“You do know your dad is going to be pissed right?”

“Oh, please, for what?”

“You damaged school property, not to mention setting off the fire alarms, and setting fire to the gym. It was kind of a scary move.” She sat down beside her friend, tucking her long brown hair behind her ear.

“You should have seen Principal Asshole’s face when he saw it was me. Especially when I pulled you through the broken window. How is your arm?” he asked.

She held out her bandaged arm. She’d torn the bottom of her shirt and wrapped it around the wound. She didn’t have the heart to tell him it was hurting or that she believed there was a piece of glass inside of it as she felt some pressure within her arm.

Instead, she let Bishop laugh. He liked to piss off the teachers at school. Being Preacher’s son, well, it gave him a lot of leeway to be a disruptive ass.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not like they’re going to do anything, you know. I won’t get in trouble.”

“Your dad will be pissed.” Robin didn’t want to think of the last and only time Preacher was angry, and that had been directed at her. While he’d made sure she knew the score, her own father had held her still, keeping her in place as he yelled in her face, dictating what she had to repeat back to him.

Shaking off the memory, she tried not to think about it, ever. It was the only time her father had ever hurt her, and it had also brought the reality of what her parents were into crashing down. They were not normal parents with normal jobs. There was no way she’d ever see her mother, Rebecca, working in a library. Far from it. She’d be at the bar, smoking, or taunting some of the club women with their lack of status.

“Yeah, daddy dearest will be pissed, but come on. What’s asshole really going to do? Complain that he can’t keep me in line?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m sick and tired of being PS. I’m one vowel away from being PMS!”

Robin burst out laughing, quickly covering her mouth when she saw the glare on Bishop’s face. “You’d need a consonant to be PMS. M isn’t a vowel.”

“Oh, yeah, of course I knew that. I’m not dumb.” Bishop put an arm across his face. She sat beside him.

She glanced around the open field. There were so many trees, and she loved coming out here, being alone, listening to only her thoughts and the occasional song of a bird. Closing her eyes now, she tilted her head back and enjoyed the freedom she felt.

“I totally forgot—do you want to stay in school? I know you hate it when I drag your ass out of there.”

She laughed. “It’s a little late now to be worrying, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. You love it when I take you, though, right?”