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brITT

SO MUCH SASS

M ore than two weeks after Jack’s fight, I jump in my seat when the school bell rings.

Summer break is so close, they can taste it.

Looking up, I fortify myself for confrontation. It’s ridiculous that I have to prepare for a showdown with a pre-teen, but we can’t continue on like this.

“Evie.” I wait for her glaring eyes to meet mine. “I need you to stay back for a minute.”

Slamming a thick book down on her desk, she pops her hip with attitude. “No.” Pursing her lips fearlessly, she arches a dangerous brow. “I gotta go. We have stuff happening. Family only.”

Her classmates pause at her tone. They know she’s sassy – she’s always been sassy – but she’s never been a flat out jerk before. The rest of my students have no clue about me and Jack; as far as they’re concerned, she’s just being seriously naughty.

I arch a brow in return. I was brought up in a family of boys. I can be a spoiled brat, too.

“I’m telling you, I want you to stay back. I’ll speak to your mom and explain why you’re late.” I look up at my quiet students. “The rest of you can go. Have a good weekend. Next week is our last, so get ready for some fun.”

Reminded of their freedom, they grab their bags and sprint from my classroom until, left in silence, I take a deep breath and turn back to a defiant Evie.

She’s seriously pissed at me.

“You need to stop, Evie.”

“No. I don’t think I will.” Folding her arms over her chest, she pretends the curly hair dangling in her eyes isn’t annoying her. “I’ve seen you over breakfast, Miss T, which means you’re not just my teacher. Which also means I can call you a jerk and you won’t send me to detention for it.”

“Wanna bet?” I argue back. This is ridiculous. I’m having a pissing match with a pre-teen. “In this classroom, I’m your teacher. You will respect me.”

“You lost my respect when you hurt my family. Nobody hurts my family and gets away with it.”

Jesus, she’s scarier than any other person I know. And her anger is pointed straight at me. Awesome. “I didn’t set out to hurt your family, Smalls. It just–”

“Evelyn.”

Stopping, my eyes snap to hers. “Huh?”

“My name’s Evelyn. Only family can call me Smalls. Your privileges have been,” she snaps her fingers, “revoked.”

Ouch.

Slamming my books down on my desk, I sit my handbag on top and take out my phone and keys in preparation to leave.

I can’t admit that her words hurt me.

I can’t admit that I want the twelve-year-old’s approval.

“Okay, fine, whatever. This is your last warning, Evelyn . You respect me in this classroom and on these school grounds, or you go to detention. And tell your uncle to call you off, he doesn’t need you to fight his battles.”

“He didn’t put me up to this, I just think you’re a bitch all by myself.”

“Evelyn!”

My classroom door slams against the wall as Bean sprints through in a panic. Swinging it closed on a whimper, her eyes wheel around wildly.

“Bean, what–”

“He’s coming! Lock the door, Miss T.”

“Who’s coming?”

She ducks behind my desk and grabs my hips with shaking hands. “My uncle.”

Jack? “What? ”

Walking toward us, toward her cousin, Evie stops with wide legs and her hands up when the door crashes open and Brad steps through. I don’t know how intense training works on a regular guy, but any guy with the muscle gains that Brad has had the last couple months must be training twenty-three hours of the day… or taking sneaky drugs.

He’s huge.

At least sixty pounds heavier than he was at the start of this year, but it’s all muscle, no fat. His shoulders are broad and heavyset, his waist, thick, his legs, muscular.

The twinkle in his eyes scares me to death as he steps into my classroom with a weird grin and flexing hands.

I reach out and pull Evie into my side, and with a hammering heart, I shuffle her behind me until the two cousins crash into each other and hold my hips.

“Brad?” My voice isn’t shaking, but the rest of me is. “What are you doing here? Can I help you?”

“Well…” Swaggering forward like he owns my classroom, he rolls his bottom lip with his finger and thumb. “This is actually quite convenient. I was coming to talk to you, anyway, seeing as our time at the restaurant was cut short.”

“You mean when Jack tossed you aside. Literally?” I don’t know why I said that. Brad’s a beehive, and I just whacked him with a stick. But bitterness at Brad’s interference in my relationship has me speaking without thinking.

Brad knew what he was doing when he pinned me in the hall that night. He knew what would happen – except the whole getting-tossed-through-a-wall thing.

I doubt he was expecting that.

“Yeah, that. Still,” he sniffs arrogantly. “Worked out for me. Now you’re free to date, so…” He shrugs. “Worth it.”

“I won’t be dating you, Brad. I told you; I’m not interested.”

“And I told you I am. ” He takes another step forward. “You were happy to date me until he came along. Well, I took notice… I guess we’ll call it inspiration .” He smiles wolfishly. “I’m a fighter now, Britt.” He marks an invisible tick in the air. “Check. I have money. Check. I have a hell of a lot more class than that asshole.”

“Hey!” Evie steps around me angrily. “You don’t speak about him like that, you dick!”

I pull her back behind me. “Evie, stop.” She might hate my guts right now, she might even want to kick my ass, but she’ll listen to me this one time.

“Shut the fuck up, little Frankston.”

“Brad, go away.”

“No.” He takes another step forward. In retreat, I step back and push the girls with me. “I’m happy right here.”

“What do you want, Brad?”

“Well first, I wanna know where my niece and nephew are.”

“I… what? What are you talking about?”

“ She knows.” He jerks his chin in my direction. “Come out, little Bean. Come tell Uncle Brad where to find your brother and sister.”

Uncle? Brother and sister… “What?”

“I don’t know,” she whimpers. “I don’t know where they are.”

“Jamie?”

“No!” Brad snaps viciously. “Benny and Olivia.”

“Who?”

“You know who I’m talking about, don’t you Lucy? Tell me where your other mom moved to, tell me where she took my niece and nephew, and I’ll leave you be.”

“Brad. You need to leave now.”

Storming forward as fast as a bullet, he swings a wild arm out and backhands me so hard, my vision turns black. Tears rush to the surface. Blood fills my mouth. And my ears ring from the pain.

“I will not leave!”

The girls cry out in terror and clutch at my shirt. Evie’s no longer the sassy pre-teen she was minutes ago, but a frightened little girl crying for her mom.

“I’m sorry.” Terrified, shaking, I lift my hands to placate him as his chest heaves with rage. “I’m sorry, Brad. I just… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“This little bastard here,” he jabs a finger toward my left hip, “is my brother’s daughter.”

“No, she’s–”

“Not a Kincaid! She’s my blood. My family.” Spittle flies in the space between us. “But I don’t want her. Her mother’s nothing but a two-bit whore who seduced my brother and broke up a happy marriage. Her mother’s the reason my brother is dead. No.” He exchanges weight from foot to foot nervously. “I want Lindsi. I want Benny. I want Livi. I’m going to find those kids, I’ll take them back, then I’ll make that bitch swallow my revolver. ”

Fire races beneath my skin as I cup my aching jaw. I don’t know who the fuck Ben and Olivia are, but Brad sure as shit won’t be getting answers from this terrified little girl.

She’s my responsibility, not only because I’m a teacher and we’re at school, but because I genuinely love her. I love both of these girls as though we’re real family.

I look toward the open door, wide open and our way to freedom, then I look back to Brad as he stalks us.

“I’m not sure how Lucy can help you…” Angling my body, I work the girls toward the door. “…but maybe if we talk to Izzy we can get you some answers.”

“Don’t say that fucking whore’s name in front of me!”

“I’m sorry.” Taking another step, I keep my body between Brad’s and the girls’. “I’m sorry. I just meant, we could get answers from someone who actually knows. Lucy doesn’t know, Brad. She’s just a little girl.” I continue to take teeny tiny steps toward the door as the girls clutch at my belt. “I’m sorry.”

Bean and Evie sniffle, crying behind me, so, pretending like I’m going to hold their shoulders in comfort, I blindly unlock my phone and hope to God I’m dialing my ‘in case of emergency’ contact.

Please, Alex, answer the fucking phone.

“I’ve been asking you, Little Bean. I’ve been patient. I’ve been nice. Now I’m done waiting.”

“You…” I frown as his words sink in. “You’ve been asking her?” The times she’s been sad at school. The time we built a skate ramp. The quiet moments. The sad eyes. “You’ve been harassing a child? You’re the reason she’s been having a shit year?” I take a step forward in anger, but the girls grasping at my belt stop me. “What the hell is wrong with you, Brad? She’s a child. A student. Our student!”

Stepping forward and meeting my anger with his own, he swings his arm back and slams a fist into the side of my face.

Men like Jack and Bobby and all the other Kincaids take a hit to the face a hundred times a day. They take it, then they step forward and keep going.

One single tap on my jaw sends me hurtling to the floor, and because the girls clutch to me so tightly, they fall, too.

“You don’t speak to me that way!”

Diving onto me exactly the way I saw Jack straddle his opponent a few weeks ago, Brad’s angry face hovers over mine.

“Go!” I throw my arm out to shove Evie away. “Run! ”

Brad’s fist slams down on my chin and snaps my head to the side. Pain screams through my skull, a pain I’ve never felt in my entire life. Not when I broke my arm. Not when I broke my leg a year later.

Not even when Jack unintentionally broke my heart.

This hurts like nothing I’ve ever felt before.

Brad screams in my face, but all I see in my mind is Jack’s fight and how I thought I preferred the ‘hugging on the floor’ because it seemed less mean.

I was so wrong.

Bringing my arms up to cover my face, my vision dims and stars float behind my eyelids. My thin arms are nothing on his heavy fists, and with a fire that burns through my veins, bones snap as noisily as dry branches from a dead tree.