Losing Nuka (Litmus Book 1) (4 page)

His hands start in my hair before running down my arms to my fingertips. I struggle to find my breath as he starts raising my hands above my head, pushing his body harder against mine. His grip almost becomes painful as he pins my hands against the wall, his mouth never leaving mine.

Loud footsteps approach from the right. Pulling my head away to the sound, breaking our lips apart, I’m suddenly staring down the barrel of a gun. I recognise the blond guy with thick-rimmed glasses from yesterday as the one holding it to my head.

My eyes go back to Brett, the lustful look from before is gone and it’s replaced with one of anger. His voice comes out gruff and demanding. “What do you want with Cade?”

-4-

SECURITY

“What?” I choke out.

“What do you want with Cade?” Brett asks again through gritted teeth. “My friend here won’t hesitate to shoot you if you don’t answer.”

He still holds my hands above my head, his body still against mine, locking me in place. Narrowing my eyes, I focus on burning him with my ability. It causes him to wince, but he doesn’t let go. I try to struggle free, but he’s too strong.

“Keep struggling and I’ll shoot you right now,” Blondie says.

“Why are you looking for Cade?” Brett asks again with more aggression in his voice. He has to be in a lot of pain now, but he still isn’t loosening his grip.
How strong is he?

“She’s my mother, you asshat!” I yell.

This causes him to quickly let go and take a step back. “She’s
what
?”

Blondie starts laughing so hard, he’s having trouble keeping the gun focussed on me. I take the opportunity to turn and kick it out of his hand, implementing my years of self-defence training Lia forced me to learn.

Even in my inebriated state, and the giant heels I’m wearing, I manage to make the gun go flying. I take another step forward and punch him in the nose, and he stumbles back. Moving closer and grabbing a hold of his shoulders, I knee him in the groin, making him double over in pain. I’m about to punch him again when Brett slams into me. I crash into the building and hit my head against the wall.

As I sink to the ground, a red flash disrupts my line of vision, intense pain radiating behind my eyes. I squeeze them shut to try to prevent the agonising pain spreading to the rest of my head.

When I open my eyes again, the two men tower over me, this time with Brett pointing the gun at me.

“You just made out with the boss’s daughter.” Blondie is still laughing, even though he’s still hunched over supporting his nether regions. “Mr. Stickler-for-the-rules just broke the biggest one.”

“Boss?” I ask, rubbing the back of my head where an egg is definitely beginning to form.

“You know how pissed she gets if anyone looks at Sasha the wrong way,” Blondie says.

“Drake, I don’t want to hear it,” Brett scolds.

“Sasha?” I ask.

“You can’t be her daughter,” Brett says with a tiny hint of doubt. He looks down at the palm of his left hand, which is beginning to blister where I burnt him. “Oh shit,” he says, his eyes widening in realisation. He lets both arms rest by his side, no longer pointing the gun at me. “You really are her.”

“You know about me?”

He nods.

“Why didn’t you say who you were yesterday?” Blondie—Drake as Brett called him—asks as he holds out a hand to help me up.

“I did,” I say, ignoring his helping hand and getting to my feet by myself.

He shakes his head. “No you didn’t.”

Didn’t I?
I think back, my shoulders slouching when I realise it wasn’t him we told why we were looking for Cade, it was the neighbour.

“So you followed me to the coffee shop?” I ask Brett.
Our whole meet-cute was a set up?

“Why do you have purple eyes?” he asks, ignoring my question and successfully pissing me off with his own.

“Why do you have brown eyes? Who asks someone why their eyes are a certain colour?”

“Cade told us you have blue eyes.”

“Well, mother of the year strikes again. Before my eyes started turning purple, they were actually hazel if you must know. Blue on the outside with brown in the middle. But she’d know that had she not abandoned me.”

“You think that’s what happened?” Drake asks. “If she did that, then why has she been looking for you?”

“She what?”

“We’ve been told to keep an eye out for you. We didn’t know you go by Nuka. I’m guessing Cade didn’t know that either,” Brett says.

“You know what my real name is?” I ask, hope filling my voice.

“Uh … maybe we should let Cade fill her in?” Drake asks Brett. “I don’t want to piss her off by telling the story wrong or something.”

Brett nods. “Let’s go.”

“Go where?” I ask.

“To see your mother.”

“Wait. How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, but if you want to find your mother, then you will,” Brett answers simply.

Just how desperate am I to meet this woman?
  “Yeah, I’m not getting into a car with the two guys who just tried to attack me. As much as I want to see my mother, I’m not a complete moron.”
And yet, I’m in an alley in the middle of the night with two complete strangers. I have to admit, I’m at least part moron.

“That’s really not the answer I was hoping for, Nuka.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you,
Brett
.”

Drake looks at Brett, surprise etched on his face. “Told her your real name, hey?”

“Shut up,” Brett replies, handing Drake the gun before lunging for me. He grabs me around my waist and throws me over his shoulder as easy as he would a rag doll. “I didn’t want it to come down to this ...”

I barely hear him over my screams. Brett’s carrying me farther into the alley now, my butt up in the air.

They’re going to take me, and I need to stop them.
I scream louder and kick my legs, but it doesn’t seem to do anything.

“Is there any way to shut her up?” Drake yells over my screeching.

“Let’s just get her to the car,” Brett yells back.

Realising it’s futile, I stop screaming and try another tactic. Lifting Brett’s shirt, I press my hands into his skin and start burning him. The muscles in his back stiffen at the pain, but he manages to push through it. I contemplate using my entire body to try to burn him, but it’ll take too long for all of me to heat up to the kind of temperature that will do any damage. I decide to focus on my hands and push all of my energy through them.

“Friggin’ hell, Nuka. I’m helping you here,” he says, clearly starting to struggle.

“The way I see it, you’re kidnapping me.”

“Your mother would never forgive us if we let you get away. I need this job, Nuka, I have nothing else. You know what it’s like for
us
in this world.”

This brings me up short. I take my hands off him and stop struggling, letting out a loud sigh. “You must have some pretty mad skills to do what you just did.”

He adjusts me over his shoulder to get more comfortable. “What did I just do?”

“Pulled the Defective card, made me feel guilty when I’m the one being abducted.”

He lets out a laugh. “I’m not abducting you, I promise. Your mum has been searching for you. She’d hate to know that we screwed up and almost lost you.”

“Okay,” I reply, no longer having any fight in me.

“If I put you down now, are you going to run?” he asks.

“I guess not.”

He puts me down and stretches out his back, wincing from the burns I put there.

“Come on, keep moving,” Drake says impatiently.

We cross a street and make our way down another alley where an older, black three-door sports car is waiting.

I whistle. “Nice car. It’s got to be at least seventy years old, right?” All the modern cars are the same. After the pandemic, cars stopped being looked at as a trend to keep up with and were more of a necessity for getting from point A to B. There are five basic models to choose from, and sports car is not one of them.

“Eighty actually,” Brett says, the pride in his voice obvious.

Drake opens the passenger door and pushes the front seat forward. He holds out his hand for me, gesturing for me to climb in the back.

“Nah, I call shotgun,” I say.

“Your legs are shorter than mine.”

“You just attacked me and held a gun to my head. You think my mother is going to be pissed at Brett for making out with me, what will she think if she found out what you did?”

Brett starts laughing as he gets into the driver’s seat. Drake swears under his breath and climbs in the back. I can’t stop the smirk from finding my face.

Brett stares at me with an expression I can’t decipher while I climb in the front seat. I can’t tell if it’s amusement or resentment. Perhaps it’s a little of both.

“You’re going to be worse than Sasha, aren’t you?” he says with an exasperated smile.

“Who’s Sasha?”

His smile drops from his face slightly. “She’s your sister.”

“I have a sister?”
I have a sister.

Brett starts the car. “I’ll let Cade fill you in on everything,” he says, driving off.

“So who are you guys anyway? What exactly is your job?” I ask.

“We’re security,” Drake says. “And I’m Simon, by the way.”

“Simon? I thought your name was Drake.”

“Last name. You can call me Drake if you want, everyone else does.”

“Why does my mother need her own security team?”

“We’re home security, assigned to your sister mostly, and I guess you now,” Brett answers.

“I don’t need any security looking out for me.”

Brett raises an eyebrow at me. “Really? Because I think you just willingly followed a guy into a darkened alley.”

I try to think of something to defend my actions, but I can’t. Following him was not my brightest moment. Neither was voluntarily getting into this car with him, but I’m not going to say
that
aloud.

“You must be pretty strong,” I say, changing the subject from my poor choices. “I’m sorry about your hands and your back.”

Brett shrugs. “All part of the job.”

“You get attacked often?”

He doesn’t answer me.

What the hell is my mother involved in?

***

“How much longer?” I complain. It feels like we’ve been in this car forever.

“Now you even sound like Sasha,” Drake says with a laugh.

“What’s she like?”

“Sasha or your mother?” Drake asks.

“I was meaning Sasha, but I wouldn’t mind knowing about my mum, too.”

“Sasha’s a pain in the butt,” Brett mumbles under his breath. Drake laughs. “Your mum’s not too bad … as long as you’re on her good side.”

“How old’s Sasha?”

“Sixteen,” Drake answers. Five years. I was five when Sasha was born. “Doesn’t help that Sasha thinks she’s older than what she is. She doesn’t exactly appreciate Mummy’s rules either. She’s certainly a handful.”

“She kind of sounds like a spoiled brat,” I say.

Both of the guys laugh now. “Yeah, I can already tell you two are related,” Brett says.

“Excuse me?”

He lifts one of his hands off the steering wheel, showing me the blisters on his hands.

I shrug. “That was your own fault.”

“Yup, just like Sasha,” Brett says, putting his hand back on the wheel, a small hiss escaping his lips at the pain.

Before long, we’re pulling up to a gigantic stonewall fence with a wrought iron gate in a fancy suburb I’ve never been to.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“This is the main residence,” Brett replies.

“Main residence? How many are there?”

Brett looks in the rear-view mirror at Drake. “A few,” Drake says.

Brett reaches through his window and presses a code into a keypad that sits in a box coming out of the garden next to the driveway. The gate begins to open, and it suddenly feels like someone has punched me in the stomach; it’s churning so much. Sweat starts beading down my forehead.

“Is it really hot in here? I feel really hot,” I say, trying not to freak out.

“Don’t worry, she’ll be happy to see you,” Brett says, but it does nothing to reassure me.

“At 2:30 in the morning?” I ask, noting the time on the dashboard clock.

Brett lets out a small laugh. “You’re cute when you’re nervous.”

“Careful there, bro,” Drake mocks.

Brett rolls his eyes as we arrive in front of the biggest house I’ve ever seen. He kills the engine and climbs out of the car, reaching my door before I’ve even had the chance to take my eyes off the brick monstrosity before me.

He gives me his hand to help me out. I take it in mine, still staring at the giant Victorian mansion. Drake moves the car seat forwards and climbs out behind me. He starts pushing me, my feet stumbling to the front door as I’m wedged in between the guys.

“Can’t I come back another day when I don’t smell like nightclub and alcohol? I think I’m starting to sweat the stuff—it’s gross.”

“She’s not going to care about that,” Drake says. “You’ll practically smell like the rest of the family.” He laughs as if he’s joking, but I get the feeling he’s not.

Brett takes his keys out of his pocket and opens the arched wooden door. The foyer is completely white, so white it’s almost blinding. Or maybe I’m already starting to feel the effects of a hangover kicking in.