Page 33 of Burning Demons (Burning Torments #1)

Chapter 33

Wren

“Winnie? What is it?” Sam joined us, staring at Tate’s throat like a circus act.

New levels of rage had me clenching my fists so tightly the bones popped. “You said he never touched you like this,” I hissed.

Tate lowered his head. “He never had.”

“Who? What the hell is this about?” Sam pointed at Tate’s neck. “Did your stepdad do that?”

His irate tone and rapid-fire questions had Tate backing up, but I circled my arm around his back to stop him.

“You can do this,” I whispered into Tate’s hair. “I’ve got you, always.”

Tate lifted his shivering chin and said, “Franklin did it.” Tears streamed from his eyes, but his voice was solid when he added, “He did a lot I need to tell you about.”

In the middle of our cheerful Christmas-filled living room, Tate, raw and drained, told Sam everything about what he had gone through. The four of us sat there, Tate under my shoulder with Momma crying into Sam’s. Some of the details were new to me, but all of it hurt to hear.

Out of consideration for Momma, probably, Tate skimmed over the sexual details but made sure it was well understood that it happened. The more he purged, the more Tate leaned into me until I was holding him upright.

Tate confessed to being so unsure about himself, about his guilt and self-shame for not exactly hating Franklin when he probably should’ve, for forcing his view of love and caring to fit what he was given, for ignoring his own voice inside saying he shouldn’t have to. That was when Momma had stepped in with her wisdom and told Tate how brave and strong he was for holding himself together through it all. She even got a weak smile out of him. Momma could always make me smile too.

Hearing about Tate’s past was horrible for all of us, and watching as Sam broke was something I never wanted to see again. Maybe it was knowing this had already happened, that these were events he couldn’t save his child from. Whatever hit him the hardest brought tears to his eyes.

There was something life-altering about watching someone like him get so emotional. Not just him being a man, but Sam was the unwavering force we expected to stay solid, the rock we all leaned on. I never really understood what that meant until that rock was shaken.

Finally, Tate told us about what happened tonight when he left with Franklin. How Joey was at the right place at the right time and had earned a friend for life, from all of us.

When he’d had enough, knew enough, Sam pulled Tate to his feet, and they hugged long and hard. Sam’s eyes were dry but red when he finally held Tate at arm’s length.

“Go on upstairs and get some sleep.” Sam nodded at me, and I took over as Tate’s support. “We’ll talk more about this once we’ve all had some rest.”

Only a few hours were left of the night, and as the sun rose later, I still stroked Tate’s back and arms, too wound up to sleep. My brain just wouldn’t stop. Emotions rolled through me, ranging all over the place. Anger and sadness for Tate’s past were heavy in my heart, but there was also pride in him for taking the step.

And overriding all of the rolling ups and downs inside me was boundless love for the man in my arms. Broken, torn down, beaten, and the toughest man I’d ever met. I chuckled, which didn’t wake him at all. Tate would never see himself as tough, but we didn’t always see ourselves with clarity. I was a great example of that. It took him to show me I was more than a scar, more than a huge body, more than a person existing while life moved around me.

Tate woke with a deep breath and no words. I asked him if he wanted to shower, wanted breakfast, wanted a cigarette, and he only nodded with each. Time. Time was what he needed, and thankfully, we had it.

Our suspension started right away, but all it really did was give us three weeks of a winter break instead of two. Our final exams for the first semester were to be completed online instead of in a classroom, which felt more like a reward than a punishment.

For a couple of days following Tate’s purging, no one said much of anything as we all stayed close to home. Sam even took a short leave from work to be nearby for his son. We took our cues from Tate, which was fine. He wasn’t super locked down or super depressed, like where I needed to hide sharp objects, but we watched him closely for the second he wanted to talk.

That moment came a few days later over a bowl of cereal.

“I want to press charges against Franklin,” Tate said out of the blue, and we all froze. Milk dripped from my hovering spoon, Momma startled when her coffee mug overflowed, and Sam stared. “Or”—he shrugged and dropped his chin—“whatever it’s called. I’ve been thinking about it. I mean, I’ve been thinking about a lot, and …”

Sam moved from his chair to sit beside Tate on the bench and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Of course, son. We’ll make some calls, see what we can do, where to go from here.”

Tate raised his head. I hated the unsure and frightened look in his wide eyes.

“You’ll help me?”

“Bet yer ass I will.” Sam nodded to me and Momma. “We’re all gonna help. We’re all here for you, Tate. You’re not doin’ any of this alone.”

Tate smiled for Sam and reached for my hand. “I’m not alone,” was all he said.

Getting in touch with an attorney was not at all how it was in the movies. Did I expect there to be a sense of urgency? Yeah, I supposed I did. It wasn’t like that. Sam made calls on speaker so Tate could be right there, involved, but then we all had to wait to be called back.

I didn’t know a lot about the legal system, and a lot of it went over my head, but it took a while to get an attorney who specialized in child abuse cases and then one who wanted to file against a fellow attorney. I figured there was, like, a bro-code or something, but Tate said Franklin was a very good attorney, and they were probably afraid they wouldn’t win.

Momma did her best to bring Christmas cheer to all of us through the winter break. We visited family, had family over, and even hung out with our friends from school once Tate felt like it. Me, Sienna, Michael, Jamie, and Jamie’s friend, Asher, took Tate mini golfing one cold night. He’d never been and ended up beating the pants off all of us.

When school started in January, it was more than a little weird, and not because Momma was dropping us off and picking us up every day for the foreseeable future.

For the last three weeks, we’d been able to pretend the outside world didn’t exist, that certain things couldn’t touch us. Now, we walked into school with knowing glances and more than a few judgmental stares. Tate and I were top of the gossip charts. Gay, together, stepbrothers …

Sienna said we’d be old news once everyone got used to it. I wasn’t so sure. Short of murder, I doubted this small town would have anything more scandalous to talk about than us.

And not all of the attention was nosy people being nosy. Alex, who was at the top of my shit list for several reasons, tried spreading rumors about us, insane shit that no one bought. I really hated his chickenshit ass never got in the fight to get punished as well. On the flip side of that, the Wolf Pack had been lying low. They got suspended as well, but there was all the growing evidence against them for vandalism.

Tate missed Percy, who was finishing out his senior year at a different school and was much happier there. Tate shared Percy’s pictures of the house he now lived in with his aunt and his aunt’s cat. They texted a lot and called each other often. I was glad Tate had someone like Percy in his life. He’d told me about the friends he’d never gotten close to in New York, the ones he never missed when he shut them out completely. Percy wouldn’t be that kind of friend. This little guy needed Tate as much as Tate needed him. Watching them together, hearing them talk and laugh, made me smile. It also helped me be more open with my own friends.

Winter turned to spring, and with it came Sienna’s great I told you so moment.

No one had outright said they had issues with me and Tate dating, but I’d gotten a little used to their stares. Then one day, no one was paying us any mind. All heads were bowed over their phones or whispering to each other. Tate walked beside me in the halls about as dumbfounded, and then Sienna screeched to a stop in front of us.

“I’d say I’m not one to say I told you so.” She flipped her ponytail. “But that’d be a lie. I totally am.”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“The Wolf Pack.”

Tate twisted his head left and right, trying to find them in the hallway.

“No,” Sienna laughed. “They aren’t here. That’s the new top gossip. The cops finally got a case against all of them for the vandalism.”

“Really?” Tate gasped as he gripped my arm. “They’re gone?”

“Yup. It happened over the weekend. Word is, and this even spread faster than high school standards, Spencer’s dad is putting him in some military school.”

“What? Where?” I asked.

“Or maybe it was a boarding school or all-boys school, I dunno.” Sienna waved her hand. “The point is that he’s no longer Hickory Bend’s problem, and you two are no longer king and king of the gossip charts”

“Fuck, yeah.” Tate pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I can’t wait to tell Percy.”

The news hadn’t made the decision for me, but it sorta freed some bandwidth in my brain, and that night, I put in my application at Auburn for their music program. The university was my first choice, but I submitted others as well. The attorneys Sam and Tate had hired were making good traction in building a case against Franklin, and now this thing with the Wolf Pack was one more bit of closure that pushed me into moving on with life.

That was the point, right? Life moved on. I could live it or let it move without me.

I was choosing to live it.

Mr. Jimenez, the music teacher, had left it up to me if I still wanted the solo for our performance in Birmingham. I did, I wanted it, but I’d been afraid to admit how much. Like a switch, that fear turned off, and I told him I’d do it. He was grateful and actually thanked me.

With Percy and Sienna, Tate, Momma, and Sam headed north to watch me play. To say I was nervous was a huge understatement. My pits were soaked, and I had to dry my hands on my pants over and over. When my class was finally announced, I thought I might pass out from dehydration. His cause of death? Sweating. It wouldn’t have been pretty. The stage lights didn’t help, nor did my front and center position.

Thank fuck we started with an easy piece that included the entire class. By the time they stopped on a sharp note and I kept playing into my solo, the crowd had been forgotten. All of the noise, the drama, Franklin, Tate’s mother, the fighting, school, the pressure of the future, the pain and shame of past mistakes, and the fear of future mistakes, had fallen silent. All I heard was the music. And all I saw, even with my eyes closed, was Tate. Did I need him to be my strength, my support? No. Did I want him to be? Yes, yes, yes!

As the last note faded into nothing, one person surged to their feet and cheered. I couldn’t see him, couldn’t make out his details, but I didn’t need to. I grinned, then laughed, and then the whole place stood and applauded. It was certainly one of those moments I’d remember forever.

And of course, the night had given Sienna more inspiration. Her Hickory Bend calendar had been a huge success. The local news had run a spotlight for it, which got attention until finally, the big news channels for the state hopped on it. A high schooler who created and printed her own work was reaping thousands to support charities. Who didn’t love a story like that? She got a scholarship out of it for art school too.

The end of our senior year grew closer, and everything seemed to be coming to a head. Tate’s attorney had enough to move forward with filing charges on Franklin, but Tate hadn’t moved to file against his mom. On one hand, I understood his reasoning. She was a piece of shit that he didn’t care one wit about it. I got that. On the other hand, I got Sam’s reasoning for pressing charges anyway. Franklin wouldn’t have been able to manipulate his way into Tate’s life if his mom hadn’t held the door wide open.

Momma was a nervous wreck. She cried every time we brought up graduation and my plans for college. Even though we promised we weren’t moving out, she cried anyway. Hopefully , we weren’t moving out. If I got accepted to Auburn, the commute to campus wouldn’t be horrible. Any other school and I’d have to break it to her through a phone call once we’d shoved all our stuff into a moving van and were halfway across the state.

It never came to that.

Graduation day was a blip, over as soon as it began. Not long after, I got accepted into Auburn’s College of Liberal Arts, same for Sienna, so at least there would be a friendly face. But the best news came one hot day in June.

Franklin had been arrested on counts of emotional abuse, child molestation, child exploitation, and child sexual assault.

Tate’s attorney had advised us to be prepared for him to meet bail and get out, which he did, but it was the first step of many. One of Franklin’s former colleagues reached out to Tate—some Spellman guy, who Tate said had been nice to him—and kept us in the loop about things the attorneys didn’t.

Franklin’s social circles dumped him and Tate’s mom so quickly they probably had road rash. No amount of money could buy their way back in either. Tate’s mom filed for divorce as she played into being one of Franklin’s victims, only to be reminded she didn’t get a cent of Franklin’s money if they split without satisfying a clause of their prenuptial agreement.

When we got that news, Tate laughed harder and longer than I’d ever heard him do before. When the laughter morphed into tears, I jumped into action, holding him and soothing him through it, and then he mumbled, “Enjoy your personal hell, bitch.”

“Tate?” I asked, trying to get him out of the hysteria he’d fallen into.

“Me,” he laughed through the sobs and wiped at his nose. “Me. It was me. It was me.” He yelled it the second time. “I was the agreement. She’s lost it all because of me.” He laughed again, or maybe it was crying—I couldn’t tell any longer. All this time, he’d tried to make it seem like what his momma had done hadn’t affected him. Obviously, it had.

After that day, though, Tate got better and better. He got healthier too. He still smoked, but he ate more and went for runs with me. He smiled and laughed more. Tate just became—more. And I loved him more every second.

Near the end of the summer, we sat in my room as I played for him. Tate lay in a daze on my bed as the music swirled in my mind like smoke on the wind as I gave myself over to it. Whether it was a culmination of the ups and downs of the last year or distractions in my mind, I didn’t know, but I performed smoother than I ever had before. Every note and every bar hit perfectly until I was almost through it before I realized I hadn’t messed up once.

Colors danced behind my lids as I lost myself in the motions. The strains ebbed and flowed as I swayed. The tempo changed. The tune elevated and waned. Dark in parts and sultry in others, with moments of tension before it broke like waves. The music of life, and I’d never felt it this way before.

Moments with Tate mingled with the twirling swells of shades in my mind. The green of his eyes flashed at me with mischief and lust played with the pinks of his cheeks and neck when flushed with passion. The dark shine of his hair rippled and swayed with the pale cream of his skin. The red of his bitten lips, those fucking purple jeans he liked, and the shimmer of the glitter he wore … All of it, all of him, Tate was my music.

The last note faded to be overcome with my panting. I’d done it. I’d finished the entire set of all my favorites, including the concerto. I snapped my eyes open with a smile and a cheer, ready to tell Tate, but he was already smiling at me. He knew.

A tear slipped down his cheek. I nodded. Neither of us said anything. We both knew. We would keep growing, we would keep fighting, and we would do it together.