Liar, Liar (Book 2 in the Hide and Secret Series)

(3) Taylor's POV

I was running late yet again.

It seemed like, regardless of whatever I tried to do to get on time, I'd always end up being too late to be on time. I had overslept, and my alarm hadn't gone off.

So I was jogging to school.

Until a car pulled up next to me. It was a red sports car, the kind that douchebag guys tended to drive in their efforts to pick up chicks. A blonde guy stuck his head out the window. "Want a ride?" he asked, shooting me a grin.

I kept running, ignoring him. I automatically assumed that he was some gross pervert who was seeking a one night stand. I had grown a backbone, and I wasn't willing to put up with crap like that anymore.

But the guy was persistent. "Seriously," he said while still driving at the pace I was jogging. "If you're headed to the high school, I am too. I could just drive you. No harm, no foul."

I stopped moving, folding my arms in annoyance. "I don't take rides from creepy strangers. Sorry." There was no way I'd get into a car with some guy I didn't even know. I was going to try and get through the year without getting kidnapped or tormented. And getting in the car with some wacko teenage boy you'd never met was kind of like wearing a neon sign that said, "Kidnap Me".

I continued to jog, picking up the pace now because there wasn't much time left before Homeroom started. Not that Homeroom was all that important, but I had Homeroom with Serena and Jill, and I wanted to catch up with them before classes began.

"Will you jog with a creepy stranger?"

I was surprised to suddenly see the guy, his car parked, walking beside me. I raised my eyebrows, questioning. "Why are you so desperate to talk to me?"

I waited for a reply. In response to my question, the guy gave me a friendly looking smile. He seemed pretty much harmless.

Yet I'd also thought that Kai was harmless too. No such luck with that.

Kai. Even just thinking about her name made me remember that night. Although no charges had been pressed against me for killing Kai, because it'd been done in self-defense, the memory of her death still haunted me. I had ended the life of another human being, and that made me, in effect, a coldblooded murderer.

While I had been lost in my thoughts, the guy started to explain himself. He held out a hand for me to shake, which I took hesitantly, giving it a couple of pumps while he spoke. His hand was warm and he had a strong grip, almost exactly like his eyes. They were blue, warm-looking, and captivated you. I couldn't stop staring into them regardless of how much I tried. "Well, I'm Calum. And... I heard about you on the news...."

"And what? You wanted the inside scoop on how it feels to be stalked? Because to tell you the truth, it freaking sucks," I interrupted. There was a reason why I'd decided to go away to summer camp for most of the summer. After about two days, I'd gotten tired of the constant flurry of questions people had asked me. I was trying to move on from the incident, but it seemed like the rest of Westchester didn't share my feelings.

"No, actually," Calum responded, not even seeming the slightest bit freaked by my meltdown. "I just transferred here, and I wanted to check in. Make sure you're doing okay."

I was floored. My mouth involuntarily dropped open. Nobody had ever asked me that question. It had been all about getting the intel for them. They all had wanted to know about how exciting it had been to be stalked by a psycho for a good portion of junior year.

No one had taken the time to ask how I was holding up.

Except for Calum.

Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.