by Lindsey Iler
“She isn’t a burden.”
“I know she isn’t, but what she found out, what we all just found out, it’s going to change things. We aren’t going quietly into the night. We’re going to fight for her, like you all did for me. We’re going to get our hands bloody if we fucking have to because that’s what we do when we love someone. And that girl?” Palmer points at the empty doorway. “She deserves the brutal kind of love we have to give. She deserves to have a boy show up, ready to fucking burn everything down for her.”
“I am.”
“Shut up and show up, then. Don’t let her wander into the darkness alone, because she’s been alone long enough. Even when you were in that room with her, fighting beside her, she was absolutely alone. Don’t let her feel that horror again.”
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” I say.
“Life rarely is. Especially not in our worlds.”
“I have to go.” I search my room for my jacket and tug it on.
“Bring her here. I don’t want her staying at the dorms.”
“I’ll carry her ass, if I need to.” I wink at Palmer, hoping she understands I haven’t given up on her best friend. I run through the house, snatching the keys off the entryway table.
On my way down the hill, Dixon’s name pops up on my screen. I tap the handheld button on the steering wheel, hearing the static in the speakers.
“I’m on my way,” I say.
“I tried to stop her, but she laced up her shoes pretty quickly,” Dixon sighs. “Do you want me to stick around until you get here? I can follow her if you need me to.”
“No, it’s all good, man.” I look both ways at the stop sign, rolling through it without touching my brakes. “What trail did she wander down?”
“Pine. And, Breaker?” Dixon says. “She looked pretty upset.”
Chapter Fourteen
Delaney
My sneakers strike the pavement like a fire to dry kindling, roaring and angry, searching for something to set ablaze. No matter how hard I push myself, relief doesn’t come.
Outside of using Breaker’s body, a demanding pace provides my sole release.
Breaker. The thought of him brings unwanted tears. Running out on him wasn’t fair. Apparently, all I do is run. Run from my problems. Run from the safety I’ve found in his arms. Run into the life of one who brings me false promises.
I press forward, thinking over every decision I’ve made since the night I followed Breaker Davenport into the woods. My chest aches with a burn I’ve never felt. As I round the corner, my feet become rooted to the spot.
“What am I doing?” I bend down and rest my hands on my knees to catch my breath. Overcome with the need to see Breaker, I spin around and head towards home.
At the trail opening, the bright sun makes it impossible to see little more than the tall, dark figure circling the mouth of the path.
He came for me.
My pace quickens as I prepare to jump into Breaker’s arms and kiss him senseless.
“I was being stupid!” I scream.
“At least you can admit it, Laney.” The voice sends a chill up my spine, and my feet freeze as if I’ve walked into quicksand, completely taken over by my surroundings. “By the look on your face, I’d say I’m the last person you expected to see.”
“What do you want, Tripp?” I ease into the same light that had hidden his identity until I was almost on top of him.
Without waiting for an answer, I attempt to walk around him, trying to put as much space between us as possible. I’ve been alone in these woods with untrustworthy people. Nothing good comes from it.
I’m almost free.
Tripp reaches out and squeezes my bicep, halting my escape. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“As far away from you as possible.” I jerk my arm away. “You’re a piece of fucking work, showing up here, after that shit last night.”
“I’m surprised to see you on your feet so quickly. Your friends rushed you away like you’d died.”
“Don’t you get it? I could have, and even if jumping from that bridge was perfectly safe, you knew what you were doing,” I scold.
“You looking for me to apologize, baby?” Tripp sidesteps, blocking me. The pet name sends a shiver up my spine.
“An apology?” I laugh, making a joke of his words. “Don’t kid yourself. It takes having a heart to utter words like that, Tripp, and we both know, me a little too late, that you don’t have anything inside your body that resembles a human.”
“This doesn’t change anything.” The harshness in his voice has me clenching my jaw. “You know that, right?”
“This changes absolutely everything.” I hurry away, moving closer to the dorms with every wide stride I make.
“He’s not the right guy for you, Laney.” Tripp’s voice echoes around the buildings. “You and I both know that.”
I hear Tripp’s voice like he’s whispering right over my shoulder. I’m leaving with him believing the reason I’m mad at him is because of what he did to Breaker. He has no idea I’m aware of his business with my father.
A familiar SUV speeds towards my dorm parking lot, screeching to a complete halt a few feet away, blinding me. I shield my eyes with my forearm. A door slams, and an arm wraps around my middle, hauling me against a familiar body. The space around us goes dark.
“Are you okay?” Breaker asks, releasing me when I nod. I love the way he holds onto me until he is certain I’m unharmed.
“Tripp,” I stutter the name of a boy who helped draw me out of the darkness, while secretly creating more.
“Where?” His eyes search the lawn.
“He caught me right outside of the running path,” I explain, holding him as he strains against me. “You aren’t going after him.”
“Like hell I’m not, Delaney.” His blind rage trying to get around me is sweet and typical of Breaker. He’s protective by nature. “I can’t sit here and do nothing, baby,” he pleads.
“Okay, and let’s say I move out of the way and let you at him. What’re you going to do then? Because we already know what happens when your fists get involved. What does that solve?”
“It’ll make me feel better.” His smile is slow to appear, but when it does, I can’t help but mirror it on my own face.
“Instead of killing him, how about you come up to my dorm and we talk?” I reach for his hand, and he begrudgingly takes mine in his.
I lead Breaker inside, holding tight to him. Once we are in my room, he relaxes on the bed and settles me between his legs.
“Talk to me,” he says.
“I run away,” I confess. “I ran away from you after that night. It was too hard to look at you, knowing what happened.”
“You lived to run away, Delaney. Don’t forget that.” His attempt to make me feel better is admirable.
“Don’t dismiss how I treated you. I was heartless, and I didn’t think I needed a hero. Sure as hell didn’t think I needed you to be mine.”
“I’m no hero.”
“A hero is someone who runs towards danger, unconcerned about what could happen to themselves, because their own wellbeing doesn’t even register.” I cup his head in my hands. “Trust me, that night you were a hero.”
My mind is foggy. I imagine this is how someone feels after being knocked out in a boxing ring. Surroundings are blurry, and every sound is muffled.
What the hell was in that needle? I trace my fingers over the skin Reed had punctured.
“Better not.” A hand presses into my chest, forcing me flat on the mattress.
Declan Dumas.
I flounder around, hazy-brained but alert enough to know the drugs in my system are dissolving fast. My vision clears a little more with every blink.
“Don’t do this,” I plead, knowing there’s no use.
The mattress ripples. He’s gotten off the bed, but where has he gone? It would be nice if my head would follow my brain’s command to track him.
“Now, why wouldn’t I?”
A disgusted tingle runs through my body when his palm slides up my calf.
“Don’t touch me!” I scream. This is it. Get up and run.
My body won’t move. Why can’t I run?
“The cocktail coursing through your veins makes you incapacitated”— Declan climbs over me, using his hips to pin me against the mattress— “but leaves you completely aware. It’s exactly how I need you because this isn’t worth it if you don’t have to live with it.”
“Stop!” I thrash back and forth. My arms are useless, but the strength in my legs is returning.
“You’re right.” Declan climbs off me. I concentrate on raising my head enough to see him messing with something on a shelf. “We can’t do it like this. You seem like a girl who wants to be romanced.” When he faces me, his grin curdles my blood. There’s no doubt about the kind of evil aimed at me right now. My fear releases in a feral scream.
Music blares through the room, making the roar from my mouth useless, but I don’t stop.
“Someone’s coming out of it,” Declan purrs in my ear. His hands disappear between our bodies, and my dress is ripped. “I’m going to need you to feel this.” He cups my vagina, and my stomach recoils, but as it does, I feel it. The tingling in my body is gone. I’m no longer being held to the mattress by some invisible force.
Declan grabs my chin, forcing my face to his. His tongue slides up my jaw, tasting me in a way no one has. I clutch my stomach. If I don’t move too much, I’ll have enough energy to fight.
Declan shifts and wiggles until his dress pants are at his ankles. Once he frees himself, I know it’s done for. The second my underwear is ripped from my body, I’m certain this is it.
If you don’t move, Delaney, this will define you and every other moment you have yet to experience. Falling in love will never be easy. Walking alone, impossible. It’s time to fucking fight.
The tip of his penis flicks against me. As he’s too occupied and consumed with the realization he’s finally won, he doesn’t notice my hand stretching at an impossible angle. My fingers finally wrap around the metal base of a Victorian-style lamp. It’s cold and smooth in my grasp. Squeezing it tightly, I smash it into the side of his head. His body falls away from mine, loosening the vice he has on my chest.
“You bitch!” He stumbles to his feet. A slow drip of blood slides down his temple.
He lunges at me. A loud, wood-splintering sound echoes through the room, replaced seconds later with the sound of bone crushing bone.
“You’re back there, aren’t you?” Breaker says, jerking me to the present. “Living in the past will only give life to the ghosts we’d rather keep buried.”
“What we did. Who I became in that room, who I watched you become, that scares me more than anything.” Fighting my tears is useless. They come with a vengeance and a whole lot of nightmares. “I didn’t hate seeing the blood rushing from his body. I felt relieved.”
“I think that’s how you’re supposed to feel, baby.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t live in your world where rules don’t matter. You take care of things in a way I’ll never understand. That’s not who I am. I don’t follow the same code of conduct.”
“That night you did, though.”
“And I became a killer because of it. I reveled in watching the life fade from his eyes. What does that make me?”
“Delaney, if you’re looking for some sort of remorse from me for what I did, what we did, you will never find it. I don’t apologize for protecting the most precious things in my life, and you are one of them. What happened to Declan is a cumulation of really bad decisions by one man, and he found the end of a blade.”
“But . . .” I try to argue, but he holds up his hand.
“We do what we have to do, Delaney. Always. What I did, what we did, is what we had to do.”
“Did we, though?” A moral dilemma is what my mother calls it.
The night everything happened, knowing Declan could never lay his slimy hands on another girl gave me a sense of relief. Once the dust settled, I started questioning if killing him had been the only option. If he’d have gotten what he deserved at the hands of the law, our hands wouldn’t have been bloodied and bruised.
“I think we can both agree Declan Dumas got what he deserved.” Breaker’s clenched jaw proves he’s struggling to understand where I’m coming from.
“You’re okay with it, Breaker. You can walk through life like it doesn’t matter because that’s who you are. The ends justify the means in your world. I’m not programmed like you. Like any of you. We. Killed. A. Man.”
“A man who almost stole the one thing from you that is sacred and is yours to give away freely. A man who played a large part in almost ruining the most important people in our lives.”
“When you say it like that . . .” I shake my head, completely understanding the logic, yet fighting my own demons at the same time.
“How bad was it, Delaney, before I got into that room?” he asks. “All I know is everything after.”
“It was so dark. There was only enough light to see his face hovering over me. I remember closing my eyes, wishing it all away, hoping for the quiet. It only came with a loud clack of splintering wood. It came with you.” My chest aches with fear that no longer should be there, but remains, loudly reminding me of what I’ve endured.
“Hearing you”— he pauses, collecting himself before continuing—“hearing your experience that night. I knew it was bad. I’m far too aware of what happened, but those words you strung together painted a far more horrific picture than I remember experiencing. I’m sorry if I don’t feel guilty for what I did to Declan.”
“You were so focused on saving me, you couldn’t see it from my eyes.” I slide off the mattress and cross the room, putting a little distance between us. “I’m not asking for your guilt, but this is why I ran away. I don’t know if I’m made of strong enough skin and bones to handle your world.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that, Delaney?” He shuffles over to me, pressing his chest into mine until my spine hits the wall. “I’m fully in. You may as well have tattooed your name on my damn heart, baby, because no matter what happens, even when I wasn’t yours, you’ve always been mine.”
“Breaker . . .”
“Sometimes it feels like all I’m doing is screwing things up. With you. With my sisters. I’m grounded when you’re nearby. Even on the ledge of the bridge, I’ve never felt more alive because you were beside me, but I can’t have you running away every time you get scared.”
“I won’t.”
“No, I don’t think you understand, baby.” He grabs my hand, cupping it between his two. His lips lower, and the warmth from his breath hugs my hand. “I’ve lost a lot in my life. I can’t chase someone who doesn’t want to be caught. I’d literally chase you over the side of a bridge, the unknown waiting for me. Do you want me, Delaney? It’s that simple. You’re either in or you’re out.”
“I’m not running away from you anymore,” I plead, hoping he understands. “I’m running from myself. I think I’ve always been.”
I’ve always been the pretty, rich girl with a silver spoon in my mouth. That changed this year, no matter what my bank account reads. I’m the girl who became a target simply by existing. There’s a lot of fear in knowing the world isn’t shielding me like I believed it would. I’m not exempt from the harshness of this life.
“A princess with little to no control,” Breaker whispers, flattening his lips.
“I don’t like it,” I admit.
“What if I said we could regain some of your control?” I lean away before he can kiss me and question him with a quirked eyebrow, needing a better explanation. “We need to talk to Dixon.”
******
“No more running,” Dixon says as I sneak into his room.
His back is to me, his eyes on multiple screens. The dim lighting comes from the luminescent hue of
his computers.
“I’m not running. I’m here, aren’t I?” I say.
“Breaker can rip the throat out of a man, but you deserting him will feel like a fresh wound for the rest of his life.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“To make sure you’re worthy of him.”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
Dixon leans to the side, resting his elbow on his thigh. “You’d think, right?” His eyebrows raise, daring me to contest his correct accusation.
“You’ve got a point, and I hate you for it,” I say.
“Don’t worry. Most girls feel that way towards me.”
“Like Reagan.” I glance around. “Speaking of her, where the hell has she disappeared to?”
“Let’s focus on you, shall we?” Dixon straightens and clicks away at his multi-colored keyboard. He has quite the set-up in here.
“What can you do with this stuff?” I lean over his chair, completely invading his space.
“Reroute planes. Diminish your inheritance. Reveal everyone’s darkest, deepest secrets.” The thrill in his tone is frightening.
“What you found out about my dad is true, then?” I ask the burning question.
Dixon spins around so fast, he almost knocks me over. “Listen, I warned you that you wouldn’t like what I find. Your father is a piece of shit, but look around, most of our parents are. It comes with the territory of money and status.”
“It doesn’t have to.”
“You’re right. I suspect you and Breaker will break the mold. Same with Marek and Palmer.”
“What about you and Byron?” I inquire.
“No, unlikely. We are who we are to our core.”
“That’s not true.”
“Even the devil has friends, sweetheart.”
“So, what are we going to do about it?”
“That depends. How far are you letting me go?”
This is the real question. He’s my father. I’m made up of his parts. His good, bad, and ugly are coursing through my veins. This idea goes both ways, though. He also made these parts, and instead of nurturing them and allowing them to grow unmarked from his deceit, he picked up the knife and slashed into me without a single thought.