Blaze: A Driven World Novel (The Driven World) Read online

  A Driven World novel

  By Delaney Foster

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Note From the Author

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  © 2020 KB WORLDS. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  Published by KB Worlds LLC.

  Cover Design by: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing LLC

  Cover Image by: Adobe stock images

  Editing by: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing LLC

  Proofing by: Amanda Hernandez

  Formatting by: Susie Poole, Poole Publishing LLC

  Published in the United States of America

  Introduction

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to the Driven World!

  I’m so excited you’ve picked up this book! Blaze is a book based on the world I created in my New York Times bestselling Driven Series. While I may be finished writing this series (for now), various authors have signed on to keep them going. They will be bringing you all-new stories in the world you know while allowing you to revisit the characters you love.

  This book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it. While I allowed them to use the world I created and may have assisted in some of the plotting, I took no part in the writing or editing of the story. All praise can be directed their way.

  I truly hope you enjoy Blaze. If you’re interested in finding more authors who have written in the KB Worlds, you can visit www.kbworlds.com.

  Thank you for supporting the writers in this project and me.

  Happy Reading,

  K. Bromberg

  Note from the author: On any given day in the United States, there are approximately 440,000 children living in foster care. In 2017, 9 out of every 1000 of these children were victims of abuse or neglect. Fifty percent of these children will never graduate or receive their GED. About fifteen percent will actually attend college, and of those, fewer than three percent will get a college degree. Twenty-five percent suffer from PTSD as well as high rates of depression and low self-esteem. After “aging out” of the system, twenty-five percent of foster teens experience being homeless at least once.

  Want to help? Be a voice. Find out more statistics and ways to donate here: https://www.speakupnow.org/

  I never saw Sugar—that’s what my mother insisted on being called—without a cigarette dangling between her fingers. Sometimes, she never even smoked them. She just held them there, letting the ashes fall to the ground along with the seconds of her miserable life.

  That’s the memory my mother left me with.

  She’s been dead ten years, but I can still smell the cigarette smoke, the stale, white haze that crept over my skin and into the air in my lungs. It’s always there, the stench. Like a creep on the subway that stands too close and breathes in your face. Entitled and unwanted.

  Within moments, I’m expected to stand on a stage in front of hundreds of influential people, important people, entitled people, and tell my life story. My story. I’m supposed to rip open my chest and bleed out into a room full of complete strangers in hopes that they’ll open their checkbooks. What’s the going rate for a woman’s soul these days? Ten thousand? Maybe fifty if I really sell it. Who knew the little girl who once slept on the floorboard of a rusted minivan with nothing but a bath towel to keep her warm would be the guest of honor at one of Florida’s top resorts?

  I fidget with the hem of my soft pink pencil skirt and shift uncomfortably in my chair while Kai, one of the chairmen of our foundation, addresses the crowd. I have no idea what he’s saying. I can’t hear him over the pulse pounding in my ears. Random words float across the stage followed by collective laughter from the group of guests seated at their round, linen-covered tables.

  Before tonight’s gala, my boss gave me a list of things to cover, bullet points designed to tug at the heartstrings.

  What drew you to Corporate Cares?

  What is it about helping foster children that means so much to you?

  How can your past help someone else’s future?

  For the company, it feels like a marketing strategy, a brilliant, creative ploy to solidify our cause. After all, who knows the system better than someone who grew up in the guts of it? For me, it feels like ripping the stitches off a wound I spent my entire life sewing up tight.

  The sound of applause lulls me out of my trance. I glance at the podium where Kai is smiling at me affectionately. He gestures his hand toward the microphone, offering me the stage. He must’ve introduced me already. A pang of guilt twists at my stomach that I missed it because he’s never been anything but supportive and encouraging. He knows I grew up in foster care, but that’s where his knowledge ends. It’s like asking someone where they’re from. They might say Texas or California, but that story about the time they toilet papered the neighbor’s house or didn’t make the city’s little league team stays hidden beneath the surface. Our pasts are not defined by a street number painted on a mailbox. It’s the experiences that make us who we are. Kai and this foundation have no idea what a milestone tonight is for me. They don’t know the pain and anguish that comes from sharing the details of a past that I’ve never shared with anyone, not one single person. Until this moment.

  I approach the podium with a painted-on smile, giving my boss a hug before he takes his seat next to me on the stage. Then I nod to the guests, greeting them with the same smile. Cordial. Rehearsed. Solemn. I should have it down to a science. I’ve had ten years to practice it.

  My eyes scan the group of social climbers with bleach-white teeth and diamond necklaces undoubtedly on loan from Tiffany’s or Cartier until I find him, the only person in this sea of strangers that matters. His copper gaze locks on mine, and my pulse races. I dig my heels into the carpet to keep from running to him. The black and white tuxedo fits him like a glove. These are his people. This is his world. He looks as though he hasn’t shaved in days, and I get it because I haven’t slept in days. My hands twitch with the need to reach out and touch his face, to feel each whisker beneath my fingertips. Then I remember he’s not mine to run to, not mine to touch. I’m not sure he ever was.

  Heartache, like pain, slices through me, and the cigarette stench is back, accompanied by the memories of gravel crushing beneath bald car tires, the itch of bug-bitten legs and head lice, and the chill that comes from sleeping in an abandon
ed house with broken windows.

  There’s an awkward silence in the room as some of the guests refold the cloth napkins in their laps while others clear their throats and adjust their posture. Hundreds of flawless faces stare at me as they wait for me to begin, but I only focus on one. He’s the reason I’m standing here ready to freely give the world the only piece of me it hasn’t stolen yet—my heart. When the people at Corporate Cares asked me to come to Florida and tell my story to help raise money for House of Hope, I immediately agreed. Not for the love of money, but for love itself. I’m here, sweaty palms and shaky breath, to try to save the one person who—I hope—can save me.

  I take a deep breath and force myself out of my own head—the place where the silence is louder than any noise. The only way to get through this is to tell it as if it were someone else’s story, as an outsider looking in.

  Here goes nothing.

  “When I was six years old, my mother taught me how to distract the convenience store cashiers so she could shoplift. At eight years old, I learned how to pretend I was asleep when one of her boyfriends crawled in bed beside me and breathed his whiskey-drenched breath down my neck. By the time I was ten, I learned CPR—the hard way—when I found my mother passed out on the bathroom floor. When I was twelve, I walked out into the ocean and prayed the waves would take me under and never bring me back. Three days after my fourteenth birthday, my mother died.”

  The formal banquet room is so quiet not even a single breath is heard. I close my eyes and hold my breath before I continue. I can’t look at him anymore. My heart can’t bear his judgment. When I open them again, he’s moved all the way to the front of the room, right in front of the stage. His solitary chair sits apart from all the other elaborate round tables. He looks at me, and the earth shatters.

  He’s broken.

  I’m broken.

  We’re broken.

  I swallow the heavy lump in my throat and fight back tears. Suddenly it’s not the past that haunts me anymore. It’s the future.

  “If you’re thinking this is where my story ends, you’re wrong. This is where it begins.”

  Four months earlier…

  There’s nothing like being jolted out of a deep sleep by the sound of the phone buzzing violently against the nightstand. The phone only rings at one in the morning for four reasons: someone died, someone’s hurt, someone’s horny, or someone’s in jail. I’m an orphan, which pretty much keeps me off anyone’s emergency contact list. I also have the sex life of a Norbertine monk, so, I can nix the booty call too. I only know two people old enough to be in jail, and one of them is supposed to be overseeing a house full of foster boys right now. The other could flirt her way off of death row.

  Which has to mean someone must be hurt. The boys.

  Or one of them might be sick. A fever. Or maybe throwing up. Jacob had a stomach thing last week. God, I hope there aren’t piles of puke everywhere. It’s Brody’s shift at the house, and he refuses to clean up vomit.

  Or what if someone is trying to break in? Like on The Strangers, a psycho in a babydoll mask asking if Tamara is home. No. I would’ve gotten an alert from the doorbell camera app. Unless they disconnected the wires…

  That’s it, Adrienne. No more Netflix before bed.

  Sometimes Liam wakes up screaming and in a cold sweat from memories of the night that brought him into foster care. Sometimes he even gets violent. What if he hurt one of the other boys? What if he hurt Brody?

  Why am I panicking? It’s not my shift. If something happened with the boys, Brody can handle it. When I left House of Hope after dinner, he assured me he had everything covered. Please, Jesus, let Brody have it covered.

  Whoever said being a counselor at an all-boys group home is easy was obviously full of shit.

  Wait.

  No one ever said that. Probably for a good reason.

  It’s not easy. It’s trying. It’s bitter. It’s exhausting. It’s heartbreaking. It can also be pretty damn amazing and gratifying, but it is never easy.

  My phone vibrates again.

  My heart sinks.

  “Hello,” I finally answer then cringe because I sound like a sixty-year-old smoker with cotton mouth.

  “Adrienne Maddox?”

  I clear my throat and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of my bedroom. “Yes. This is Adrienne.”

  “Sorry to wake you, ma’am. This is Deputy Briggman with the Mecklenburg County Sherriff’s Office. I have Liam Cross in custody.”

  Brody apparently did not have it covered.

  I shoot up straight, tossing the comforter to the side and banging my elbow on the nightstand when I jump out of bed. I grab the edge to steady myself and end up knocking my kindle and reading glasses on the floor.

  Hot. Mess.

  “Miss?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut and hold in the string of curse words at the tip of my tongue. “Yes, I’m here. Sorry. Is he okay?”

  “I’m going to need you to come down to the station.”

  Shit.

  Corporate Cares takes an unconventional approach to fostering. Five boys, three counselors, together under one roof in a family-type setting. The effects this has had on the kids in our house in California are phenomenal. With any success, this will be the new norm for fostering. In the nine months since we opened our first group home on the East Coast, there have been zero incidents, not even a pillow fight. The counselors take turns with twenty-four-hour shifts at House of Hope, better known as HoH to all of us. When we’re not at HoH or at the office uptown, we’re free to do as we please, but during those shifts, we have one job. One. Keep the boys, all five of them, safe and out of trouble.

  I glance up at the tall, white building in front of me—a fortress of glass and stone, filled with anger and regret… and trouble.

  Oh Liam, what did you do?

  I suck in a deep breath of the crisp, night air. A street sweeper passes by cleaning up the day’s litter. In the middle of the night, uptown Charlotte is peaceful. It’s still. It would be beautiful if my heart wasn’t hammering its way out of my chest.

  The double glass doors open into the lobby of the sheriff’s department, and I’m greeted by the overwhelming scent of Pine-Sol and the sour expression of a silver-haired deputy. The rubber soles of my shoes scuffle against the beige and green checkered floor. I start to put my cell phone and keys into a clear plastic tote, but the deputy shakes his head and waves me forward as if he can’t be bothered to get up. The light above my head flashes from green to red when I pass through the metal detector and a high-pitched beep pierces the air, but he doesn’t move. Apparently, at five foot four and a buck thirty, I don’t pose much of a threat.

  The deputy eyes me up and down then leans back in his chair. His thick mustache lifts to one side when his lip curls with a smirk. “Lookin’ for somethin’?”

  With his southern drawl and tilted grin, I can’t help but wonder if Sam Elliott has a twin brother no one knows about. “I’m here to pick up Liam Cross.”

  The man sits up straight and inhales a deep breath through his nose. “Ah, yes. The kid.” The chair creaks under his weight as he uses the arms to push himself up. If his deep, raspy voice and steel-gray eyes hadn’t already intimidated me, his height would have.

  The deputy looks down at me from behind the information desk. “He yours?”

  You want the whole story or the short version?

  “Yes.” I go with the short version.

  He purses his lips and studies my face for a minute longer than I’m comfortable with then nods once. “I’ll need to see your driver’s license.”

  Right. Of course he does.

  I pull my ID from the slot in my phone case and hand it to him, thankful that I finally switched my California license to a North Carolina one. The Elliott twin doesn’t look like he’s big on out-of-towners.

  He glances down at the plastic card then back up at me. Back down. Up again. “Hmm.”

  At this point I�
�m sure he’s wondering how a twenty-four-year-old woman birthed a fifteen-year-old boy. I could tell him I didn’t, that I’m just his legal guardian—well, the company I work for is—but that’s another story for a different day. Right now, I just need to get Liam back home. If the deputy was smart, he’d follow me there because I’m going to murder Brody the minute I see him.

  He runs my license through a scanner then hands it back to me and picks up the phone. “Briggman,” he says simply into the receiver. His eyes lock with mine. “Kid’s mom is here.” He hangs up the phone and with zero emotion, tells me to have a seat. Then he sinks back down in his chair and watches me from across the room.

  Newsflash: I’m not a criminal.

  I don’t sit. I can’t. Instead, I look around at the walls made of concrete block and painted the shade of vanilla ice cream. Other than me and Sam Elliott here, the lobby is empty. The walls are bland. The floor is cold. The whole place just feels sad. Then again, I suppose nothing about being in jail should make anyone feel happy.

  Seconds pass, and my heart races. A static-filled, muffled female voice echoes from a dispatch radio in the background followed quickly by a series of bleeps and a grainy male response. A shiver runs up my spine at the stark realization that even though my life has been far from perfect, this is my first time inside of a police station. Liam is fifteen with his whole life ahead of him. This is exactly the kind of thing I’m supposed to prevent. Sure, whatever happened, happened on Brody’s shift, but it also means that for the past three months since Liam moved into HoH, nothing I’ve said or done got through to him. I’m angry at him for not caring. I’m hurt because I honestly thought between all the late-night conversations over checkers and afternoons on the back deck grilling hot dogs that we were finally getting somewhere. Now it all feels like a lie. I’m terrified of finding out what he did to bring us both here, to a police station, at one in the morning.

  Maybe I should call Rylee. She’s the face of Corporate Cares, my mentor, the woman who hired me and trained me and convinced me to take a leap of faith and leave California to start over on the East Coast. She would know what to do.