Read Criminal: A Bad-Boy Stepbrother Romance for Free Online Page B

parked not far away.
    "Fuck," I curse to myself, bolting up. My
legs are cramped, and I have a kink in my neck, but I roll down the
window.
    "Is there something wrong, officer?" I ask
before I see the desk clerk standing not far away, a smug look on her
rancid little face.
    "I'm going to need you to step outside the
vehicle, miss."
    ***
    "Kaiden... I know you're probably mad at me, but
if you get this, I really need your help. I'm at a police station in
Ramona, and if you don't pick me up, if someone doesn't pick me up,
I'm going to be transferred somewhere else. I don't really know
where. They impounded my car..."
    I try not to sob as I'm leaving him the message, but
I've never been in trouble before. Never even been sent to the
principal’s office. But now I'm in jail, being threatened with
some half-baked vagrancy charge. I’d tried to explain over and
over that the motel was full and I just needed to sleep, that it
wasn't safe for me to drive, but they just kept telling me to tell it
to the judge.
    I hang up the phone and get escorted back to my cell.
It's a gross grey-green color, not really like what I've seen on TV.
I guess because it's just lockup and not jail-jail. I go to the table
and sit at one of the chairs, listening to the sound of the person in
the bed retching something awful.
    And all I can do is push my palms to my eyes and sob.
    "Please, Kaiden," I whimper under my
breath. "Please come."
    “Who’s Kaiden?”
    I startle, wiping my eyes of their tears and try to
look... what? Hard? I’m an eighteen-year-old girl that looks
more like a high school cheerleader, not a thug.
    I look into the face of a woman double my age at
least, who’s leaning on her knee in the dark corner of the top
bunk. I hadn’t realized that there were three of us in here.
    “My brother,” I say too quickly, opening
up too fast. I’ve seen the TV shows, I know these people aren’t
on my side. But I’m so scared, and I want so badly for someone
to tell me it’ll be okay, and she looks like she’s been
here before.
    “I’m sorry for, uh, waking you,” I
say as I wipe the rest of my eyes.
    “Don’t worry about it, kid. Missy-moo
beneath me here is what’s keeping me up. Ever since they got
rid of the drunk tank, this place has gone downhill.” She gives
me a wry sort of smile, half-cunning, half-genuineness. She reminds
me of one of the customers at the bar. Someone that time and life
hasn’t been kind to.
    But I guess we’re both in lockup, so maybe life
hasn’t been kind to either of us.
    “Oh, yeah,” I reply, as if I know, but
she must be able to see me better than I can see her.
    “Your hands are shaking. First time here?”
    I look down at my hands before pressing my palms to
the table. “Yeah,” I murmur, honesty spilling from my
lips once more.
    She hops down from the bed, away from the puddle
beneath our roommate’s face, and joins me at the table.
    “What’re you in for?”
    “Vagrancy,” I reply with a sneer, another
sob striking my chest. “I just... I ran away, and the motel was
full, so I was just sleeping in my car in the parking lot. I didn’t
know there was anything wrong with it!”
    Her mouth goes into a line, the remnants of her lip
liner still visible. Watery blue eyes and light colored lashes peer
at me. “That’s a tough break, kid.”
    “Why, what are you here for?”
    She shrugs as if it’s nothing. “Solicitation.”
She pauses, then continues without needing to, “Prostitution, I
mean.”
    I look away. “Oh.” My nose crinkles
before I force my eyes back to hers. “Is this... is it your
first time for that?”
    She shakes her head and looks, for a second, so sad.
    “Third time’s a charm, right sweetheart?”
she says, and my heart breaks for her. I don’t know the charges
or the sentence she’s facing, but I can’t imagine it’s
going to be lenient.
    “I’m sorry,” I murmur gently.
    She shakes her head and gives me a flimsy smile. “It
happens. But when