Page 70 of Brazen Defiance (Brazen Boys #4)

RJ

B etween getting Jansen somewhere safe and my class interfering with the drop, we missed Wednesday and Thursday’s opportunities to get Clara what she needs. Walker doesn’t trust he can get close enough to do it, as he looks the same as last year.

Trips’ father had to have briefed the security on us. It would have been stupid if he hadn’t, and that man isn’t dumb.

So, we’re left with three days of waiting and worrying about the consequences of taking care of Jansen when Clara needs us. Monday, I should be able to grab her before her criminal law class. Hopefully it isn’t too late.

Walker said that Clara was moving better yesterday, but that she still wasn’t herself.

And the silence on the chat board I made for us is loud.

Now that she’s in class, she should have access to the internet.

Ninety percent of everything you need for every course is kept there, so she should have reached out by now.

Same with Trips. Although, we assumed his family would find him more of a risk, and he’d have more restrictions than she would.

Both are apparently on lockdown, Clara’s black and blue, and her parents just temporarily relocated to her uncle’s house—yes, I’m watching them, too, now that I know her dad came to Walker—this all tells me that while the plan is going well on our side, it isn’t on theirs.

Although, we’re down a man, so maybe it’s not going well here either.

Walker and I fill up Friday with a swim and a trip to the climbing gym before heading to the hospital for visiting hours.

Jansen meets us in a room with dim lighting, nature sounds, and a forest mural on one wall.

He doesn’t look much better than he did the day before but even having him here feels like a win.

Evie and his mom are driving down tonight.

“Hey man,” I say, tugging him in for a hug, a smile uncomfortable on my face.

He huffs out a breath, slumping onto the couch cross-legged. “You don’t have to pretend you’re not worried, RJ.”

Walker sits across from him. “How are you doing today?”

He shrugs. “They think I’ll have to go inpatient for a bit while they try different meds. Apparently, there can be major side effects.”

“What kind of side effects?” I ask.

“The jumping off the top of a tower kind of side effects.”

I share a look with Walker. “So, how do you feel about the risk of side effects?”

Whatever had been keeping Jansen upright seems to fail him, and he flops onto his back, staring at the fake forest painted beside us. “Mostly nothing, but a little annoyed. I missed seeing Clara today, and as a reward, I might go different crazy.”

“Do they think the meds might help?” Walker asks, ignoring whatever negative spiral he seems to be caught in.

Jansen shrugs. “I mean, I’ll try them. But apparently, if they treat my lows, they have to treat my highs, and once those get settled, they can try to treat my ADHD, and if that works out, well, all the drugs might end up stealing part of me that is just, well, me.”

Walker swallows. “But you’ll try?”

“Yeah. I won’t know until I try.” He clears his throat. “How’s Fluffington?”

“He misses you,” I say, remembering waking at 3 a.m. suffocating on his fur, happy for the change in subject.

“They said I might have to take the semester off. If I do, I’m thinking I’ll build him a cat wall. I saw one on TV last night, and it looked cool. Do you think Trips would be okay with that?”

“Yeah, Jay, Trips will be fine with that,” Walker says, neither of us knowing if it’s true.

We spend the next hour talking about nothing important, pretending everything’s fine while Jansen drops in and out of the conversation, his brain unable to focus for long.

As we leave with a promise to come the next day and help him move to a long-term facility, I can’t help but feel like we’re abandoning him.

It might be exactly what he needs, but having already lost Trips and Clara, unable to keep track of them, unable to keep them safe, leaving yet another member of our team without an easy way to keep in contact feels like a failure.

Monday morning, I wait outside of Clara’s classroom for a full hour before she’s due for her undergrad Criminal Law class, just so I can’t miss her.

Walker and I drilled the lift all weekend, but I’m not confident in it.

It’s not the physicality of it. It’s the blending in part that worries me. I’ve never wanted to stick out, but I always have. Whether I’m too quiet, too serious, too intense, something about me always seems to draw censure.

So having to get close enough to Clara to make the hand-off without tipping off her guard has me sweaty and shaking.

I can’t stand seeing her hurt any more than she already has been.

And she needs this damn shot. Every day without it, especially as it looks like they were probably caught faking, is a risk she doesn’t want to take.

I remember one lazy afternoon, both of us naked and sweaty in the bed, her fingers tracing across my skin like she was following lines of a map, she’d rested her head on my chest and cleared her throat. “Do you think I’m crazy to do this? To take this risk?”

I’d pulled her closer, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

She’d promised to come to me before she revealed more of her plans, to let me be her sounding board.

She’d kept that promise as best she could.

I’d tilted her chin back, pressing my lips to hers, not quite ready to get back to worrying about the future.

Even as I’d been up late tracking down more pedophiles for her to ship off to the cops.

We might enjoy a lazy afternoon or two, but we both understood it was temporary. “What would you do if it came to that? If you got pregnant?”

She’d rubbed her cheek against my chest, her fingers flat across my abs.

“It depends on if we can get out of the net. I couldn’t leave my kid with Trips’ father.

If there’s no way out, I don’t know. I know I should plan for it, but still.

I don’t know how I’d feel about having a kid, so I’m not sure I can plan for that. ”

I’d tugged her closer, needing to feel her skin against mine, the words necessary. “You wouldn’t do it alone. We’d all support you. No matter what you chose.”

She’d rolled across me, straddling my lap, her fingers tracing the lines of my collarbone.

“I know. That’s how I know you’re all keepers.

” She’d leaned forward, pressing her lips to mine, slowly coaxing my body back to ready, the slide inside her slick from what we’d just finished.

The warmth in her gaze, bisected by the late afternoon light, had lulled me into not following the line of questioning.

And when she came, quietly, to not attract the attention of our attack cat or to rile the chickens just outside the window, well, the muted tone of it makes it seem more dream than memory.

Some broken, timeless moment that I want back.

When pregnancy came up in the planning stages, she said she’d bribe a doctor to have a grab-and-go birth control shot, and that we’d have to get it to her if she wasn’t allowed to pack a bag.

And that was that. Nobody asked what would happen if we got it to her too late.

Nobody voiced what we all wondered—would we be parents when we finally broke free of Trips’ father’s restraints?

The idea of her pregnant, forced into motherhood before she decided that’s something she wants, drags the rage that’s been spiking for the last month to the surface, and a few underclassmen dodge around me as I wait at the end of the hall.

Forcing my face into what I’ve been promised is a neutral, unmemorable position, I keep waiting, watching, hoping to at least see her, even if it will be torture to just look and not sweep her to safety.

Forty minutes later, she enters from the other end of the hall. She looks like the stuck-up version of the girl I love, and she’s moving with small, careful steps.

She’s hurt. Not as bad as what Walker described, and what Jansen could eventually put into words, but still.

Whatever beating she took, it’s bad enough that a week later, she still can’t move with her usual confident stride.

My hands clench, the small pouch I’m holding reminding me I can’t make the move I want to.

Instead, I sigh, forcing myself into the role Walker drilled me on, shuffling down the hallway, hat hopefully obscuring my face enough that with my different hair, beard, and pretty-boy clothes, I won’t be recognized.

I feel her eyes on me for a moment when we’re still about twenty feet apart, and it’s all I can do to keep from meeting her gaze.

But I force myself to pull out my cellphone, staring at it like it’s more important than the girl I’m almost beside, hopeful she can make the hand-off. I don’t see any purse or pockets.

Shit.

I offer the bag, and instead of taking it, her fingers brush against the back of my hand, her touch lightning over my skin, my vision blurry from the force of emotion overwhelming me.

Then she’s past me, her guard whispering something in her ear.

I go a little farther down, then lean against the wall, my heart pounding as I watch from the corner of my eye.

As they go into the classroom, she shoots me a smile.

But the guard yanks her hard, and as I drag my gaze away from her, his face registers as the man I’d fought so many months ago, the man she thought she’d killed.

Fuck.

I stare at the small pouch in my hand.

No birth control. Beaten. Guarded by a man who likely wants her blood.

The hallway grows quiet as class begins, and still I stand there, wishing I could suddenly develop telekinesis or something to get her what she needs. Instead, I pull up Trips’ schedule.

Maybe I’ll have better luck with him. At least men’s clothes always have pockets.