The Rebel by Kaitlyn Garlets (the beach read .TXT) 📕

tell that Luke had the same feeling the way he was so tense next to me.
“Hello?” I ask, feeling around for the light switch on the wall, but couldn’t find it. I knew where the light switch is, but I couldn’t find it.
“Now!” I heard one of my crew members yell.
Suddenly, all of my crew members came at us in the dark and grabbed me from behind.
I gasped at how tightly they had a hold of me.
I screamed, yelling cruse words at them. They betrayed me. “Let me go!”
The light came on and I blinked, seeing that they had knifes and a couple guns in our faces.
Brett was standing right in front of me, smiling. “Why would I let you go when you are now my hostage, Mia?”
“Brett. Why?” I ask, gasping when Margot, who was holding me so tight, tugged at my wrists. “You were the only one I ever trusted! What are you doing?”
Brett scoffed and spit onto the ground in front of my feet. “You never trusted me! You don’t trust anyone! I’ve been planning this since I met you, Mia. I didn’t want to do this to you, but you never listened to me. You were so set on finding your killer when he was right in front of your face! You would never have guessed one of your on crew members would do something like this.”
I shake my head. So he was the one hired to kill my family. It almost doesn’t seem real now that I think about it. I never thought I would find him, even though I kept telling myself that I would eventually find him. I didn’t want to find him like this. And Brett is wrong. I did trust him. Well, until now.
“I did trust you, Brett. You were the only one that I did trust. Why do you think I made you second-in-command? I would have never done that unless I trusted you. Why did you kill my family?” I am whispering because I feel so weak, and I am sure that Luke can feel it too. I look around to find Luke, and see that he is knocked out on the floor, his nose bloodied.
Brett had a gun pointed at me, and when I looked back at him, I could see in his eyes that he didn’t even want to point the gun at me. He was shaking plainly.
“I had to. He told me that if I didn’t, then he would kill mine. I was supposed to kill all of you, even you, but I made sure that you had left before I killed your father and brothers. I didn’t want to kill you,” he said.
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you want to kill me?” I ask, my knees buckling underneath me. I fell to the ground, scraping them, but I didn’t care.
“Because I am in love with you. I was only your age when I killed your family and I just couldn’t let you die.”
I look up at him. “What? If you loved me so much, then why didn’t you just tell me that you had to do it instead of doing all of this? I mean, I have been through so much pain and you never said a thing. You could have killed me in the middle of the desert when I slept, but you didn’t. Why?”
“I told you! Because I am in love with you! Don’t you see that I have done all of this so that we can be together?” Brett says, kneeling down in front of me.
“You killed my family because someone made you, but you couldn’t kill me? What happened when you came back to the mayor and told him?” I ask.
Brett looks away from me. “It wasn’t the mayor. He knew about it though. It was your father who asked me to do it.”
I gasp. “What? You lie!”
Brett shakes his head. “No. Your father and my father talked about how your father was losing too much money and how he couldn’t stay here anymore because he needed your mother, who I think died because she gave birth to you. Anyways, your father told the mayor that he needed someone to come and kill him and that he would pay the mayor all the rest of the money. He agreed and sent my father to do the dirty work, but then my father chickened out and made me do it. The mayor wasn’t happy when I came to him and told him that I was the one who did it. So the mayor hired someone else to kill my family. I should never have done it, but our families would have ended up dead anyways.”
I couldn’t speak. Nothing would come out. I was in shock. I didn’t know if it was the truth that Brett was speaking to me, but I could see in his eyes a pain that he had hidden from me for so long.
“I don’t understand. You could have told me about this a long time ago, Brett. I would have understood.”
Brett looks at me, skeptical. “Really? You would have understood?”
I nod. “Yes. You had to, and I would have done the same thing too.”
Brett stood and sat his gun down on a barrel and moved towards me. Then he looks at my crew members, (now going to be ex-members), and said, “Leave, I must speak with Mia alone.”
They left, leaving Brett and I all alone.
I am breathing heavily and I hoped that Luke would wake up soon enough.
“You swear? You swear that you would have understood?” Brett asks again, stepping towards me. I back up into the barrel next to Margot’s gun and I slowly grab it.
Brett doesn’t even see me grab it because he leans into me and kisses me with such desperation that it scared me.
“Hey! Get the hell off of her!” Luke is standing behind Brett, who stops kissing me and turns slowly around to see a gun pointed at him. I back up and point my gun at him too.
“I thought Margot knocked you out,” Brett says, raising his hands in the air.
“Like hell. I heal much faster than you stupid humans do. As you can see, Margot broke my nose, but it’s healed now.”
Brett gasps and I can see that he is now scared. Luke just basically told Brett he isn’t human.
“Whoa, man. I didn’t mean anything!” Brett begs, falling to his knees.
I look at Luke and I can see he didn’t like Brett touching me whatsoever and I hadn’t either.
“Luke. He was the one who killed my family. He didn’t mean it though. Let him go. He isn’t going to hurt us!’ I urge, trying to show him something that even I didn’t know about in my eyes. Luke understands and lowers his gun and I hold my hand out to Brett, who sighs and grabs it.
“Let’s go. Just us three. No one has to know about this moment,” I say, not sure where this is going.
Luke looks at me, not understanding and I give him a look, saying, not now. He nods, and opens the door to the alleyway and we all walk out.
We get onto our horses, Luke on mine and Brett on his. Luke leans over to me and whispers, “What are we doing? I thought that you wanted to kill him. He was your family’s killer. Have I changed you that quickly?” he smirks.
I smile a true smile and I think. “I know what we can do with him. Let’s just go. Follow my lead.”
I look at Brett. He looks sad and guilty. I was going to make him suffer, but he just didn’t know it.


Chapter six:

Mia was planning something, and even I didn’t know it. She wouldn’t tell me. Somehow, she seemed changed and I liked it even better than I had before.
We had rode out into the middle of the desert in the hot sun and shoved Brett off of his horse and we took off, leaving Brett without a horse or anything. She was making him suffer in the middle of the desert without killing him like she had said she would. I didn’t even know that she had changed so soon. I am glad for it.
I think back to when she dumped Brett in the middle of the desert. She had taken one look at him and said, “Have a nice and slow death, Brett. I hope that as you die, you will think about all the pain you caused me and my family. You don’t deserve anyone.”
We were riding to Cloddirt where her family died and she looked sadder with each mile we came closer to it.
“Mia? Are you okay?” I ask, holding her waist as we rode.
She nods. “I think so. I am glad that you came here from where ever you came from to help me out. I never thought I would find out who really killed my father and brothers. I cannot believe that it is Brett who did it. I never even suspected it was him. I regret so much now that I am thinking with my heart.”
“When did you start thinking with your heart?” I ask, looking into her eyes.
“I don’t know. Maybe I always have, but always thought it was my head talking to me. Maybe when Brett admitted he was the one who killed my family. I don’t know. What do you think?” Mia stops the horse and looks at me.
I think about it, and immediately know the answer. “I think that you’ve always listened to your heart.”
Mia slides off her horse and feeds Bell a carrot the color of her hair. I love her hair.
I also slide off. “Mia, when I did wake up on the floor back there, I couldn’t stand to see him kissing you like that. It was so disgusting.”
Mia is watching me. I think she knows what I want to say to her. She wants to say something to me to, but doesn’t know how. She isn’t one to show her emotions to people that much.
“Yeah, I know. I didn’t like it at all. But…for some reason, I have this weird feeling inside. Like I’m empty inside,” she says, unsure.
I nod, knowing what she is talking about. “I know. I feel the same way. Do you remember the connection I was talking about? I think I was sent here to help you with something more than this. Don’t you?”
She nods, distracted by something else. “I feel it too. I don’t really know what to do with my life anymore now that I know who killed my father and brothers all those years ago. It’s like I spent all my life pretending to be someone that everyone else wanted to be and now that I think about it, I never wanted to be that person. I was too caught up in the fact that I was all alone and I had no one to take care of me. So I took care of myself.” I don’t say anything. “Anyways, I wanted to thank you for helping me. I think I can go on now without you.”
I don’t know what to say. “Huh?”
“I said that you can leave whenever you want. Your mission is over, Luke. I don’t need you anymore,” she said, avoiding my eyes.
I gape at her. “What about our connection?” I ask.
She turns more away from me. “I