Painted Lines (11 page)

I
shrugged.  “Fine I guess, we won one of the mini challenges so far, and we were
in the top three for the first challenge.  Kale came in second on the mini
challenge for this week, so who knows.”

“I
heard it was rebuilding an engine this week.”

“Yeah,
so I am cleaning parts, not my favorite work, but it has to be done.”

“You
could rebuild an engine with your eyes shut, Scout.”

“No,
not really. I can do it but it takes me forever and I don’t really like to.”

“I’ve
seen you, you can do it.”

“I
know I can, I just don’t like to,” I told him getting annoyed.  He wasn’t
listening to me, yet again.

Luckily,
dinner came at that point and I once again moved food around making it look
like I had eaten.  I forced myself to take a few bites of the burger.  Cas
devoured his food then went to snatching fries off my plate.  I finally just
pushed it towards him and let him finish it.  I felt my eyes drooping and when
the waitress came back by I ordered a cup of coffee.

“How
many is that today?”

“Hmm?”
I asked.

“How
many cups of coffee is that today?”

“Not
sure,” I told him honestly.

“Maybe
if you slowed down on the coffee you would be able to sleep better.”

“Maybe,”
I said accepting the coffee from the waitress and taking a sip.

“Anything
else you want to do after this?”

“I
need to run by the grocery store,” I told him I was in need of something a bit
stronger than coffee at this point.

“Sure,
we can do that.”  He took the check from the waitress and I gulped down my
coffee then we headed out.

When
we got to the grocery store, Cas checked his phone once again.

“Scout,
just go in grab what you need, I need to return a call.”

“Sure,”
I mumbled and headed in by myself.

I
looked around the energy drinks finally choosing some different flavors, then
picked up some more coffee, we were running low.  I was happy that Cas hadn’t
come in with me, that way I could get what I needed without trying to hide it
from him, which I could never do successfully, or answer the questions he would
ask.  I quickly paid and headed out to where he was waiting in the parking
lot.  The tick in his jaw was back so I knew he was pissed, I just hoped it
wasn’t at me this time.

“Get
what you needed?”

“Yeah,”
I told him watching, trying to figure out what was going on with him, what he
was hiding.

“K,
let’s get home.”

We
climbed on the bikes and headed home.  With the help of the energy drinks and
coffee, I had yet another sleepless night.

Chapter
18

When
we were going to leave for the morning the skies opened up and sheets of rain
began to fall, I ran back to my room, and grabbed the covers I had for my
babies.  I quickly ran back outside ignoring the rain, lightning, and thunder
and covered my babies, looking for a place to shelter them.  The carport for
our house had Cam’s car under it, I yelled at Simon to move it.  He ran back
inside and was back just as quickly jumping in and pulling it back.  Liam,
Kale, and I immediately began pushing bikes under the carport.  After I got
Stella in, I ran back out to get Angel.  Once both my bikes were under
protection, I leaned back letting the rain fall onto my face, enjoying the
feeling of the warm tears pelting my skin.

“Scout,
what the hell are you doing?” yelled Cas but I chose to ignore him, enjoying
the feeling of Mother Nature washing away the bad, replacing it with the good.

All
too quickly though that feeling of peace was demolished when someone grabbed my
arm yanking me back under the carport.  I looked up and found a drenched and
pissed off Cas staring at me.  I looked down his body found out he was wearing
nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.

“What
the fuck were you doing?” he yelled.

“Enjoying
the rain,” I answered confused.

“Scout,
did you not notice the lightning?  What the hell is the matter with you?”

I
shrugged and looked back out at the rain, wishing I was standing under it
again, enjoying the peace, the feeling of cleansing the past, but no amount of
rain would ever cleanse me.

I
looked over at Simon, “Ready to go?”

“Sure,”
he mumbled looking back and forth between Cas and me.  “We’re going to take
Cam’s car.”

“Well
that’s good since my babies are not going out in this,” I told him and walked
back out in the rain and quickly climbed in.  I was scrunched up between the
base of Zadok’s car seat and Liam.

“You
okay, Scout?” Liam whispered.

“Fine,”
I replied pulling out my MP3 player turning it up loudly and ignoring everyone
until it was time for Eddie’s directions for the day.

I
went back to work cleaning parts using a toothbrush and a steel brush, cleaning
all the grease, gunk, and dirt out of the nooks and crannies.  I cranked my MP3
player up as loud as I could tolerate it, blocking everything and everyone else
out.  My clothes were slowly drying, and I missed the feel of the world’s tears
against my skin. I missed the feeling of connection that standing in the rain
can bring.  I liked to think of the other people who stood under the same storm
cloud while it released its life source cleaning our world, feeding our
plants.  If you really thought about it, it was a connection to another person
in the world, you had never met or envisioned, but a connection all the same.

I
sighed and shook myself out of my thoughts, focusing on what I had on hand,
instead of visualizing metaphysical links to people.  No one ever seemed to
understand my obsession with a good storm, and I had long ago quit trying to
explain it.

Time
passed quickly and before I knew it, the bell sounded and we were cleaning up
for the day.  I did everything robotically, answering when asked a question,
smiling when expected, just doing as expected.  We headed home and I continued
this way, no one really noticing, taking my saying ‘fine’ as affirmation that
everything was normal, but inside nothing was normal.

I
took my meds with a can of energy drink and fought to stay awake through the
night.  I caught myself more than once almost falling asleep, but I wouldn’t
allow it.  I knew if I let it take me over, if I fell asleep, it would be bad,
so instead I fought.  When the sun broke, I let out a relieved breath and began
my morning routine.  I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it off forever, but I
also didn’t know if I could face my nightmares any longer.

Everyone
was giving me strange looks but I didn’t pay any attention to them.  I listened
to music and followed everyone out the door.  We drove the car again; I didn’t
say a word, just climbed in back and turned the music up louder.

Once
we got to the garage I went through the motions, I pretended to listen to
Eddie, I listened to what my job would be.  When we opened the bay doors though
what we found didn’t make sense.  All the work he had done was destroyed, the
parts were destroyed, all of it.  I looked down and found one of our
sledgehammers lying on the floor, I knew it wasn’t there yesterday—we never
left anything lying around.

I
turned and went in search of coffee, I had a feeling I would need it.  I also
grabbed coffee for my other teammates.  When I walked back, I found the
producer, judges, and other staff standing around looking at the carnage, one
of the assistant producers was on the phone, hopefully with the police.  I
handed out the coffee and stood to the side watching what was happening.

I
saw Thayne out of the corner of my eye but ignored him, just watching, I knew
there wasn’t anything I could do at this point.  I saw Thayne walk towards me,
watching me, but I continued to act as though I didn’t see him.  I really
didn’t feel like being yelled at by Cas on top of this today, so I focused on
what was in front of me.

Eventually
the police showed up and we were all pulled in separate directions, telling
them what happened, what we saw, and any other information we may have had.  I
didn’t have anything to really tell them, other than I walked in and saw all
our hard work destroyed.  Soon Cas showed up, but he wasn’t allowed to come
inside, so I went out to see him.  He started asking me questions I couldn’t
answer.  I didn’t know who did it, I didn’t see anything, no, and the cops
hadn’t said anything to me.

I
went back in leaving an even more frustrated Cas and waited to find out what
would happen now.

After
the police had everything they needed, we were pulled into the staging area and
waited for them to tell us what we were going to do now.  The producer came to
the front and told us that they would be giving us a new engine to rebuild.  We
would have six hours today and eight hours tomorrow to get it repaired, they
would put off the judging a day so we would have time to complete it with the
same amount of time as everyone else.  Then we were sent off with the other
teams having the original four-hour time frame.  The guys instantly went to
stripping everything down quickly.

I
cataloged all the parts, sorting everything, making sure we didn’t lose
anything in the rush.  Once that was finished, I started once again cleaning
all the parts we were salvaging, and the ones we weren’t. Liam went off to
machine, Simon went to scavenge from the parts storage, and Kale diagnosing any
problems that he hadn’t seen before.  The time passed quickly for the other
teams, when the bell rang they all put their tools up, cleaning up their
areas.  We continued our work, but slowly as the other teams finished cleaning
up, they trickled into our bay, asking what they could do to help.

I
was surprised by the amount of people who were willing to stay and help us, but
then again I shouldn’t have been, this was after all the way of our life.  When
you saw a fellow biker on the side of the road, you stopped to help.  The
producer of the show though didn’t appreciate the code we lived by, stating
that they weren’t allowed to help.  That is until Matt asked to show him where
in the rules that was written, when the producer couldn’t come up with
anything, everyone ignored him.  I had four people sit down with me helping to
get everything cleaned and handed off to the next person to inspect, it became
a chain, with Kale at the end making all the decisions.

When
the bell rang ending our six hours, we had everything cleaned, new parts found,
and almost half of what we needed machined finished.  It left us in a good
place for tomorrow.  I knew we would be able to get it finished in time.  I
stood stretching my hands over my head and I noticed Thayne watching me—no,
staring at my stomach.  I glanced down and saw that my tank top had ridden up,
I quickly snatched my hands down and pulled my shirt down covering the marks
there.  He looked up at me and I couldn’t meet his eyes, I didn’t want to see
the disgust there, the pity.

I
went to work cleaning everything up, getting our bay put back in order then
quickly went in search of the guys.  They were standing around thanking
everyone who had helped, I waved at the ones I knew, and smiled at the ones I
didn’t.  Finally, we were able to head out, and I was ready to get home, take a
shower, and a nap.

When
I got home though, instead of a hot shower and a nap, I had to deal with a
pissed off Cas.  I didn’t know what I supposedly had done this time, but I did
know that I was not in the mood to deal with him or his anger.  I stepped
around him and headed towards the bathroom locking the door after me, I turned
the water on as hot as it could go.  I looked in the mirror waiting for the
water to heat.  The face looking back at me was exhausted, dark rings under her
now glassy green eyes and a pale face.  I sighed and quickly stripped out of my
clothes ignoring the banging on the door and climbed into the scalding water. 
I let the water pound on my muscles, slowly releasing the tension that had
built over the day.

After
I was as clean as I was going to get, I climbed out and quickly dried off. 
Realizing I hadn’t grabbed clean clothes, I opened the door to find a red-faced
Cas.  I stepped around him and headed to the bedroom where my stuff was at,
pulled out comfy clothes and quickly dressed.  I reached back locking the door
and face planted into the mattress, then quickly scrambled up and set the alarm
clock for an hour, then fell back down and let sleep come.

When
the alarm clock rang, I jolted up and rubbed my eyes.  I rolled my legs off the
bed and went in search of an energy drink; I needed help waking up.  I unlocked
the door and headed to the kitchen, searched in the back of the fridge where I
had hid them and pulled one out, swallowing its contents quickly.  I bypassed
the dinner sitting on the stove and headed to the living room, grabbed my
Kindle from the coffee table, ignoring Cas’s glares and curled up on the floor
and began to read.

Once
everyone had headed off to bed, leaving me alone with Cas.  I finally looked up
to find him staring at the ceiling rubbing his hand through his nonexistent
hair.

“Scout,
what’s going on with you?”

“Nothing,”
I muttered powering down my Kindle.

“Nothing,”
he repeated, “then want to tell me why you ignored me when I tried talking to
you?”

“Uhm,
because you weren’t going to talk, you were going to yell, and I wasn’t in the
mood.”

“You
weren’t in the mood?” he scoffed.

“Not
really, had a long, rough day the all I wanted was to take a shower, and a
nap.”

“Scout,
you’re done with this competition.”

“Uhm,
no, I’m not,” I told him.

“Yes,
you are.  Tomorrow you will go in and tell whoever you need to that you’re out,
then we will be heading home.”

I
looked him straight in the eyes, “No, Cas I am not leaving, I am not quitting.”

He
growled in frustration.  “And when something happens to you?”

“Why
would you think something would happen to me?”

“Your
area has been broken into twice, Scout!” he shouted.

“Uh
huh,” I replied, “what does that have to do with me being hurt, isn’t he in
jail?”

“Scout,
you’re done, we’re going home.  The guys can stay if they want, but you are
not.”

“Is
he still in jail?” I bit out.

“If
you won’t tell whoever it is then I’ll do it,” he kept on ignoring me.

“Is
he fucking out of jail?” I screamed this time.

He
sighed and got off the couch and walked to his room, ignoring my question.  And
I knew, I knew he was out, and they thought he had done this.  I just didn’t
know why he wouldn’t tell me this though, why was he hiding it, and what else
was he hiding from me?