Page 82 of Burn Bright

“By the hour,” I banter with a smile, which brings hers out too.

“And Charlie…?” She hesitates to ask. “How are you handling living with him?”

I called him a sick, malignant version of Dad and he called me a pathetic one, so I’d say we’re doinggreat.Exactly what any parent would want for their two sons.Sign us up for a three-legged sack race together and we’d most definitely face-plant off the starting line.

It’s hard to muster a cheery lie, but there is a silent understanding between me and all my siblings that we don’t tattle to our parents.

We’re not five years old. They don’t need to know Charlie’s an absolute demon—and truthfully, I don’t want them to know. A part of me truly believes they’d brush away his comments. Make an excuse for him. They haven’t yet, but that’s because I haven’t given them the chance.

“It’s been okay with Charlie,” I tell her. “They all just met a friend of mine tonight.”

“From hockey?”

“No, I haven’t tried out for the team yet, but she goes to MVU.”

Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “She?”

I smile wider. “Yeah, my friend is a girl?—”

“Ben.” Beckett pounds a fist at the bathroom door.

“I have to go,” I tell her quickly, hoping she can’t hear the urgency in Beckett’s tone. “They must be ready to leave.”

“I love you, sweet gremlin.”

“Love you too, Mom.” I hang up just as Beckett knocks again. When I open the door, the distress on his face crushes me.

“Harri—” He doesn’t finish saying her name before I’m wrenched into the hallway by my own concern.

“Where is she?” I thought leaving her with my brothers would be fine. Beckett snatches the back of my T-shirt, stopping me short, and I twist out of his grip.

We’re face-to-face when he holds up his hands to try and calm me. “Just take a breath, Pip.”

I said the same thing to Audrey.

But I’m not crying.

I’m not sobbing.

No one has died—right?

“What the fuck happened, Beck?” I ask. “Where’s Harriet?”

He keeps a hand raised as if he’s anticipating I’ll react poorly. Her leather jacket is draped on his forearm. Everything dials up my concern to new, unstable heights. “She ran off?—”

That’s all I hear before I’m sprinting to the front door. I push it open and meet the New York night with angered footfalls. Bodyguards stand on the wet sidewalk with the rest of my brothers as light rain mists the air. I’m lasered in on just one person.

The guy smoking a cigarette next to a lamp post.

The guy rolling his eyes as soon as he sees me approach.

The guy who I know had something to do with this.

“Charlie!” I scream. “What the fuck did you do?!”

He flicks his cigarette to the pavement and casually scuffs it with his polished shoe. I’m ten feet from him when Eliot and Tom sidestep in front of me, and all I want to do is bulldoze. Rage rips through my body, and I am ready to unleash. But Eliot’s hands fly to my chest, and he’s the only brother who’s strong enough to physically restrain me.

“Stop.” Eliot’s urgency elevates my pulse. I shove him, and he grasps the side of my neck, pinning me closer to his chest.