Kiss Me Gone

Firefighter Dare O'Donnell walked through a blazing hell of flames and smoke to save me. But the fire wasn't the first time we met. We were friends -- almost lovers -- years ago. Our past proves that I can trust him with my life, but never with my heart.

Old memories poison our future. His friends and family are toxic. Already, I'm halfway out the door. I just want one last kiss before I go.

********************

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Dare O'Donnell

While measured in years, life plays out in minutes and seconds, making every moment of joy or sorrow nothing more than a matter of timing. To the disappointment of my Irish-American parents, I missed being born on the Fourth of July by less than a minute. Six weeks shy of my twenty-first birthday, I made my father proud when I passed my Firefighter Physical Ability Test with thirty-three seconds to spare. Two weeks later, a mere fifteen minutes lost me the only girl I would ever love.

At least that's how I figured it after I lost her. If I had only pulled into the gas station that night at ten p.m., curfew would have been in force and Tom McPherson would have been home having his mommy tuck him into bed for the night. Instead, I arrived at nine-forty-five to fuel up and found him standing between two parked cars with a small crowd around him.

His little posse consisted of three graduating seniors who played football at the high school and two girls I didn't recognize. Normally, I wouldn't have noticed any of them. I had graduated three years earlier and only knew McPherson because his father had been my EMT instructor.

But there was no missing the teenaged sniggering that erupted each time my head swung in their general direction while I waited for the tank to finish filling. Once my curiosity became aroused, I saw the scratches on Tom's left cheek and the way his expression suddenly sobered when he caught me staring.

After the pump shut off, I walked over to where they stood. The football players drifted toward a white sedan, one of them fishing keys from his pocket while both girls moved to flank Tom. The shorter of the two was a petite blonde and she practically hung on Tom's shoulder. Her pale blue eyes sliced at me like I was a threat of some kind. The other girl avoided looking at me. While I still didn't recognize her, she had the same dark ginger coloring as McPherson and his dad, so I figured she could be his cousin.

Keys twirling in my hand, I looked at Tom until his gaze darted away with a definite trace of guilt.

"What happened to your face?"

A nervous twitter exploded from the football players, while the blonde girl looked ready to spit venom.

"Fucking bitch," she growled.

"Shut up, Molly." Tom squeezed hard at the girl's breast in reprimand.

Three years older than the crowd in front of me, I was supposed to be cooler and more composed. I liked to think I had the cool part down, but I drew a sharp breath when he pinched her tit, the overt and very public act startling me. Any self-respecting female would have jammed her knee in his crotch or at least left, but this girl turned her face up toward his, her arms suddenly around his neck and one leg lifting. She whimpered as he squeezed again, her expression dazed in a way that made me think she might start dry humping him.

My stomach twisted in disgust but I shrugged the sensation away. I didn't know her and it wasn't my business if she liked it rough.

Despite the revulsion I felt, intuition I would later curse kept me from leaving. My arrival seemed to have set off their coy laughter and my direct attention definitely had extinguished their amusement. I had no doubt the two facts were related.

I took a few steps closer, my fingers tightening around my truck keys as I realized the three defensive linebackers were leaning in my direction.

"Anyone I know?" I asked, dipping my head so that Tom couldn't avoid my gaze despite his obvious desire.

He stayed silent, his narrow, thin lips all but disappearing. That might have been the end of it, but the blonde couldn't keep her mouth shut.

"You know any whores?" she asked, untangling her body from McPherson.

The devil must have possessed me, but I wanted to wipe the foul smirk from her face. "Other than you, can't say that I do."

"Fuck you, asshole." Losing her shit, blondie got up in my face. "I'm talking about that Burke bitch!"

I knew two women who carried the last name of Burke. The only one I might label a bitch if the wrong mood struck me was a good twenty years older than the kids in front of me. The other was her daughter. Five months had passed since I had last seen the girl, but the blame fell solely on me. And, whether it had been months or years, she would never deserve to be called a whore.

Blood starting to boil, I sidestepped Molly and came chest-to-chest with McPherson. Lifting my hand, I tapped the point of my ignition key against his cheek. "Eden did this?"

The three scratch lines flashed bright red as all other color drained from his face.

"Why?" Anger reduced my question to a choking bark. Eden wasn't meek by any standard, but she also wasn't a trouble maker. If she scratched McPherson's face, the asshole had done something to deserve it.

My hands tightened into fists. I could feel the football players gathering close, the breath of one hot on my neck. I didn't care if the entire team surrounded me. Eden was like a little sister. If McPherson hurt her, I would bury the fucker.

"I was just messing around," Tom answered, his voice suddenly high and quivering like he was about to cry. "Bitch guards that pussy like it's gold."

"Fool's gold, maybe. She's a fucking slut," Molly hissed. "She'll let anyone have her!"

That wasn't the Eden I knew. I would have bet the title to my truck she was still a virgin. Blondie was mistaken -- had to be.

"You touched her," I accused Tom, my clenched jaw slurring the words. "You touched her down there?"

A curling smile started to crawl up McPherson's face but then he must have realized just how badly I wanted to hurt him.

"C'mon, man. She had her clothes on and everything, it was just a--"

My fist connected with his mouth, cutting the excuse -- and his top lip -- in half. My arm reared back for another punch. One of the players grabbed it as the other two moved for the takedown. I lurched to one side, my trapped arm becoming a hook that I used to fling the guy into McPherson. Both males hit the ground. The girls scattered, leaving me, for the moment, with just two opponents.

They charged together, the intent to crush me between them scrawled across their smug faces. I pivoted, clapped a hand around the back of each dense skull and smashed their heads together. Blood spurted from one nose, the injured player grasping at his friend's jacket to keep from collapsing to the ground.

A flask fell out as he pulled, hitting the parking lot with a metallic ring that brought a smile to my face.

"Well, if that doesn't look like a minor in possession," I chuckled as I kicked the flask toward its owner, the sloshing sound of its liquid contents broadening my grin. "Hope you don't have a scholarship lined up. And you can kiss your driver's license good-bye for another three years. That's if you want to take another swing at me and give the cops time to show up."

His face looking like he wanted to puke, the kid punted the container onto the grass then pointed an angry finger at McPherson. "I won't let you fuck up Ole Miss for me."

Grabbing the collar of his bleeding friend, the player hoisted the boy onto his feet and shoved him toward the car. Then he jabbed a finger at his other team mate still on the ground. "Get your ass in the fucking car, Royce. Now!"

With his friends abandoning him, McPherson cowered behind the girls.

"Looks like your honeys have more balls than you, Tommy Boy." Glaring, I spat at him. "Now tell me where Eden is or I'll finish you."

He started to stutter something about dropping her off.

"We were out by South," the ginger-hair girl finished for him, her eyes sharp on me and full of disdain. "She wanted out of the car. I let her out. Don't give a fuck where she is now."

Fresh fury gripped me. Whatever had happened, this girl had witnessed it, then hung around with McPherson to gloat. It took all the self-control I possessed not to grab her by the throat and give a good shake.

"Don't look at me like I'm the piece of shit," she hissed. "Everyone at school knows what Eden is."

I spun on my heels and walked to my truck before I did something I would regret for the rest of my life. I'd never hit a girl, never even considered it before that moment. But every word out of her mouth was poison. I'd known Eden since she was twelve and her stepfather, Michael, from the day I was born. She was a good girl who would grow into a fine woman. And if the entire school agreed with this hateful girl standing guard over McPherson, then the entire school was wrong.

Leaving the gas station, I swiped my phone from the console and thumbed through the contacts list to find the number for Eden's cell phone. I pressed the "call" icon and brought the device to my ear. Three tones indicating a disconnected number sounded over the speaker.

Swearing, I dropped the phone to the seat. In that moment, I realized just how badly I had failed Eden after Michael Burke's death.

Before the night was up, I would fail her again.

Eden -- earlier in the evening

Veering across two lanes of traffic without once checking her mirrors or looking over her shoulder, Anna McPherson talked into her cell phone. Sitting in the back seat, I felt my stomach begin to churn from the sudden diagonal path and the rush of adrenaline her reckless driving induced. My attention cut right to avoid the dizzying display of cars.

Seeing Molly Quade's hateful blue gaze boring into me, I immediately regretted the shift in focus. The blond had been making stabby eyes at me from the moment Anna drew to a stop alongside the curb and offered me a ride.

That the offer took me by complete surprise should have been my first clue to stay the hell out of Anna's car. Neither of the girls would have been caught dead talking to me at school, so why was one of them offering to drive me home while her bestie's face told me the girl was driving imaginary daggers into my gut then twisting them?

Already defeated from a rough evening at home and my mother ordering me out of the house until midnight, I had stupidly crawled into the back seat of Anna's white Malibu. I mean, if my own mother didn't care what happened to me on the city streets after curfew, why should I? The only person who cared if I lived or died was dead himself, some six months in the ground. With his passing, everyone around me had proved a false friend.

"Little side trip," Anna announced, tossing her phone in the cup holder and pulling my thoughts away from the pity party going on inside my head. "Tommy needs a ride."

"He doesn't like people calling him that," Molly corrected her friend. "It's Thomas or Tom."

I only thought of him as Asshole McPherson, but I bit down on my tongue before the words could actually leave my mouth. The high school senior was Anna's cousin and Molly's obvious crush. He was also the oily son of a bitch who had told me he would potentially stoop so low as to allow me to be "one of the girls" he took to prom if I promised to put on a dress and leave my combat boots at home.

Looking down at the dark grey carpet of Anna's back seat floor, I wiggled my toes inside the offending boots. They weren't actually meant for combat, but they were steel-toed with a high-traction sole. They were also the last gift from my dad before he died.

Sucking a deep breath in, I stared through the windshield at a spot just a few inches below the rearview mirror. Neither of these girls were my friends. Everyone at school would know if I broke down in the car and cried over how I had waited almost two weeks after Michael's funeral before finally removing the brightly wrapped box from beneath the Christmas tree and opening it.

Exhaling the breath I had been holding, I told Anna to drop me off at the gas station on Pike.

"Not in this traffic," she said, her tone curt as she removed one hand from the wheel to wave it at the surrounding cars.

My mouth dropped open at her refusal. The traffic around us wasn't even half of what it had been during the multi-lane change she had so recklessly made while on the phone with her cousin. I leaned forward, ready to protest but Molly cut me off with a question that took me completely by surprise.

"What kind of drugs are you taking?"

I had to look at the girl to make sure the words were directed at me. Her blue gaze hadn't lost an ounce of the earlier hate I had noticed. If anything, her entire expression burned with a petty fury. The shiny, powder pink lips with their extra thick coating of gloss were pinched tight and her nostrils had flattened to almost invisible lines.

"I don't do that shit." My cheeks heated at the accusation and anger made my voice warble.

Molly's eyes darted around my body, poking at my breasts and hips as the tight pout of her lips spread to a distasteful smirk. "Liar. I've seen how you eat."

She paused to stab a finger at my boots. "And you're not running in those. But you've been losing weight. So it has to be the drugs you are on."

My bottom lip bobbed a few times with the need to defend myself. I wouldn't though. I couldn't tell Molly the truth -- and the little bitch didn't deserve it. My mother had stopped grocery shopping after Michael died. She paid my school lunches online and gave me fifteen dollars to cover the rest of the week. Her own meals, she took away from home, either in the cafeteria at the hospital or at one of the surrounding restaurants. Every now and then, I would find a take-out bag in the refrigerator marked with the next day's date, her name and "lunch" written in a nurse's script barely more legible than the doctors she worked with.

Of course I was losing weight!

"Let me out here," I said as we pulled into the subdivision where Tom McPherson lived.

"Jesus," Anna huffed. "I'll take you home after we pick up Tom."

Looking around, Molly must have realized we were only a few streets away from Tom's house because she pushed at Anna's shoulder and ordered her to stop the car immediately.

"I want to switch seats," Molly insisted, unhooking her seatbelt so that the warning chime began to sound.

"Tom's not sitting in the front seat." Anna swatted at Molly's hand then more forcefully batted the girl away as Molly reached for the steering wheel. "He always fucks up my stereo."

"No, stupid." Molly pinched the inside of Anna's arm, eliciting a pained squeal from her friend. "I want to sit in the back."

Twisting in her seat, the blond pointed at me. "The druggie can sit up front."

I wanted to bite the finger hovering a few inches from my face or at least grab the girl by the wrist and give a twist hard enough to make her think twice about calling me a druggie ever again.

I flattened against the back of my seat, my nails digging at the cloth-covered cushions. Anna's gaze flicked briefly toward the rear view mirror only to dart away the instant we made eye contact.

"We're already here," she argued, hitting the brakes hard enough that I pitched forward and had to brace my arm against the seat in front of me to keep my face from colliding with the headrest.

"And," she continued, looking at Molly, "if you weren't so obvious,
stupid
, about wanting Tommy in your va-jay-jay, he might show a little interest."

Anna gave her horn a tap, the dark orange hair falling forward as she tried to look around Molly to see the door to her cousin's house. Realizing I was about to be stuck in the back seat with a boy who made my skin crawl while his wanna-be girlfriend glared at me, I released my seat belt and wrapped my fingers around the door handle.

Pulling the release, I gave a soft push.

Nothing.

I tried to flip the lock. It wouldn't move.

"Let me out." I fought to keep my voice level, but I could hear the panic creeping in.

"Don't be an idiot, Eden. It's dark out and who knows what kind of perv is hiding in the bushes," Anna said. "I'll open it when Tommy is ready to get in."

"I'm ready to get out!" My voice just below a shout, I pressed the control on my side to lower the window.

She must have had the child safety settings on. Intent on escape, I didn't realize Tom McPherson had left his house until I went to slide across the seat and try the other door. His meaty hand reached for the exterior handle. Hearing the click, I scurried back for my door just as Tom opened his side and Anna immediately re-engaged the lock.

"I said I would drop you at home." Her hard gaze found my reflection in the rear view mirror. "I'm not gonna get my ass chewed because your mother calls mine angry that I let you out to walk a mile home in the dark."

"Your mom wouldn't give a shit if you left me a hundred miles from..." My protest died on my lips as Tom's thigh brushed against mine. I inched closer to my door. He moved with me despite the Malibu's wide back seat.

"Eden uses heroin," Molly announced from the front passenger seat.

My head jerked in her direction. The girl was fucking mental. There was no other conclusion. She also clearly hated me even though I had never done anything to deserve it. Then again, I had been catching a world of shit I didn't deserve ever since Michael died. My mom had canceled my phone and didn't seem to care if I had enough to eat. She also didn't care what happened to me if I was caught outside after curfew -- a point I had argued with her as she shoved me onto the front porch earlier that evening and told me to get lost until midnight.

Remembering how I had to beg just to get Helen to pass my wallet through the door, I snorted. The petty blond in the front seat lying about me because Tom wouldn't give her the time of day was the least of my worries -- and that was a very sad fact.

Tom leaned in close. The ceiling light hadn't shut off, so I saw the lift of his brows and the spark of interest in his pale green gaze. "Really?"

"No." Trying to ignore how Tom was close enough for me to smell what he had eaten for dinner, I stared at Molly and imagined her face melting. "
Someone
has apparently been spreading rumors."

I placed special emphasis on my use of "someone" while staring at the culprit.

Molly didn't bat an eye at the accusation. A smug grin tugged at the edges of her glossy mouth as she ever-so-sweetly informed me. "It's only a rumor if you prove it's not true."

Before I could explain just how flawed her logic was, Tom seized my wrist and pushed my sleeve up.

"No tracks," he observed. "But I've heard that junkies hide their injections, like between their toes or the back of their knees, even on the bend of their thighs."

His hand darted toward the last potential injection site he had listed. Pushing at his forearm, I blocked his attempt to touch me between my legs.

"Don't," I snapped then caught Anna watching me in the mirror. "Let me out or take me home now."

"Curfew's not over for another hour," Tom answered for his cousin. "And I have to pick something up first. We'll drop you off after."

Pulling a jewel case from inside his denim jacket, he handed it to Molly. "Pop this in, babe."

Her eyes lighting up at the endearment, Molly eagerly opened the case and loaded the CD into the stereo's slot. Garbage rewarded her efforts. The scratchy, screeching voice rapping obscenities over the speakers made me want to stab sharp instruments into my ears so I would never risk hearing the music again.

Next to me, Tom started to sing along, screaming something about bitches and riches, snitches and ditches. I was just starting to piece together the similarity in the voice blaring over the speakers and that of the boy sitting next to me when Tom put his mouth against my ear and yelled a question at me.

"You don't like my song?"

"I love it," Molly piped up before I could think of some tactful way to tell Tom that his singing made Vanilla Ice sound like a rap god.

"Is this the turn?" Anna asked, casting a quick look over her shoulder.

"Yeah," Tom answered, his breath filling my ear in a way that brought bile rushing up my throat. "Right then two blocks down, third house on the right."

I wrapped my fingers around the door handle and prepared to fling it open as soon as I heard the lock disengage. My attempt at keeping the movement discreet failed. Tom hooked two fingers in the belt loop on my jeans before ordering Anna to unlock the controls on his window.

"Keegan can come out," he said, his free hand dipping into his jacket once more to pull out his phone. He thumbed through to his texts then started tapping out a message. "Not like the bitch is raiding his parents' liquor cabinet for free."

Hoping Tom would release his hold on my jeans if it didn't seem like I was ready to bolt, I let go of the door handle and forced my body to relax. I told myself to stay calm. When Keegan came to the window, I would tell him I wanted out of the car. He wasn't part of Tom or Anna's circle. And if he did nothing to help, I would start screaming while the window was open.

The house's front door opened. A hulking shadow slipped out and jogged across the lawn. Throwing one last suspicious glance in my direction, Tom unhooked from my belt loop then slid across the seat and lowered his window.

Seeing Tom in the car with three girls, Keegan put one closed hand through the window for a congratulatory fist bump. "Damn, dude. How many hotties you gonna bang tonight?"

"At least two," Tom chuckled as he completed the gesture. Opening his fist palm up, he revealed a neatly folded twenty dollar bill.

Keegan scooped the money up and started to pass the boy a fifth of whiskey.

"Keegan, I want out of the car." The words released with a squeak as I searched his face for any hint of rescue.

"And I want in," he shot back with a leering grin. "But I'm toast if my mom comes home early and finds my little sister home alone."

"No, seriously! Help me." I begged, crawling over Tom as Anna started to raise the window.

I reached for the closing gap, my lips opening for a full-throated scream.

"Get your skanky hands off Tom, you bitch!" Molly pushed at me, screeching like a banshee.

With only my face and one shoulder open to her, she slid her fingers into my mouth. One of her long acrylic nails poked at the back of my throat. I started to gag. My eyes watered with the need to puke.

Anna accelerated and I fell back, gasping for air and blind with tears.

Leaning into the front seat, Tom wrapped his hands around the sides of Molly's face and kissed her, their tongues slurping together before he pulled away laughing.

"Fuck, I love it when bitches fight over me!"

Still choking with the memory of Molly's finger in my mouth, I scratched out a fresh plea for Anna to stop and let me out.

"Here." Uncapping the bottle of whisky, Tom shoved it at my face. "A little sip will make everything better."

I pushed the bottle away. Molly snatched it up and took a swig then passed it back to Tom.

"What's the matter, honey?" she asked, her voice sickly sweet again. "I thought all addicts were drunks, too. Are you in withdrawals?"

"Let me out!" I pounded my fist against the back of Anna's headrest. The car accelerated. I realized she had just pulled onto the expressway. We were heading away from my house, not toward it.