Page 6

Five

DIMITRI

A s Jaxon checks in with Knox, I continue to go through the videos. My skin itches with every new clip I see. I can’t turn on the sounds as nausea then threatens to take over. But I have to keep myself busy, keep myself in check.

If I let myself slip, like I did at the hospital, Jaxon will break everything and we’ll lose our ability to find her.

I don’t know what Knox has found or is going to find.

We need options, which means I have to keep a level head even though I’d rather charge in guns blazing, set everything on fire until we can corner our old coach and destroy him.

We still have to find him to do something.

Which means finding him is the important part and I’m sure that there is some clue he overlooked in the videos.

So I start comparing the backgrounds. The new backgrounds don’t match anything going back.

A lot of the old ones are just her room with the windows covered and nothing personal in the background.

It makes going through the videos easy since I’m looking for any variation.

I glance towards the door, half expecting Jaxon to come back in and park himself behind me, growling and planning out violence over my shoulder until I’m tempted to dive in with him.

He’s not here. It’s just me and this screen.

Yet I still feel dirty.

I rub the back of my neck. “What the fuck has he put you through, baby?”

Hope can’t answer. I know that. And the answers are laid out in front of me. He’s never hidden what he’s done to her. He just changed the angle to make us believe that she wanted it, that it was normal.

But she doesn’t know she’s online. She doesn’t know that she’s here for everyone to see. I’m sure of that. It pisses me off and even that’s not enough to actually capture what I’m feeling.

Then I catch something. It’s not Hope.

I narrow my eyes and enlarge the screen. That’s not Hope. The hair is similar, her face is similar, but she’s too old… Wait… is that her mother?

Her mother and Coach. I turn on the volume as Coach’s hand wraps around her throat and he spits at her, telling her she’s only good for one thing: sex.

That she should be thanking him for using her.

Saying she’ll never be able to leave him.

And then, she says that she loves the pain and loves him being in control.

I pause the video and look to the side. I get out of the chair and pace. Breathing isn’t enough. I have nervous energy, frustrated energy I need to burn off because seeing her mother in that video makes everything worse somehow.

Like she knew what would happen when she left and did it anyway.

How many people have failed Hope? How many people could have put a stop to it before we were even introduced to Coach? I grit my teeth until my jaw aches and consider texting Jaxon, but this information doesn’t give us anything more to go off.

So I sit back down and finish the video.

I listen to what Coach is saying and try to block out anything else.

There’s nothing of use there. Nothing that makes sense.

Just the added horror of him telling his wife he wants to fuck their daughter over and over, how tight she’d be, how submissive she’d be. How easy to handle she’d be.

Disgust and fury raise in my stomach until I head to the bathroom and throw up. I feel too much and none of what I feel is currently helping Hope.

I think of her smile, her confidence with the team, the side of her I’ve gotten to see since we moved out here and I watch it shattering in front of me, breaking her down until she’s the easily forgettable girl that says nothing to defend herself.

She’s just a puppet. She’s whatever others say she is and nothing at all.

The thought of her being forced into that kind of position again, broken down until she believes she’s nothing gives me a taste of the anger that I know Jaxon’s been fighting all day.

“We’re not going to fail her. We’re not going to let her disappear,” I mumble.

So many other people failed her, but we won’t. We have the anger, we have the drive, and we have the capability to bring her back where she belongs.

She belongs with us and that’s where Hope is going to stay.

All we have to do is prove we mean it. Prove that we won’t cage her, we’re going to let her keep growing and show us all she can be. We’ll protect her without limiting her… at least I will. I can’t speak for Jaxon, who I’m convinced isn’t going to let her out of his sight again.

I splash some water on my face and take a deep breath before heading back.

The nausea hasn’t faded as I scroll up on the webpage and click back to the newest video, but it’s over.

It showed her changing and washing herself even though only glimpses were visible.

Even when she’s alone, she’s trying to hide, but I saw that determined flair to her eyes. She’s not breaking this time.

Considering there hasn’t been a video that’s shown her being attacked, being assaulted, I’m going to cling to the shreds of the bright side I can think of and hope it means that she’s fought him off.

Maybe that’s why she’s so bruised. She didn’t give in.

She’s claiming her own body and she’s doing it her way without backing down.

She’s stronger now. She knows her worth and what she can do. She knows she matters to other people and to us. She knows what her father’s doing is wrong and unforgivable.

I just need her to keep holding on to that.

KNOX

I can’t keep reading this. I shouldn’t have any problem with it.

It’s a fucking diary telling me the past, but every time she crosses her fingers and hopes we’ll understand, then starts hating when we come around, then starts dreading it, almost as afraid of us as she was of her father threatens to break me down.

“Useless boy! You’re so selfish and conniving. You think someone else can pull you out of hell!” The cigarette comes down on my stomach. “No one will. Because you’re not worth it. You don’t deserve it. You don’t deserve anything but this.”

I lift my shirt and trace the marks like I can soothe them or make them burst into flames again.

This is the first time in my life when I’ve felt like I deserve each and every mark on my body. Jaxon saw it before I did. He kept Coach from fucking Hope in my apartment while I sat there like a jealous schoolboy wanting to take his turn.

Never again. I might not be able to resist her. I might want her despite everything she says, but it’s because she wants me too. I feel it. I see it in the way she talks to me. Or maybe I’m just as fucked up as the man who used me as an ashtray and unable to let go even when it hurts me more.

But I’m willing to destroy my future for her.

Screw football. Screw anything else.

All of it is pointless without Hope.

And what she’s going through… the shit I’m reading makes it all the clearer.

My girl deserves better than this. I’ll give her a new diary and let her pour herself out in it.

It will be bright, full of happy stories, fun questions, and hopefully her bragging about herself rather than questioning if the world would be better without her in it.

Clearing my throat, I shake my head, trying to shake off all the negative thoughts I had about her, every assumption that Coach put in my head.

Reading her diary is doing a damn good job of correcting everything I thought I knew.

I had so much wrong and didn’t question a damn bit of it.

Which means I have to do better this time.

Closing my eyes, I think back to how I watched her in class.

She’s so little. I’d break her if I fucked her the way I wanted her.

But maybe that’s what she wants. She needs someone to show her that fucking her father is wrong, and I could handle it.

I could use her, break her, ruin her and she’d look so damn pretty sobbing while my cock is buried inside her.

I’d even share her with the guys. Watch a greedy, eager slut take everything she’s offered and thank us for using her properly.

Some guy walks up to her, gives her a smile, and talks to her like they’re friends.

She answers softly, out of earshot, but the ghost of a smile on her face doesn’t belong.

He either doesn’t know what she does and who he’d be sharing her with or he knows and is going about it in a weird way. I don’t like it.

When he leans in after the bell rings and takes one of her books, I walk over and grab it from him. I toss it to the floor and look at Hope. “I’m so clumsy. Pick it up.”

She looks between me and the book and slowly stoops down to pick it up even as he says she doesn’t have to. I pat her head when she stands up. “You’re such a good girl for me. Don’t forget how much you like being good.”

Her face crumples and she excuses herself, hurrying away.

I was an ass. I ruined the safety of her school life right alongside her home life even though I thought she was disgusting. I thought she was terrible. I thought she needed to be put in her place all while she’d been hoping I’d save her.

Opening my eyes, I look at her diary and stroke it. “You’re still mine, Hope. I wasn’t wrong about that. You’re my good girl no matter how sharp and angry with me. I’ll still tell you how good you are.”

I hope she’ll hear the words. I hope she’ll feel that we’re coming for her. I want her to know she’s not alone. We’re eager to have her back and we’re going to make it happen. She did too much work last time, dealt with too much.

Now she can rely on three sets of broad shoulders to take care of her too.