Page 66 of Craving Consequences

“You really think I’m stupid, don’t you?

” He shoves to his feet. “You think I’m going to take you back so your knights in shining armor can save you.

No one’s going to save you, Everly. No one gives a shit about you.

Not my dad. Not Weaver. Not even Lauren.

You could vanish and they’d move on. The whole town would.

I was the only one who ever noticed you.

I was there when everyone else was tired of your whining and crying over your parents.

Yet, instead of being grateful, you betrayed me.

You tried to ruin my life. And why? What did you get out of it? ”

I don’t tell him the satisfaction of watching him lose everything. I can’t let him get angry. I need him calm and thinking he’s won.

“I’m sorry,” I lie. “I’ll do whatever you say.”

His smile deepens. His head cocks to the side and he lightly strokes my hair back from my face.

“You’ll do anything I want to make me happy, right?”

I nod obediently.

His smile vanishes. He pushes up and starts towards the truck. I think for a moment he’s going to just leave me here and let me find my own way out — which is fine. But he stops and turns back.

“Take your clothes off.”

I blink. “What? ”

He folds his arms over his chest. “Take your clothes off. You said you want to make me happy. I want to fuck you. I want to see what made you so special that my dad turned his back on his own son. I want to see if your pussy really is magical.”

I want to crawl away but with my stomach bruised and my arm throbbing, I know I won’t get far before he has me and it’ll make things worse.

“I’m hurt. I can’t—”

“Take them off or I will.”

Every breath tears from my sore lungs. My heart rattles in my chest as I fight not to make any sudden movements.

Not a problem when I can’t move. When I’m frozen.

I try to swallow, but I have no spit.

“Fine.”

He’s on me before I can process. His hands are twisted in my blouse. The buttons snap. The fabric tears.

“Stop! Bron, stop it.” My single-handed attempts do nothing as I’m forcibly wrenched to the ground.

His hips shove between mine. His hot breath turns the skin of my neck sticky as he buries his face.

“Nothing about you appeals to me,” he drawls into my pulse.

“I fucking hate you. Touching you turns my stomach.” His hand wedges between our bodies and fights with the snaps on my shorts.

“Little Miss goody good gets everything handed to her. People whisper how great and perfect she is. If only they knew what a sick, twisted slut you actually are.”

“Bron, stop!”

No amount of shoving with my good arm is doing a thing. He’s too big, too strong. He has me pinned.

“Let’s see how long it takes you to start crying.

Your friend only lasted five minutes before I had her screaming and begging.

I bet you can outlast her.” He thrusts and grinds with his hips.

The hard bulge rocking against my core has my stomach roiling and a sob escaping.

“I took that bitch for five hours. Over and over until she crawled to the door. I’m going to make you crawl back to the road. ”

His words carve fear through me that amplify with the hands tugging and yanking, clawing at my shorts. I somehow find my voice and I scream.

I kick and flail. Pain in my shoulder, absent as adrenaline rushes through me in hot, panicked waves. My claws catch the side of his face. Nails sink into skin and I drag from temple to jaw.

Bron howls. His massive body jerks back and I scramble backwards, cutting palms on rocks in my attempt to escape.

“Stupid bitch!” Dark eyes the very pits of hell pierce through me from a face now oozing droplets of blood. “To think I was going to go easy on you.”

He lunges and my knee instinctively jerks. My heel catches his shoulder. A futile effort when it does nothing, except get captured in his grip. He uses it to drag me back the pitiful steps I’d managed to put between us.

Another scream leaves my throat, louder, shredded in agony as both my arms are twisted over my head, reigniting the raw fury of my shoulder.

He’s saying something I can’t hear over the heavy weight of darkness threatening to swallow me. It promises such peace from clawing waves of pain rippling through me. I’m almost certain I am about to throw up.

“Stop...” I wheeze, I think.

“Consider this a partial payment for what you owe me,” he pants, free hand tugging and ripping at the front of his sweats. “Might have to turn you over. Can’t stand your face.”

Dirt, twigs and rocks scrape across exposed flesh as I’m wrenched off my back and onto my stomach.

The gravity of the situation skewers through me as his hands curl into the waistline of my shorts.

Crack!

The sound is like a gunshot going off in the silence. It detonates through the roar of blood between my ears.

And I start to scream, praying someone is nearby when Bron jerks violently. His entire body swings to one side and off with the second crack .

I roll in the opposite direction and crawl the rest of the way before turning to face the second figure in the clearing.

Lauren.

Like some Amazonian goddess in torn cutoffs, a bright red tank and flip flops, she stands over my ex-boyfriend’s writhing form wielding a branch as big and thick as a club.

“Get the fuck off her!” she seethes, followed by a swing of her weapon across Bron’s kneecaps.

The howl is nothing to the crack of bones. Bron’s entire body bows off the dirt. He folds to grab his injury and Lauren swings again. Whole body, full weight. She goes into full baseball swinger mode with the perfect follow through.

The club cracks across his face. Throws the whole thing back with the weight of his body following suit.

He lands in a heap of broken, bloody limbs. Immobile across the forest floor with Lauren standing over him, face a mask of hard, bitter rage.

“Who’s the weak bitch now?” she spits.

Bron doesn’t answer. I almost think he’s dead, but Lauren kicks him in the crotch with the full weight of her entire body and he groans weakly.

“Shoot. He lives.” She grumbles before turning to me. The transformation is immediate. The fury dissolves into concern. “Hey.” She scrambles to me and drops to her knees. “You okay? Did he hurt you? ”

Her soft, warm hands are at my face, wiping my eyes, cleaning the dirt off my skin. She’s brushing my hair back.

Maybe it’s the sight of her, maybe it’s the fact that I was nearly attacked and assaulted, but I break and she’s there. Arms closing around me, fingers fisting me close. Her familiar warmth and scent envelop me, cocooning me in their security.

But it’s more than that.

It’s having her there. It’s finally seeing her again when I missed her so much. It’s the hurt of what she did and the still fresh wound of that betrayal.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers into my shoulder like she could read my thoughts.

But rather than calm my tumble of emotions, it heightens my anger.

“Why?” I snap at her, shoving her back with my good arm. “Why would you do that?”

I don’t expect denial. Lauren was never someone who covered her mistakes, but I don’t expect rage.

“Because you were dying, Everly!” she snaps back. “Because you were letting that piece of shit carve the soul out of you.” She’s breathing hard, but there are tears in her eyes that punch me in the gut. “I begged you to leave him for years.”

“That wasn’t your call,” I shoot back. “You don’t sleep with your friend’s boyfriend just to get your way. ”

“Get my way?” her razor-sharp laugh makes me frown.

“You think I did it for myself? You think I enjoyed having him on me ... in me ... for hours...” her voice breaks and she turns her face away, but I don’t miss the quiver in her chin.

I don’t miss the shallowness of her breaths. “You have no idea...”

But I think I do. I may not have been there, I don’t know the extent of what he did to her, but I do. I know enough. He said enough that I ache. I hurt in places that feel like a violation. I hurt for her because deep down where I’m scared to go, I know what he did to her.

“Why?” I whisper again, crying all over again but for her.

Her throat muscles flex and a tear cuts down her cheek. “Because I would do anything for you.” She wipes at the tear like it had offended her. She’s still not looking at me. “You’re my whole heart, Everly. You’re my sister. My soulmate. I would have given him anything he asked to save you.”

“He hurt you.”

It’s not a question.

Her jaw tightens. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Lauren—”

Her blue eyes snap to mine, bright, wet and filled with so much pain it hits me in the gut with a mallet.

“No. Drop it.” She scrubs a hand under her nose. “I did what I did. I knew what I was getting into. I accepted my punishment. I’m not some fucking victim, okay? I won’t be. Not his. He’s not getting that satisfaction.”

I say nothing. We both know she’s lying.

To me.

To herself.

But I get it. She’s not ready to face the gravity of what was done to her. I don’t even know if I’ll be there when she’s ready to.

“Were you going to tell me?”

She takes a deep breath. “I called you that night. I needed...” her gaze drops to her lap. “I needed to see you.”

Knowing what I know now, not answering that call is a knife twisting in my gut.

I know I should be furious for what she did. It wasn’t her call to make. She made that choice on her own. She’s an adult.

But Bron is a monster. He’s a cruel and sadistic creature that preys on weakness. Mine. Lauren’s. Lachlan’s. He’s a bottom feeder who uses people, manipulates them. Hurts them.

Lachlan was emotional. Bron enjoyed how hard Lachlan tried to love him. He thrived on the knowledge that his dad would never stop trying to gain that affection from him, affections that Bron is incapable of returning.

I was financial. He needed someone desperate and lonely to twist and squeeze dry. No one our age has the money I had after my parents died. No one older would put up with him. I was broken and at my lowest point and so hungry for that love I lost, I didn’t see it until it was too late.

Lauren was sexual. He had something she would give anything to set free.

He hurt her. He took something from her that nothing is going to get back.

He used her to fulfill some sick obsession he’s always had where she was concerned.

The number of times he brought up her proclivities when she wouldn’t give him the time of day.

Must have felt like winning the lottery when she finally submitted.

“How long did you know?” she asks quietly.

It’s my turn to avoid her gaze. “I saw you that morning.”

“Fuck.” She drops her face into her hand. “I was going to tell you. After he fulfilled his end of the bargain and broke up with you I was ... goddamn it.” She sniffs and lifts her head. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

I give a slight nod. “I needed to think.”

“I knew something was up.” She drops back onto her backside and crosses her legs. “I thought he told you.”

I shake my head. “How did you find me?”

For the first time, she gives me a lopsided smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

“I was at the salon when the hive started buzzing about you and Bron. Someone mentioned you were on your way to Holland’s.

” Her smile slips. “I got there just in time to see him dragging you to the car. I ran, but you were already gone. I grabbed your purse and keys and followed you in your car ... oh shit!”

Startled, I watch her scramble to her feet and run.

It takes me a few seconds longer to push up. All the aches and pains hidden by adrenaline are starting to make themselves known.

A few feet away, Bron groans. It’s a weak sound, barely audible, but I hear it. I step closer and peer down at my biggest mistake.

Pathetic. Weak. A sad excuse for a human being. He’ll live and go on to hurt more people.

I may have ruined any chance he may have had to stay in Jefferson, but that’s not going to stop him from returning. From darkening Lachlan’s life again. Or reminding Lauren what he did to her. He will always be a reminder of their pain.

Murder, comes to mind.

It’s the easiest solution. The quickest. To protect Lachlan and Lauren. But Lachlan would not see it as justice to kill his son. He would never forgive me.

But I did what I could.

I dismantled every important key element in Bron’s life. Did I destroy him? Probably not. He can set off and start life over somewhere else. I was fine with that as long as I no longer saw him in my hometown .

But knowing now what I know, knowing what he did to Lauren, I didn’t do enough. Why does he get to move on and hurt more women?

Returning footsteps have me glancing back to watch Lauren hurry over, my phone in her hands.

“I called the sheriff while I was driving after you,” she pants. “But the signal dropped at some point so I don’t think he knows where we are.”

“I think I want to kill him,” I tell my friend.

Lauren doesn’t even bat an eye. Her hand lowers. She looks at me.

“Can’t.” She holds up my phone. “They can track the last place it was pinged or some shit. Also,” she gestures to the truck, “That is hard to cover.”

I turn my attention down to the man lying unconscious at our feet. “He’s going to hurt other women like he hurt you and tried to do to me.”

“I told you, I—”

I turn to her. “He hurt you, Lauren. He told me what he did. You can think you consented but he knew what he was doing when you told him to stop and he kept going ... for hours,” I add softly, repeating her own words.

“I know what that did to you.” I bite back my bubbling fury.

“I’m pissed that you did what you did. I feel betrayed and hurt, but I know why you did it.

I’m not saying that justifies what you did, but I’m not okay with what he did even more. ”

I face our problem, take in his smashed face, his definitely broken nose and knee.

“I’m not letting him hurt another woman again.” I glance at her. “Are you with me?”

Lauren meets my eye without a shred of hesitation. “Always.”