Page 72 of Dark Little Game

“Because if Dad knew Weston did that, he’d have hit him with a leather belt, many times.”

Rayne’s face suddenly morphs from anger to shock. “Your father hit you when you were children?”

I bite the inside of my cheek. “He hitWeston. Never me.”

Rayne already looks like he wants to cry.

Big-hearted Rayne.

You have no idea, do you?

“Fuck. Wes never said anything about that,” he says softly.

“And I shouldn’t be telling you, either, because Weston’s story isn’t mine to tell. Do you see why I don’t go around blabbing about why we’ve nevergotten along? Because it’s not just about us.”

“How bad was the abuse? From your father?”

“It happened anytime Weston pissed him off, pretty much. It all stopped when Dad married Heidi. He wouldn’tdreamof hitting one of us in front of his beautiful new German wife.”

Rayne knew our stepmom just about as well as we did.

Our mother ditched us when we were barely toddlers, and my stepmom had come in relatively soon after that. She’d married my dad right around the time that Weston and Rayne started their friendship, at the start of middle school.

Everything changed after that.

“I can’t believe Weston went through all of that and never told me. I feel awful.”

I nod. “As a kid, I was rageful at him every time he liedto our dad. Every time he fucked something up, he tried to pin it on me.”

“But he was only trying to protect himself from your father.”

“Yes. But after Lune died… I thought things would change. I thought Weston would accept the fact that I was all he had left in the family. But instead, he was colder than ever.”

Rayne really does look like he’s about to cry, now, but he doesn’t let himself.

“I was so fucked up after Lune’s death that it only made me hate Wes more. She was my best friend in the goddamn world, and all I had left was Weston, but he still wouldn’t speak to me at home.”

“He thought you hated him, Hunter.”

“That’s what he wantedyouto believe. I don’t even know if it was ever true.”

Rayne narrows his gaze at me. “Weston was terrified of you. When I slept over, we’d be under the sheets, and he’d tell me stories about you pulling fuckingkniveson him, Hunter?—”

“That was only once. And you have no ideawhyI pulled that knife on him.”

“And you expected him to just be okay with that?”

I let my eyes burn into Rayne’s. “Weston came into my room and told me that he was going to confront our father. He was going to try to fuck up our father’s life, because he caught him cheating on Heidi.”

Rayne furrows his brow. “What?”

“I knew if Weston exposed our father like that, Dad might kill him,” I say, deliberately emphasizing the final two words. “You think I’m a monster, Rayne, but you don’t know that our father is much worse.”

“He wouldn’t kill his own fucking son.”

“Maybe not. But he definitely wouldhurthim. I couldn’t live with that. I couldn’t watch Weston get abused again. Even if I was pissed off at Wes, I couldn’t watch our fatherbullyhim again?—”

“Jesus, Hunter?—”