UNORTHODOX | KAI PARKER

XVII .MOONLIGHT.

Chapter 17

warning for mature content!!

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Almost twenty hours, a late night house break-in, and countless hours of pleading and persuading, Kai had finally let me get behind the wheel of the car again. It was obvious he had grown exhausted from all the tedious driving, no matter how hard he tried to mask it. Throwing out comments like 'Why would I trust you behind the wheel of a car when you're constantly a danger to yourself and others?' but he swiftly went silent once I reminded him that he was the one who drove Damon's car off the road, not me.

Silence had been Kai's normality for the past day or so, ever since our night in Wyoming. He'd been weird. Silence coming from the sociopath felt like the calm before the storm. The building and the tension before the cataclysmic eruption. He'd barely spoken during the previous day's car ride. Besides from some remarks about my translations, he was practically mute. It was chilling. The lurid atmosphere of walking down an alley, in the dead of night. All alone and eerily silent, waiting and anticipating for the shadow created in your peripheral vision to make it's move.

He's been better today, making menial small talk and cracking sardonic jokes at all the wrong times. But still... still weird. Far from his ordinary.

His silence, his emotional isolation, gave me a taste of what the Prison World could truly be like. A nonpareil sliver to what Kai's experienced for eighteen years. Isolated, alone, and Jesus fucking Christ— so fucking quiet.

The isolation extended to my hallucinations. The people in my head, as Kai would call them. They've... they've completely disappeared since that day in the Parker household. When they erupted in hysterics and sliced my arm open. Completely IA. Parallel to the pool incident. How they vanished after my attempted— not suicide. Only to reappear to both of us, an attempt to kill me yet again. The synchronic events made me fearful for every waking minute. Constantly tip-toeing around glass, fearing that every little misstep could cause havoc. Bloody havoc. Holding my breath in anticipation for the outburst that is indisputably to come. Just like I've been dancing around Kai.

I attempt to shake away the dread, blinking harshly and trying to focus on the road ahead of me. But the scratching is still there under the surface of my skin. Eating away at my nerves and arteries. My eyes flit to the siphoner, who is sat cross legged in the passenger seat, forgoing his seatbelt and reading a book, of all things. Albeit, a true crime novel — of course — but a book nonetheless, which was a surprise I was not anticipating when he pulled it from his rucksack four hours ago.

The churning amongst my insides builds, and I let out a sigh. Making a last ditch attempt to distract myself and engage in frivolous chit-chat with the man. "So..." I begin, eyes oscillating between him. "What's the first thing you're gonna do when you get out of here?"

Kai's eyes flick up from his book, actually cracking a small smile, which instantaneously drops all the weight from my chest. "Finally merge and become the coven leader and rub it all up in Joshua's face before brutally murdering him, of course."

The words fall from his lips so casually and nonchalant, despite the macabre nature of them, and it causes me to emit a snort of amusement. God, his sense of humour really seems to be rubbing off on me. There's also a sense of excitement brewing in me at the fact that he's actually talking to me, not having to endure anymore of the excruciating silence. He quirks his brow, looking up at me from his book.

"You don't seem all that mad or upset that I'm going to kill my sister and dad?" he questions. "Was expecting a bit more to be honest, that reaction is a total let down."