Page 10

CHAPTER

SIX

CORTLAND

“What the fuck are you doing out here all alone?” I ask her, my mouth to her ear. I can smell the alcohol on her breath and my stomach flips, thinking of that night. The shots she took at the table.

She was wasted before I had her come sit in my lap.

I saw Chase staring at her. Storm watching me, like she was my responsibility.

And she was.

She fucking was.

Just like tonight. Her, out here, alone, drunk and looking like prey. I hear Brinklin’s voice, Chase’s laugh, and I feel Storm at my side before I see him. Before Brinklin and Chase circle in front of her, and she stiffens, stepping back toward me.

I laugh, my hand still over her mouth, one still around her throat. She takes another step back into my arms as Chase stares at her.

“Now you wanna run to me?” I ask her, feeling her tremble in my arms as Chase looks her up and down, a cup in his hand. Brinklin has his hands in his army jacket, and he just looks annoyed.

I wonder why he even decided to come. To protect his reputation?

He wants to work for the government. Go into politics.

It’ll already be hard, because the charges were filed.

The case might’ve been dismissed, but there’s still a paper trail.

His face still in the news, just a few keystrokes away on anyone’s computer or phone.

Chase steps closer, and Remi’s hands come to my forearm as she drops her cup, her fear palpable. She’s shaking so hard, I drop my hand from her throat and band my arm around her body, trying to keep her still.

Trying to give her strength to face fucking Chase McGowan.

“Looking good, Remi,” Chase drawls. “I really like what you did with your hair.”

Brinklin rolls his eyes and I hear Storm huff a laugh. “Good pickup line, Chase. Gotta hand it to you, man,” he exhales from his vape, dipping his chin, “you really know how to fucking charm them.”

Chase’s fingers squeeze his cup, the plastic flexing beneath his hand as he shoots a glare to Storm. “You’re a dick.”

“You wanna get out of here, Remi?” I ask her, my mouth still to her ear as Storm pisses Chase off. He’s got such a fragile ego, it’s not hard to do.

Again, that night flashes in my mind.

The branch. Chase’s words. “Fucking slut.”

My skin crawls. I draw Remi closer.

“Cortland,” she whispers, and I see Brinklin staring at us both as Chase and Storm keep bantering.

I think Storm is doing it on purpose, distracting him from Remi.

When we spotted her at the edge of the clearing, I didn’t say a word, hoping they wouldn’t recognize her.

I’d already tormented her enough yesterday and having them all circling her didn’t make me feel good.

But then she turned to the side, smiled at some guy.

I’d recognize that smile anywhere. It was contagious back in high school. Before I fucked it all up.

Chase spotted her and wouldn’t let it go, her being here, and when Maya got distracted by one of the girls on the cheer team, I couldn’t get him to stop talking about her, making his way over here. Thinking about his hands on her like mine were yesterday, I had to walk with him.

“Yeah, pretty baby?” I whisper in her ear.

She’s not trembling anymore, but her nails are still embedded in my forearms. She hiccups, and I smile despite myself. Despite knowing she’s drunk, and she’s being really stupid, coming out here alone. “Don’t let them?—”

“Don’t let us what?” Chase sneers, his argument with Storm apparently done. He steps closer, and I drag Remi a step back. His pale eyes shoot up to me, a smirk on his face. “Oh, come on, Cort, you didn’t mind sharing her before.”

Remi starts shaking again. “Let me go, Cortland, I?—”

I laugh, cutting off her words. “Sure thing, baby.” I squeeze her tighter.

She stiffens with those words and the feel of me, her nails pressing harder into my skin as Chase laughs. “Fuck you.”

“That’s exactly what we want?—”

“Chase,” Storm says slowly, and Chase’s eyes dart to him again. “Learn when to shut the fuck up.”

But it’s not Chase that speaks up again.

It’s Brinklin.

He hasn’t taken his eyes off of me and Remi, and I wonder what he’s thinking.

I wonder what the fuck we’re all thinking.

If anyone saw us with her, we could get fucked all over again.

But we’re far enough away from the party, deep enough into the woods where she walked out alone like she’s the same na?ve girl she was back then, that I don’t think anyone will notice.

Even still, it’s not a good look, us all being with her out here.

And when Brinklin says, “Let’s take her back to your house. We need to talk,” I think that’s the worst possible idea in the world.

But Storm seems to disagree with me. “He’s right,” he mutters, his words quiet. “With you here, and her here, there are some things we should discuss.”

Remi scoffs in my arms and I inhale her scent, feel her warm body pressed against mine.

I think of Maya, somewhere beyond me. What she’d do if she knew I took Remi Ocean, girl who tried to ruin my life, to my house. But maybe they’re right. Best to just get this shit out of the way. Discuss how things are going to go.

“What do you say, Rems?” I ask her, my heart racing, thinking of all of us alone with her in a house. “You wanna work this out tonight? Talk about boundaries?”

Chase narrows his eyes, crushing the cup in his hand and dropping it. Brinklin looks like he’s holding his breath, his green eyes just visible in the dark. At my side, Storm is quiet. Waiting.

“No,” Remi says, her voice soft. She tries to shrug out of my grip, digging her nails in deeper. “No.” Louder this time, like she’s found some fucking guts.

I hold her tighter. “Looks like you figured out how to say that word, huh?”

Chase’s lips kick up into a smile, and the look in his eyes makes my blood heat. Hearing the things he did to her, things I didn’t even realize, that drove us further apart.

She tries to twist out of my arms. “Let me go,” she says softly, then louder. “Cortland, let me go.” She thrashes her body and unlike Maya, she’s in sneakers.

She finds her footing well enough and I let her think she shrugged me off. I release her, only to have Chase grab her, wrap his forearm around her throat as he spins her around, her back to his chest.

I can feel my pulse pounding in my head. Looking at the muscles in his forearm flex, thinking of the stitches in Tristan’s…

“Chase.” I swallow, hard, as Remi freezes in his arms.

He squeezes his forearm tighter around her throat, her hands flying up to pry him off.

Dipping his head, his mouth comes to her ear.

“What?” he whispers. “You think this little bitch actually has a say?” He laughs and Remi’s eyes hold mine, her chin tilted upward by Chase’s arm lodged between it and her neck.

“She tried to put us in prison. Blame us because she’s a little whore. ”

I take a step toward them. Chase lifts his head, a lock of blond hair flopped over one eye. He arches a brow. “She’s coming back with us.”

“Let her go.” I circle my hands into fists.

Storm steps closer, too, shoulder-to-shoulder with me.

Then Chase grins, and shoves her into my arms. I wrap them around her, holding her to my chest. She doesn’t move but I can feel her pulse flying with her body pressed against mine.

“My friends are here,” she says, her words rushed. “You can’t drag me out of the woods. My friends are here.”

Chase laughs. “Ah, you hear that? Her friends are here.” He mimics her voice, soft and low, adding a scared inflection. “You think we’re scared of your fucking friends, Remi?” he snarls.

“Whatever you have to say to me,” she says, pulling back from me, but I don’t release her, “you say it here.”

I smile at that, shaking my head. “You don’t get to call the shots, Remi. I think you’ve done enough of that.”

She shoves at me again, and I spin her around, wrapping my arm around her throat just like Chase did.

She’s frozen against me, and with my back to the party, no one can even see her.

“Yeah,” I whisper in her ear, “stop fighting me, Rems. You don’t want to get dragged out of here, then listen to what we have to say.” I glance at Brinklin, then to Storm, who is staring at me.

“We’ve missed you, Remi,” Chase starts with, leering at her as he steps closer, all of us forming a tight circle around her.

I feel Remi shiver, but I keep my arm around her throat, one wrapped around her waist.

“And now that Cort here has decided he can’t stay away, we need to set up some ground rules.”

I feel her swallow, but she picks her head up, staring right back at Chase.

“Why are you here?” she asks quietly, and I loosen my hold on her throat so I can hear her better.

Chase smiles. “I think she’s asking you, Cort,” he says, flicking his gaze to me.

I don’t answer her. Instead, I think about her cheering at every game.

How my little brother would tell me afterward that the short girl with the blonde hair and the pawprint on her cheek was the cutest one.

Remi was the only one who had the pawprint.

Maya thought it was tacky and she told the rest of the team not to do it.

“Yeah,” I always agreed with Tristan. “She is.”

Then another memory flashes.

Tristan in a hospital bed.

An angry, red wound.

My stomach churns.

“Anyway,” Chase continues, sliding his hands into the pockets of his khakis, “you stay the fuck away from him.” There’s a hard edge to his words and Remi starts to tremble again.

“And he’ll stay away from you, and we’ll all live happily ever fucking after.

” He snarls the last words as he glares at her, not once looking away.

“Seriously, Remi,” Brinklin adds from beside Chase. He rakes a hand over his close-cut hair, drops it back by his side. “He doesn’t want to cause any problems. We don’t want any problems. We just?—”

“Why does it matter to you, Brinklin?” she demands, and I feel her lurch forward, trying to step closer to them.

Don’t be stupid Remi.

I haul her back, my fingers splaying over the soft material of her hoodie.

“You don’t even go here, unless you all idiotically transferred,” she continues, twisting her head to look at Storm, too. He arches a brow but doesn’t say anything. “You all get together so you could intimidate me?” she demands.

“Remi,” I warn her quietly, and she tries to twist in my arms, but I hold her tighter, afraid to let her go.

“What?” she snaps. “What makes you think I want anything to do with any of you? I want this to disappear just as much, if not more, than you do.”

My pulse pounds loud in my ears. Then why the fuck did you ever even go to the fucking cops?

Brinklin looks down at the ground, and I watch his throat bob as he swallows. “Remi, I’ve heard about your dad.”

I feel her stiffen against me. She even steps back into me, and my dick grows hard at how close she is, but I wait, wondering what she’ll say to that.

“He’s not my dad,” she spits out.

Chase laughs. “Daddy issues, Remi?” he sneers.

I’m not even sure what happened to her real dad. I know her mom is buried in that cemetery in Aben, which is why I’d spot her out there sometimes, all alone in the graveyard like a psycho. A psycho hidden with blonde hair and soft-spoken words.

I liked that about her.

“Just leave us out of your personal shit, and we’ll leave you out of ours,” Brinklin continues, meeting my gaze, his jaw ticking.

“Let me go,” she hisses, her voice full of venom.

I glance at Storm, still just watching us. He shrugs.

I release Remi, and she stumbles forward a step, only to have Chase yank her by her hair.

She whimpers as he drags her forward, and I tense, my hands curled into fists at my side.

“Chase, I don’t want any trouble,” she says softly, the fight leaving her, one orange braid down her back, the other in Chase’s fist. “I just want to go.” Her words are kind of slurred, but she gets them out.

I hear the music from the party at my back, but my heart is pounding so hard in my fucking chest, I can’t even tell what song is playing.

Chase leers down at her, cocking his head. “We didn’t want any trouble that night, either, Remi,” he says softly.

She tries to step back, but his knuckles blanch as he grips her braid tighter. “I just want to go.” Her voice is hoarse. “Please just let me?—”

Chase takes a step closer, cutting off her words.

She has to crane her neck back to look at him. I see amusement on his face, his lips pulled up at the corners. He was always a fucking shit.

“Why don’t you do me a favor, Rems, then I’ll let you go?” he whispers, leaning down toward her. His lips come to her ear, and I glance around at Brinklin watching them. Storm watching me. I force my gaze back to Chase.

“Why don’t you,” he’s saying, his hand coming to her hip, over her jeans. “Get down on your knees,” he shifts his hold from her hair to her face. “Open your fucking mouth,” he slips his hand to the edge of her hoodie, and my mouth goes dry. “And show me what you learned from that night?—”

“Chase,” I say, the word quiet.

Silence between the five of us rings out.

Chase doesn’t let go of her, or move back, and I have to work hard not to cross the space between us and break his fucking neck.

“That’s enough.”

Chase laughs, then he pulls back, dropping his hold on her and glancing at me, holding up his hands in innocence. “I’m gonna get back to the party,” he says, winking at me. “I think I took care of her for you, Cort.” Then he walks past me and Storm, shoulder checking me as he does.

I grit my teeth as Remi’s hands cover her face, her head bowed.

Brinklin glances at her. “I’m out,” he mutters, nodding behind me. “I think we made our point. I’ll see you at the house.” Then he walks away, and Remi is left with me and Storm.

She drops her hands from her face and turns, her eyes meeting mine.

For one second, I’m back in my truck before that party. She’s in my lap. She feels so fucking good and she smells so goddamn good and her laugh makes me feel drunk.

The second passes.

I feel cuffs on my wrist, cold metal. My mom is on the phone, calling an attorney. One herself, she knew exactly what to do.

Dad is just staring at me, his face pale.

Tristan is still sleeping.

The officers read off my charges.

Now, in this moment, Remi turns away from me and does what I wanted to do then.

She fucking runs.