Page 51 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

Trips

I t’s been a while since the asshole progenitor locked me away.

The plain white walls, barred windows, and scuffed wood floors have withstood my rage before, but the ball in my gut has never felt this intense, as if acid, fire, and ice are all competing to devour me from the inside out.

I back into the safest corner, forcing myself to breathe, just the way Clara reminded me to do in my father’s office.

Fuck.

She was being beaten by my father, medically assaulted at gunpoint, and she still kept it together enough to help me.

I don’t deserve the girl. I never have. This whole mess wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t been so weak, imagining that I could have something with her. If I’d never met her. If I’d never even fucking been born.

She’d be safe.

She’d have found her way out of that fucked-up situation with her ex.

Honestly, she did. That was all her. She got herself free, starting with that humid morning when she knocked on our front door, her hair in two braids and her eyes swollen, braced for the worst while hoping for the best. I opened the door and let her into our fucked-up lives.

I try to remind myself that we knew this was coming.

That my dad had her medical records, that no measly IUD would keep him from getting what he wants.

But we assumed we had time. A week or two at least. That he’d charm us to his way of thinking, lull us into some false calm before tearing us down, a psychological battle more than the straight up hammer he just hit us with.

Curling into the corner, I keep breathing, my vision whiting out, then coming back as the sun moves across the sky.

Every moment becomes a battle to stay here, now, the need to just let my body burn to the point of exhaustion, only coming back once the pain overwhelms me, is so goddamn strong my hands shake as I try to keep them flat and relaxed against the floor.

But I keep breathing. I keep trying all the shit I’d been practicing in the early mornings when everyone was more or less asleep in the RV. I made a list of all the ways to keep myself from fucking up like I did last winter, and I practiced them. For months, just in case.

So I force myself through the motions. I listen to the birds out the window, trying to count the different calls I hear.

I rub my fingers along the grain of the wood, focusing on each bump and stripe.

I watch the shadow of the barred window slowly slide across the wall, distorting more as the day wears on.

I sit, and I struggle.

But I stay here. I stay present.

And when night falls and I curl onto my side, I watch the stars appear.

I remember my mom curled up with me late at night, her voice shaking as she tried to pretend she was fine, asking me to count the stars and make a wish.

She told me that every star was born with a wish, and if you find one that hasn’t been taken yet, it’s yours to keep. Yours to make come true.

So I count the stars, and make my wish, over and over again, just in case there’s a single one unclaimed. Because the only thing I have left is a modicum of hope and a plan so fucked-up, I wish I hadn’t agreed to it.

If there’s any karma in the universe, we’re owed it now. The stars might be as silent as this house, but at least they haven’t lost their shine. I’ll need their luck if we want to make it through this. God never answered a single one of my prayers. But wishes? Maybe sometimes those do come true.

The door opens when the sun hints on the horizon. Falk steps through, glancing at the camera in the corner before inching farther in, wary of what he’s going to find.

He was the new guy the last time my father locked me up, sent in without being warned. He’d won the scuffle, but not before I broke his nose and bruised a few ribs. So I can’t blame him when he deals with me like a rabid animal.

“I’m cool,” I say, holding my hands away from my body after I push myself to sitting.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Am I being let out?”

“You’re supposed to shower and change. The boss wants to have a meeting before breakfast.”

I push myself to my feet, my body achy from the floor and lack of sleep, and follow Falk.

I’m not surprised when he leads me to the room Clara and I stayed in last winter, but when he pulls a key and unlocks it, my stomach drops.

Her cage might be nicer than mine, but it’s still a cage.

And we’ve let ourselves become my father’s pretty pet birds, to be taken out and put back at his leisure.

“Am I supposed to bring her too?” I ask before the door opens.

Falk nods, his face grim. He didn’t like what my father did yesterday. He held me back, but he’d been apologizing and cursing the whole time. Which makes me wonder yet again what father has on him. Falk was always too good for this place.

The room is dim, the curtains drawn, the door locking behind me, trapping Clara and me together.

My hands sweat, and I know I’m not ready to see her.

Yesterday went from her catching up with Emma to being assaulted in front of a room full of men, half of which got hard-ons watching, including fucking Trevor.

I checked, and every one of those worms will pay. Not today. It’s not time yet. But soon, those broken excuses for men will get what’s coming for them.

I inch for the bathroom, but a soft voice halts me. “Morning.”

Striding across the room, I throw open the curtains, not wanting to turn around, not sure if I can handle seeing another tear from that girl without burning the house to the ground around us.

“Did you get any sleep?” she asks.

The second window has an unobstructed view down to the lake, and while I can’t see the sun through the trees, I can see the lingering night, the last few stars fading into the lightening sky. “No.”

“Me either.”

“We’re supposed to shower and head downstairs. Father wants a meeting.”

Rustling behind me begs me to turn, but I don’t. When her hand slips into mine, I let it happen. She squeezes my palm, and I risk a glance down at her.

She braided her hair back last night, a few chunks wild around her face, a faint bruise and scratch on one cheek and dark circles under her eyes. But it’s not those that make me look away. It’s the concern in her gaze.

“How are you? Really?” she whispers, stepping close enough that unless there’s a recording device right in front of us, we’re probably safe.

I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to tell her anything that justifies the concern in her gaze, but she’s involved, stuck smack dab in the middle of this, and I can’t hide from her.

Not if we’re going to make it through. “I feel like an overcooked roast, like my sinews have dissolved and I’m going to fall apart before anyone even digs a knife in me.

” I sigh, weirded out by my analogy. “But I didn’t lose it.

I almost did, so many times, but I pulled back. ”

Her hand squeezes mine again. “That’s good, right?”

I risk another look, her brown eyes earnest. “I honestly don’t know.

It’s easier if I’m not…here. But I can’t leave anymore.

Not with you here, too.” And now I sound like I’m delusional.

Like I don’t know that I’m always exactly where I am.

That even if my mind goes somewhere else, it’s still me.

I’m the one pounding someone until their blood paints the pavement.

I’m the one coming to with destroyed knuckles and weighty regrets.

I’m the one who woke to the one person I wanted to protect half dead in the snow.

Her head presses against my arm, and I know she needs more from me.

I’ve watched the way she is with the guys, how often she begs for touch without words, and how quickly they all pull her close, holding her, kissing her, comforting her.

But in giving comfort, I get comfort, and that doesn’t seem fair after all I’ve put her through. All I’m still dragging her into.

So I step away, removing my hand from hers. “Do you want first shower or second?”

She drops her chin, and I know I’ve fucked up again. A small fuck-up, but it’s still another jab at that wide open heart of hers.

“I’ll take first. Maybe my hair will be at least a little dry before we head down,” she says, disappearing into the bathroom, the door snicking shut behind her.

As I pull expensive as shit clothes out of the closet, obviously purchased for us at some point, I wish, not for the first time, that things were different.

That I could push through that door, slip into the shower behind her, and be welcomed with that little smirk she gets when she’s doing anything even remotely scandalous.

That I could press her against the wall, feel her legs wrap around me as I inch into her heat, and have all her little whimpers and cries to myself.

That we’d fight, not about dumb shit, but with our bodies, over who can make the other come first, come loudest, come so hard that the whole world fades away and leaves just the two of us, gasping each other’s names.

I wish it so fucking hard that I can barely breathe when I hear the water turn on.

But it’s full daylight now, not a star in sight. And there is only the bare truth in this house. Wishes are for little boys panicking in the dead of night, while reality is for the monsters that rule in the bright light of day. Clara doesn’t need wishes.

She needs her own personal monster.

And for better or worse, I’ve been training for the role my whole damn life.