Kid Read online

  Kid

  Novel by Korry Smith

  Kid Copyright © 2018 by Korry Smith. All Rights Reserved.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  Cover designed by Dana Jacoby

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN: 9781980648079

  Imprint: Independently published

  For Madison, the purest soul I’ve been blessed to know.

  Acknowledgments

  This novel goes to the Twilight Fandom who knew and loved this story as Chop and Change. I’m so thankful for every one of you ladies who supported me and these characters. The reviews, the endless hours you spent reading and your continued support in my publishing endeavours.

  Without you, who knows where I’d be.

  Special thanks go out to my good friends Sabrina and Dee. You two continue to push and encourage me with my writing. Your unwavering love and positivity has gotten me through my darkest times as a writer. There’s no words to express how much you’ve impacted my life.

  To my wonderful sister-in-law, Tamara. You’re a blessing in my life and I’m so glad you took a chance to read this crazy little story of mine. Even though, you skipped all the sexy scenes, your support and loves means the world.

  To my brother, David. You were my only ally as kids. We fought a lot but had each other’s back—no matter what. I love you, loser.

  And finally, to my husband, and my partner in crime for life, I know you love me, despite my crazy and manic urge to write. You may not understand it, and hate how obsessive I can get at times, but I know you’ll always be there to support me. I love you, babe.

  To anyone I’ve missed, I want you to know you’re appreciated too.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  “The tragedy is all right there...in the very beginning when he smiles at her. When she instantly forgets. Forgets how dangerous he is.”

  ― Anne Eliot

  Kid

  Chapter One

  It was a simple request.

  I was to steal a car and drive it back to Tommie. He would clear my friend’s debt and give me six hundred dollars in cash. If I did well with this job, he would get me another one, and so forth. There was a good possibility he was lying, but what choice did I have?

  Around one in the morning, he drove me into town and parked his truck down a street from a large, luxurious apartment complex.

  It sounded fancy too: Versante.

  “You see the Chevelle there?” Tommie pointed through the security gate at a red car. “That’s the one.”

  I nodded with confidence, but the anxiety was starting to kick in.

  How the hell was I going to do this?

  Taking the hanger and a screwdriver from him, I opened the truck door and got out. He gave me a smile made from nightmares and sent me on my way.

  Pulling the hoodie over my head, I aimed for incognito but looked more like a twelve-year-old boy trying to be a thug. I squeezed through the holes in the iron gate and walked down the long, ominous sidewalk towards the car. It was sitting by itself, quiet and undisturbed. The sound of my breathing and the shuffling of my feet were music to my ears. It told me I was alive, but still in danger. Tommie kept an eye on me from a distance to make sure things went according to plan.

  The car up close was beautiful, and an older model. I couldn’t say what year, but a few decades. It was shiny, a stunning red with black racing stripes, and whoever owned it, took care of it. There wasn’t a speck of dirt anywhere. Suddenly, the prospects of what I was about to do made me so nervous my hands shook, and my stomach cramped up.

  I took a deep breath and told myself to relax.

  Glancing around for people sitting outside on their balconies or out for a stroll, I steadied my nerves and prepared to get the job done. Removing the hanger out of the back of my pants, I straightened the wire and slid the end of it in between the door and the window. Tommie did a quick tutorial with me, but I wasn’t paying well enough attention.

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I went through a catalog of movies in my head. It didn’t seem that difficult for them, but again, life was real and not scripted.

  Bad things happened to stupid girls like me.

  Pulling the hanger back out, I wiped the sweat from my forehead and tried again. This time, I remembered Tommie talking about finding a hook or a loop.

  Then I felt something.

  Excited, I matched my efforts to my pounding heart. Up and down, bump-bump. Up and down, bump-bump. After a minute or so of doing this dance, jiggling it a bit, and sliding it up and down, I expected the door to unlock, as if it was magic.

  But no such luck.

  The lock wasn’t budging, and the shit was pointless. I wasn't a car thief. I barely even knew how to drive.

  "Damn it!" The wire slipped out from my hand and jammed itself into my palm.

  I leaned back and scanned the parking lot in a panic. Did someone see me? Like seriously, wouldn't that be just perfect? Two minutes into the car-jacking business and I get pinched. Come to think of it; jail wouldn’t be so bad. They offer a comfortable bed and hot food. I’m half-tempted to sabotage this job but think better of it when no one comes to bust me.

  The streets stayed quiet, and everything was clear for now, but for how long?

  Sliding the wire between the window crevice, I was gentle with my movements. My knees were on fire from my crouched position, but I couldn’t move, or I’d lose all the progress I made. My desperation paid off with a click. It was faint, a whisper, but I heard it. Holding my breath, I eased my hand down and slowly lifted the door handle up.

  It opened, and I was halfway there.

  "Hell yeah!" I fist pumped the air and slithered my way into the driver's seat.

  Pulling down the visor, I hoped that the keys would fall into my lap, but once again, movies lied. Accepting the fact that I was going to do it the hard way, I reached into the pocket of my sweater and took out my screwdriver. Cramming it into the crack of the steering wheel column, I pried the plastic away with a vigorous yanking. It popped off to expose the tightly wrapped wires. My brow furrowed as I tried to remember how to go ahead from there.

  What did Tommie say again? Did you start the ignition by twisting the blue with the red? Or was it the black and the red? My eyes narrowed as the colors available to me were pink, purple, and yellow.

  Well, that sucked. I was going to have to wing it.

  Taking the purple and pink, I pulled the wires out the rest of the way and brought them in between my teeth. Tommie said the sheath of the cable made from thin plastic would be simp
le for me to strip. He was right. I uncovered the wire from underneath with one tug. It took me a minute to do all that, but my adrenaline was in overdrive, and I couldn’t see straight. I ended up fingering the wires together, twisting them around each other and manipulating them in ways that didn’t do shit.

  “Come on, you stupid car!” I huffed with exasperation and flung myself back into the seat.

  That was when I heard the click—no, not a click, but metal scraping against metal. It was the cocking of a gun, and it was two inches above my left ear.

  "Get the fuck out of my car!" A man shouted and forced the muzzle deeper into my skull with every gritted word.

  "I wasn’t stealing it."

  Another lie, a reflex or compulsion, but I spoke it more fluently than the truth.

  "The fuck you weren't!” He jabbed me harder with the gun and pushed me sideways.

  As I waited for the pop, I heard the revving of an engine and the squealing of tires. My ride was fleeing the scene and abandoning me there to die. Not that it surprised me. What flipped my world was the seconds that ticked by and the one sentence that would change my life forever.

  “Did Tommie send you?”

  “Yes.” I closed my eyes and braced myself for the bullet.

  It never came.

  Instead, the pressure on my temple eased.

  "Did you cross him?"

  The question threw me, because this guy, who found me trying to steal his car, assumed that I was set up by Tommie instead of being in alliance with him. It was the first time in my life someone didn’t see the worst in me.

  Slowly putting my hands up, I answered as honestly as my habit would allow. “I didn’t do anything to Tommie. We only met a few times.”

  "Oh, yeah? Then why does he want you dead?" The guy flicked the hoodie off my head with the end of his gun, and my cloak of invisibility disappeared, along with my tough girl demeanor.

  “Because my friend owes him money and he offered me a job to clear her debt, but I didn’t mean to steal your car. Not really. I was trying to save my ass, you know? He said if I do this he will give me six hundred bucks. I’m not a thief. I’m just this stupid girl. Shit, I’m so sorry for everything. Just please, don’t kill me.”

  “Okay, okay, calm down for a second, all right?” He snapped, cutting me off mid-ramble, slash plea. “Let me fucking think.”

  That voice. It sounded young but deep, and there was this undeniable draw in every word spoken. My mind had already conjured up this image of a skeezy guy with yellow teeth and meth-induced acne. I turned my head towards the unknown man to prove myself right.

  I stopped breathing.

  There were many things you expect when you stare into the eyes of your killer. Normalcy wasn’t one of them, and most of all, you don’t expect them to be so freaking hot. The way he stood over me like my executioner was threatening, but when I met his gaze, his blue, quartz-like eyes were soft and overwhelmed with sympathy.

  I knew at that moment that he wasn't going to pull the trigger.

  He proved that by lowering the gun from my head and tucking it into the front of his waistband. That one action revealed a lot about who he was, and I wasn’t talking about the many tattoos and the hard stomach that lied beneath.

  “What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

  I rolled my eyes and scoffed at the term of endearment. “Madison.”

  “Madison?” He squatted to get eye level with me. The street light above him had hit his face just right, and I could see every detail: a sharp jaw, full lips, and a perfect nose. The piercing in his eyebrow and lip were meant to distract from how attractive he was.

  It failed miserably.

  The guy didn’t fit the profile of a killer. Well, maybe in Hollywood or on an episode of Criminal Minds, but that’s not real life. Low-life thugs on the news were skinny and ugly and dirty.

  Not him.

  "How old are you?" he asked.

  I went to lie, but something about him made me honest. "Seventeen."

  Assessing briefly, he was deciding what to do with me. He’d caught me trying to steal his car, the logical choice, if not killing me, would be to call the cops. I hoped that he would decide against that and put a bullet in my brain. It was better than having to go back to that shithole of a home.

  Finally, after what seemed like an hour of deliberating, he held out his hand to me. There was a trail of tattoos that started at his knuckles and continued along his arm, creating a colorful, and highly detailed sleeve. The gesture he offered was polite, but I jerked away from it on pure instinct. I didn’t care how insanely good looking my would-be killer was, he put a gun to my head, and should be thought of as dangerous.

  Understanding my reaction to his hand, he retreated and placed it on the side of the car for balance. “I’m Alex.”

  "So?"

  “So…are you hungry, kid?”

  I opened my mouth to talk, but nothing came out.

  He smiled, and that alone took my breath away, but how can something that’s so crooked and imperfect be so perfect?

  “Scoot over.”

  “What?” I was slow to understand, but he didn’t wait for me to catch up, pushing me to the passenger side of the car by just getting in.

  It was either move or have this guy sit on me, and I’m scrambling, my limbs flaccid and refusing to cooperate. Alex helped with a lift and toss method. I had no idea why I didn’t try to get out by opening the door and running for my life, but I stayed in the car with him.

  “Let’s see what you’ve done.” He tilted his head to the side and scrutinized my work. There were wires pulled out and dangling. It was a disaster and a shitty attempt at carjacking. I expected him to yell at me for ruining his car, but he shook his head and laughed. “Fucking amateur."

  I took offense, for whatever reason, and defended myself. “I’m not a car thief.”

  “Yeah.” He examined the plastic cover on the steering wheel. “I can tell.”

  Clutching my screwdriver, I stayed on my side of the car. Alex made me nervous, and it wasn't because at any moment he could kill me. The gun was still within his reach, and I did try to steal his car. No criminal in a ten-mile radius would fault him for that. My anxiety was for something far more trivial than death. I was severely, and stupidly, hard-core crushing on him.

  How could I let this happen?

  Sure, okay. The guy was good-looking. I get it didn’t help the situation but was my infatuation for real or a case of Stockholm Syndrome?

  My eyes roamed over the muscles in his forearms and the intricate tattoos. They swirled and snaked around him, confusing and fascinating me.

  Yeah, no—definitely not Stockholm.

  Alex was sexy. Not only did he have a pretty face, like a GQ model or Scott Eastwood, but he had this raw, unpredictable allure about him. It sucked me in at once.

  I spoke in a lazy slur like I was drunk, and without thought. “I saw it done that way in a movie once.”

  The absurdity of my statement made him laugh even more.

  My mouth needed to stay closed, but my rambling was a direct result of how he made me feel: so crazy and out of control.

  "Why don't you have an alarm system on your car?"

  "Because no one in this complex is crazy enough to steal my car."

  Except me, I was crazy enough.

  "Why do you even bother locking it then?” I frowned down at my scratched palm. “You could have saved me a shit load of trouble.”

  "Jesus!" Alex growled in frustration. "What are you even doing here? You should be at home, scrapbooking or, I don't know, what do kids your age do?"

  I didn't like him thinking of me as a kid. I had breast for God's sake. They weren't enormous or outlandish, but they were perky. He would have more than a handful.

  "I'm not a kid," I said.

  He glanced up at me for the first time since he got in the car. His eyes wandered over my body, and I might have pushed out my chest to showcase the goods,
which was hard to see through my awful sweater.

  “Yeah, kid. You are.” He turned his attention back to my mess, and that was it.

  Deflated by how direct he was, I sunk down in my seat, feeling like an unfuckable mutant. Even Tommie would rather put me on a suicide mission than rape me. I was grateful for that, but seriously, rejection hurt more than I cared to describe. All I knew was that I wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

  Maybe I still could...

  Deciding to spare myself further embarrassment, I opened the door to get out, but as the cold January air wafted in, Alex sprung to life and grabbed my arm. His firm touch sent a thrill through me, and I gasped, shocked into a standstill.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I...I..." Words were failing me. All I could think of was those fingers of his, long and lithe, and where else I would like them. "I was leaving."

  Alex’s grip tightened. "Leaving? Why?"

  "Because..." There was something about him that I couldn’t pinpoint, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. "…I can?"

  "No, you can't."

  "What? Of course, I can. You can't keep me here against my will."

  "You're right,” Alex said, and much to my sadness, he let me go. "I can't keep you here, but what are you going to do? You can't go back to Tommie."

  "Why not?"

  Not like I was going to, mainly since he wanted me dead and all, but I was curious to know why Alex didn’t want me going back to him.

  "Because I'm not giving you my car and you can't go back to him empty-handed. He'll fucking kill you."

  "And what’s it to you? Why do you care whether I live or die?"

  "Because you're just a kid. You shouldn't be out here like this. It's too dangerous. You should be at home with your family wrapped up in a God-damn Snuggie."

  I snorted. "Yeah. Right."

  There was nowhere for me to go. I'd thought about going to California to live with my dad, Diego Perez, but it would be too awkward. I didn’t know him—I’d never even seen a picture! Apart from inheriting his last name, I’d always assumed my dark brown hair and olive complexion came from him. Mom was more of the paler persuasion, with the bleach blonde hair and sea-blue eyes. She hated Diego, and that’s why she took every opportunity to put me down: ‘Your hazel eyes are just like his; a mixture of mud and green piss.’