Page 2
Take a look at Chapter 2 of "Desert Wind": The quiet girl from Arizona.The girl with long dark hair, sharp eyes, and no Instagram... See what happens next!
The quiet girl from Arizona.
The girl with long dark hair, sharp eyes, and no Instagram history for anyone to stalk. The girl who didnāt know which families owned which galleries, ranches, restaurants, and dirty politicians. The girl who didnāt care that Brielleās father built half the luxury homes outside town or that Addisonās mother sat on every charity board in Santa Fe.
At first, they respected me because they couldnāt place me.
Then someone did.
I still didnāt know who started digging. Maybe it was one of the boys after I turned down a date. Maybe it was one of the girls because my face made them nervous. Maybe it was a bored rich kid with newspaper archives, too much free time, and a cruel streak dressed up as curiosity.
Whoever it was, they found everything.
Old engagement announcement.
The resemblance between Mandy, Tarakās wife, Amber, and meā¦ well we couldāve been triplets. If we had been born in the same decades.
The old photos cut me more than Iād ever admit. I hid my pain and shame that the past still had so much power to torment the ones who loved me in the present. I refused to tell Tarak, Edge, Amber and Regan. These people that were now mine deserved protection and peace.
But the anonymously posted pics were like looking through a glass through time:
Tarak and Mandy, smiling like tragedy hadnāt already bought a ticket and taken a front-row seat.
A grainy photo from some clubhouse charity ride before everything went wrong, Mandy laughing on the back of a bike, hair flying, one hand on Edgeās shoulder even though she was supposed to belong to another man.
The car crash article.
The funeral notice.
A blurred newspaper photo of men in leather standing at the cemetery, Edge half-turned from the camera, face carved out of stone.
Then came the comments.
The whispers.
The screenshots passed around between classes.
Isnāt that your mom?
Wasnāt she engaged to that Tarak guy?
Wait, but Edge Rourke was at her funeral too?
So whoās your real dad?
Did your mom even know?
By Christmas, I wasnāt the mysterious girl from Arizona anymore.
I was Mandyās daughter.
The club whoreās kid.
And Destiny was my real first name not the middle one Regan had put down on the admissions paperwork. I shrugged and said the āhelperā filled out the paperwork and was dyslexic. Destiny suited me just fine.
The dead womanās mistake.
Santa Fe had finally found a box to shove me in, and once it did, nobody cared if I suffocated.
Brielle stepped closer now, her smile all glossy poison. āWhat do bikers tip, anyway? Ones? Fives? Or do they pay in meth and bad tattoos?ā