Chapter 6: The Getaway & The Bus Ride Back

Maya

The cold wind coming off the Pacific felt like a slap to my burning face, but it wasn't enough to clear the sour taste of cheap mimosa and humiliation from my mouth.

Kiki didn't say a single word until we cleared the green iron service gate, slipped back onto the public hiking trail, and hid behind the thick slab of wet slate where we’d left our jackets. The fog had rolled in so dense you could barely see ten feet down the jagged rocks, the gray sea roaring and spitting white spray against the bottom of the cliff.

The moment the iron latch clicked shut behind us, Kiki snapped.

"Are you insane?" She grabbed my arm, her fingers digging through the thin silk of her black dress so hard I felt the pinch in my bones. "Are you out of your mind, Maya? You jabbed a finger into his chest! You called him a scarred freak!"

"He grabbed me," I spat, yanking my arm out of her grip. My knees were still shaking from the sprint, my pulse hammering in my throat like a trapped bird. "I was falling, and he grabbed me like he owned the place."

"He does own the place!" Kiki yelled, her voice pitching high against the sound of the crashing waves. She threw her hands up, pacing two steps on the wet gravel before wheeling back around to face me. "That wasn't some mid-level hotel manager, Maya. That was Dominic Montgomery! He owns the resort, he owns the land under our feet, and he probably owns half the judges in this county. He could have had security throw us into a holding cell for trespassing!"

"Well, he didn't," I snapped. I dropped heavily onto the cold, wet rock, unstrapping Kiki’s black heels with trembling fingers. My left ankle was already throbbing with a dull, hot ache where I’d caught the rug inside the hall. Dirt was caked under my fingernails, and my bare feet were covered in gray mud. "He told his guards to leave."

"Because he was probably too shocked to figure out if you were crazy or dangerous!" Kiki shoved her hands into her coat pockets, staring down at me while I forced my swollen feet back into her old running sneakers. "I thought we were going there to look for a rich, quiet guy who wouldn't cheat on you. I didn't think you were going to assault the biggest billionaire on the coast!"

"I didn't assault anyone," I muttered, tying the wet laces with a vicious double knot. "He stood in my way. I told him the truth."

"You called him a scarred freak," Kiki repeated, her voice flat, devoid of any leftover panic, leaving only sheer, exhausted disbelief. "A man with fifty third-degree burn marks down his face, and you called him ugly to his face."

I stood up, pulling the gray hoodie over my head and dragging the hood down over my wet hair. The cheap silk dress felt cold and slimy against my thighs.

"He is scarred," I said, looking out at the gray ocean through the fog. "And he stood there staring at me like I was a bug under a microscope. I'm sick of men looking at me like they get to decide what I am. I'm sick of Trevor, I'm sick of Colette, and I'm definitely sick of rich men in expensive suits."

Kiki looked at me for a long, silent moment. The anger in her face slowly melted, replaced by a heavy, quiet sadness that made my stomach knot even tighter.

"Let's just go home," she said softly.

The walk back up the hiking trail to the coastal highway was forty-five minutes of pure torture. Every step on my twisted left ankle sent a sharp, white-hot needle shooting up my calf. I didn't complain. I kept my jaw clenched, my head down, and my hands buried deep inside the front pocket of Kiki’s oversized hoodie.

By the time we reached the rusted metal bus shelter on the side of the two-lane highway, the rain had started up again—a cold, needle-thin drizzle that turned the gravel shoulder into black soup.

We sat on the bench under the cracked plastic roof, waiting twenty minutes for the regional bus.

When the high folding doors finally squeaked open, the smell of warm diesel exhaust and damp vinyl hit us. Kiki paid the fare with her card, and we walked all the way to the back row, sliding onto the cracked blue faux-leather seats right over the vibrating rear engine.

The bus pulled out onto the highway, tires humming against the wet pavement.

I leaned my forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching the dark pine trees and gray coastal rocks blur past. The adrenaline that had carried me through the resort breach, the run through the ballroom, and the confrontation in the hallway was entirely gone, leaving behind a hollow, brutal exhaustion.

My phone felt like a block of lead inside my coat pocket.

I pulled it out, looking at the screen. There were three unread text messages from Trevor, sent over two hours ago before I’d turned the device back on at the resort:

Maya, Colette said you called her. You're being completely unreasonable. I'm just storing my suit racks in her spare room until my business funding clears. Stop acting like a child and come talk to me.

I stared at his words until the screen dimmed.

Trevor didn't think he had done anything wrong. In his mind, sleeping with my mother was just a minor inconvenience, a temporary bump in the road that I was expected to forgive because he was handsome, because he had blue eyes, and because I had spent two years treating him like the center of the universe. He genuinely believed that after a few days on Kiki’s couch, I would come crawling back to the diner, work my double shifts, and keep paying the bills.

I didn't delete the texts. I didn't reply. I just turned the phone completely off, shoved it back into my pocket, and closed my eyes.

"Maya?" Kiki’s voice was quiet over the hum of the bus engine.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

I kept my eyes closed, letting the vibration of the bus rattle through my skull. "I don't have fifty dollars anymore, Kiki. I don't have an apartment. I don't have a job that pays more than minimum wage."

"I told you, you have the couch," Kiki said softly.

"I can't live on your couch for the rest of my life," I said, opening my eyes to stare at the water droplets racing across the glass window. "I need a way out. A real way out. Not a temporary fix, and not another man who thinks he's doing me a favor by letting me breathe his air."

"Dominic Montgomery isn't just 'another man,' Maya," Kiki muttered, turning her head to look at me. "He's a wall. You don't poke a wall like that unless you're ready for it to fall on you."

"Let it fall," I whispered, turning my face back to the dark window. "At least it's solid."