and slipped some sunglasses on. She also added a notepad and a pen as an afterthought.

Climbing out of the window, she marvelled at how idiotic her friends were. They hadn’t even noticed that she’d gone.

She got into Carter’s car and drove to her mum’s house. She was lucky that her mum was out, so she could switch the cars over.

Once she was back in her car, she drove to De’s house. His car was still parked outside, but the house was shut up. She cut her engine, and sat back to watch.

As she got out her binoculars, she felt like a fool. She’d just given everyone else crap for
wanting to do this, and she did it anyway.

Groaning to herself, she saw a flutter of movement at one of the windows. It looked like a shadow of a person. She grabbed her notepad and pen, and jotted it down.

She saw the door begin to open, and she wanted to slide down in her seat, but her gut told her that De had seen her, and that she had to play the seductress.

She pulled off her cap, fluffed up her hair, and climbed out of the car. She knew if she took any weapons in with her, she’d be in heaps of trouble, but she did it anyway.