Love Behind Lies

Chapter 9

As soon as Brent was out of my sight I shook Sam’s arm off my shoulders. He stopped walking and looked at me, but I kept walking towards my house.
“Hey! Come back here,” he yelled at me.
“No, I don’t want to,” I said back. He ran up to me and grabbed my arm. He yanked me back towards him so that we were only inches away from each other. His cold breath was mixing with my own. “Do you need something?” I asked, trying to back away from him.
“Yeah, I need you to behave or else we won’t go back to your house.” His hands were on my hips, making sure I didn’t move.
“How do I know you are taking me there right now?”
“If I wasn’t, I would be in really big trouble with Loren if he found out.”
“Why do you even have to bug me and my family?”
Sam sighed and let me go. We began walking again before he answered my question. “Well, Loren thinks your sister is hot and then we realized that Nick’s dad used to work with your dad until your dad got him fired.” Sam paused. “So, Loren wants to get to know your sister and Nick is just mad at your family.”
“What about you and Nate?”
“We both just think you’re cute.” He laughed at that. Then he grabbed my hand as we were walking.
We walked in silence for a while and all we could here was our footsteps. I tried to pull my hand from his but he just held on tighter.
“Can you please let go of me?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“No,” Sam replied, as if it was obvious.
“Why not?”
“I want to hold your hand for as long as I can before I have to let you go back to Brent.”
“Well I don’t want to hold your hand.” I was lying. I really didn’t mind, which was scaring me. I pulled as hard as I could, but my hand didn’t move. Then I stuck my leg out and tripped Sam. He fell to the ground and my hand came free.
“What was that for?” he asked.
“For not letting go of my hand,” I replied, trying to hold back my laugh. I started walking again but he jumped up and wrapped his arms around me so that I couldn’t move. Then he leaned down a little bit and whispered in my ear. “You may think it’s funny, but tripping me was a very bad idea, Catherine.” Sam’s breath was sending shivers all over my body.
“And why is that?” I asked.
“You didn’t listen to me and you let go of my hand.”
“And your point is…?”
“Shut up!” Sam shook me. “I don’t care what you think, but now you are in in deep shit. We are going to turn around and go straight back to Loren. He will know how to properly punish you. It’s easy to do now that we know how terrified you are of knives.”
“You promised Brent that you would bring me home,” I said a little worried that Sam was being serious.
“I don’t care. I don’t have to listen to anybody right now. You are coming with me whether you like it or not.”
I struggled against his grip around me, but I couldn’t move. Sam was too strong for me. “What do I have to do to make you bring me back home?” I asked sadly, knowing that I had lost the battle.
“Oh, so now you will listen?” he asked me.
“Just tell me what I have to do.” I was not happy.
“Well you could let my hold your hand and bring you home safely and when we get there, you are going to kiss me.”
“No!! I am not doing that! Are you crazy?”
“Okay, then I will bring you back to Loren.” He smiled, knowing that he was going to get his wish.
“Fine. But nothing else.”
“We’ll see.”
He slowly let go of me and grabbed my hand. We began walking again without talking. It seemed like forever, but we finally managed to reach the fence that surrounded my house. Sam stopped walking and he let go of my hand and grabbed my shoulders, turning me so that I was facing him.
“You happy?” I asked Sam.
“I will be after you kiss me,” he replied.
My smile vanished. “Do I have to right now? Or can we wait until I see you again?” I asked, pleadingly with puppy dog eyes.
“I guess it doesn’t really matter, but you have to promise me that I will have a kiss from you before the week is over,” he said with a sigh. “I’m not letting this go, just so you know. I’ll talk to you and kiss you at school if I have to.”
“Fine. I promise.” I said. “Speaking of talking to me at school…”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean, you seem so nice at school. Making sure I was okay and everything. Your personality is totally different now.”
Sam looked confused as he tried to figure out how to respond. “You are the one who if being stubborn now. I am just trying to do my job.”
“And why do you keep running into me in the hallways?”
“Because I feel like it,” Sam said, looking away.
“Whatever.”
Sam let go of my shoulder and we walked towards my house. When we reached the ladder, I said goodbye and I climbed up to my room. When I reached my window, I slowly lowered myself into my room and shut the window. Finally I was home safe. I then realized I should probably call Brent.
“Cat? Are you okay?” Brent answered on the first ring.
“Yeah. I am home. Where are you?” I asked him.
“I am just outside the fence to your house. I will be there soon. Just let me say goodbye to Evan.”
“Okay.”
“I’m sorry Cat.”
“It’s okay.”
The line went dead and I shut my phone.
I went downstairs and found my mom working at her desk in her office and my brothers watching T.V. in the living room. There was no sign of Margaret.
“Where’s Margaret?” I asked my brothers as I walked into the living room.
“She’s upstairs working on homework. Why?” Oscar asked.
“No reason. William, can I talk to you?”
“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” William responded.
I went back to my room and shut the door. A few minutes later William walked into my room.
“Where the hell were you?” He demanded.
“In the woods,” I replied as if it were no big deal.
“Doing what?” William asked throwing his arms in the air.
I then proceeded to tell Will everything that happened. He looked worried.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t have time to call you! They wouldn’t even let me talk to Brent, let alone call you! I’m sorry.”
“Well, I’m not letting you leave the house anymore without me knowing about it.”
“Okay.”
“If the rest of the family had known you left the house again, we would have gone crazy. I hope you know that. I can’t believe you! You go from being a perfect angel one week to a rebel the next. This isn’t you Katie.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I’ll try to be safe.”
“You better do more than try or else I’m telling mom everything.” Then Will got up and left my room, closing the door with more force than necessary.
Well, that went well, I thought to myself. I didn’t know that Will was so protective of me.

I decided that I really didn’t want to go to school on Monday. I see Sam every day in the hallway and I really don’t know how to deal with him. Why can’t Brent be a normal teenager and be able to talk to me without this spy shit following us around? I would only have to worry about whether or not Brent is my actual boyfriend or not. My life is becoming too stressful.
I sat there thinking about all of this, when there was a knock at my window. My heart jumped and I got up to open it, happy to see Brent.
“Hi,” Brent said, as he climbed through the window.
“Hi,” I replied. As soon as he was in my room, safe, he gave me a big hug. I felt much safer than I had earlier tonight. We stood in the middle of my room hugging for what seemed like forever.
“Sorry,” Brent whispered into my ear.
“For what?” I asked.
“For getting you into this. It wasn’t my idea to use you, but I am really glad that Evan decided you would be good. I think we are going to get along really well. I just wish…” Brent trailed off.
“Wish what?” I asked curiously.
Brent looked at me, a pained expression on his face. “Nothing. Never mind.”
I looked at him confused, but he let me go and walked away. “Alright. Well don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I trust that you will keep my safe no matter what.”
“You don’t need to worry. I will always keep you safe.” We sat down on my bed that was in the corner of my room, closest to the door. We leaned against the head board and relaxed.
“So tell me what happened to you tonight? What did Loren and those guys do?” Brent asked, grabbing my hand.
“Uhmm, they just asked me some questions.”
“Please just tell me what they did to you. I know you’re stubborn. You didn’t give into them easily. Loren hesitated when he said you were a good girl for them.”
I winced. “Well I didn’t want to answer their questions. So I guess I was being stubborn. But then I did and the questions weren’t too bad, and I made sure to answer them carefully.”
“I’m sure you did fine. But you still haven’t told me how they made you answer the questions. How did they threaten you? You can tell me. I knew they wouldn’t let you get away easy.”
“I am strongly terrified of knives,” I answered.
“So I assume they figured that out and used it against you.”
I could only nod as I replayed the earlier events in my head, making it harder to take in air as my breaths became short. Brent wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into him. “It’s okay, Cat. No more knives tonight. But I am curious, and if you’re willing to share, why you so scared of them?”
“It’s really lame. But when I was younger, my siblings and I were all home alone and Will was in charge. Anyway, he and Margaret thought it would be funny to watch a scary movie even though our parents wouldn’t let us. I don’t even know what movie we watched, but the bad guy was known for using knives as his weapon and he usually carved words or pictures into his victims’ faces. It was probably the worst movie for any of us to watch, especially for me, Thomas, and Oscar. We couldn’t fall asleep and I made William hide all the knives in the house. I had nightmares for months and I wouldn’t talk to Will for a while because he was joking around, trying to scare me, with a knife and he accidently cut my arm a little bit. He felt so bad afterward because I ending up having to get stiches, but ever since then, knives scare me.”
“Yeah, I would be scared of knives if I were you too,” Brent said, making me smile. “I’ll make sure to keep knives away from you.”
“Thanks,” I said, and cuddled in closer to Brent unconsciously. His arms tightened around me.
“What happened with Sam, on the walk home?” Brent asked.
“Nothing. Sam and I just walked home.” I said, a little too quickly.
“You know you can’t lie to me. Tell me what really happened.”
“Well he wanted to hold my hand, but I wouldn’t let him and then was going to bring me back to Loren. Then I promised that he could hold my hand.”
“Cat, I know there is more. Tell me. I won’t be mad.”
“He made me promise that I would kiss him before the end of the week.” I smiled sheepishly and I could feel the blood rise to my cheeks.
“Ahh, I see. So did you just kiss him when you got home?”
“No. I didn’t want to. I was too mad.”
“That’s okay. Was it really that hard to tell me that?”
“No.” I laughed a little and he squeezed me again. Then he slowly turned toward me and grabbed my chin. Our faces were only inches apart. My heart was beating rapidly. “Cat, I really like you,” he whispered to me and then he gently kissed my lips.
His other hand reached around my back and pulled me closer to him. Brent was very gentle with me. Almost as if I was a piece of glass. He gently rolled me so I was on my back and he let himself lay gently on top of me. I barely even felt him move his hand from my chin, along my jaw line to my neck. I have never been kissed like this before. I felt like I was floating and everything seemed to be moving in slow motion.
Our lips finally parted and we were both breathing heavily. He lay down next to me and pulled me into him again, my head resting on his chest. We sat there, so many things going through my head, I almost didn’t hear him whisper, “I really do like you,” again into my ear. I looked at him and he looked at me. His eyes were like the sky when there were no clouds, a really light but bright blue. “Sorry for kissing you,” he smiled. “I couldn’t help myself.” He kissed my nose and I smiled. Brent then let go of my hand and stood up, leaving me on the bed. He walked over to the other side of the room where his backpack was sitting on my desk.
He unzipped the front pocket of his bag and took out a small box. “Evan said that I could give this to you. It’s a laser ring. It can burn through anything. If I give this to you, it will make me feel better when I’m not around out, especially since I am barely ever around you during the day.”
“Thanks,” I said and he took my hand again. Brent slipped the ring over my finger and it fit perfectly. It was beautiful too. He kissed my hand and then pulled me up to him. He hugged me again and then let me go.
“Do you want to know how it works?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I responded. I was anxious to see how it worked.
“Ok. So say you were tied up or something with chains. All you have to do is rotate the diamond clockwise and it will start to laser through anything in its path.” Brent pulled on some rope from his backpack. He rotated the diamond and the rope began to burn.
“That’s cool!” I stood up and walked over to where he was standing.
“Yeah, but you have to be very careful with. Promise?”
“Yeah, I promise.”
“Show me,” he said, smirking. I pulled his head down towards me gently and kissed his soft lips, smiling. He pulled me even closer and deepened our kiss. We broke apart after a short moment and then he hugged me, burying his face in my hair.
“I should probably go,” Brent said with a sigh. “I’ll see you later. Text or call me if you need anything.”
“I will, and Brent?”
“Yeah?”
“What do I do about Sam? Should I just ignore him?”
“Oh, yeah. I don’t want to get yourself into trouble, so just be safe and do what you think is best. I know that you won’t fall for him. Call me if you need any help.” Brent started to walk to the window but turned around suddenly. “Oh! I almost forgot. You have to rotate the diamond clockwise for the laser to work and then if you rotate it counter-clockwise it calls me. That way you can reach me even if you don’t have your cell phone. Also, if you pull the actual stone out, it clicks and it send a message to my phone telling me where you are. That way if you can’t call me I can still find you.”
“Okay. I think I got it. Thanks so much, Brent.”
“You’re welcome. Bye Cat. Sleep good okay? And try not to think about what happened tonight with the other guys.”
I grimaced, immediately remembering the knives. “Okay. Bye Brent.” I said and then he was gone down the ladder. I already missed him. I didn’t know how much I was really falling for him until he kissed me. Now I’m just confused on where we stand, but I guess I have plenty of time to figure that one out. I just hope he doesn’t hurt me, or his work doesn’t interfere too much with our relationship.
I’ve never developed feelings for someone so quickly, but I really did like Brent. He was super nice from the very beginning and I haven’t stopped thinking about him. I miss his presence. How am I supposed to go a whole weekend without seeing him? Maybe he will want to go out sometime this weekend. Plus I had to get some more details about this job that I am taking.
My mind started to drift elsewhere and I soon found myself wanting to fall asleep so my mind could actually shut down. I couldn’t get a certain kidnapper out of my head. Or the thought of actually kissing him. Or his dark blue eyes, or the way I felt with is muscular arms wrapped around me… I was scared my emotions were going to take over for me, which I didn’t need with Brent hovering over me. I guess only time will tell.