As Will spoke the words, I had to take a step back, clutch the frame of my bed in hopes that it would help keep me upright. Dean Briggs hurt their mom? I didn’t know about the details, but…what if Sabrina wasn’t his first kill? What if Dean Briggs had hurt someone else before—namely, their mother?
Oh, God.
Oh, fuck. Just when I thought it couldn’t get more complicated, it went and got messier.
Money could cover everything up. Even if the police had a bunch of evidence, it might not be enough. If Ray got off, Dean Briggs could, too. He had the money to hire a lawyer, to get the best of the best. But once a killer always a killer; Dean Briggs could not walk these sidewalks a free man, not if he was the one who killed both Sabrina and their mother.
Maybe it was because I was morbid, or maybe it was because I just needed to know, but I asked slowly, “How did he hurt her?”
Will’s hazel stare moved to me. “He…he beat her. Not often, but enough that I noticed. I caught Mom trying to cover it up more than once.”
Now it was Declan’s turn to look like he wanted to fall over, like his legs could no longer hold him up. “What? No, no—that can’t be. Dad would never hurt Mom.”
To his brother, Will asked, “Just like he’d never hurt you by sleeping with Sabrina? Just like he wouldn’t hurt you by killing her too? There’s obviously a part of him you’re blind to, a dark part that keeps peeking through the cracks in the mask he wears. I saw through the mask years ago, so this…as much as I hate to say it, it doesn’t surprise me.”
Declan moved to sit on the bottom corner of his bed, staring at his hands. He wore long sleeves, his scar hidden. “You think…you think Dad killed Mom? You really think he killed Sabrina?”
“I don’t know for sure about Sabrina, but if the shoe fits…” Will moved to stand closer to his brother, setting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing in support. “I don’t think Mom could fight back. I don’t think she knew how. I think…I think she just gave up.”
I watched the way he spoke of their mother, and a strange feeling rose in my gut. Listening to Will, it was almost like Will knew exactly what he was saying, that he knew perhaps even more. This didn’t surprise him, so he must’ve expected it, must’ve suspected Dean Briggs’s involvement.
If Dean Briggs had hurt their mother…was he hurting Sabrina too? Was he slowly killing her in a different way, and then, for whatever reason, snapped?
“She gave up?” Declan echoed. “What do you mean?”
It was a long while before Will spoke, before he answered the heavy-handed question Declan had leveled to him, “She killed herself.”
Declan paled, his dark eyes widening. Those three words hit him like a train, knocking the wind out of his body, I could imagine. Hell, I never even met the woman, and I was shocked speechless. “She…she what?” He couldn’t believe it. He could hardly formulate any words on his tongue.
Will turned his head down, his eyes staring holes into the carpet. Memories flashed across his face, and he muttered, “She killed herself, Declan, trust me. I…I saw it. I couldn’t stop her. I—” He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose. “There was nothing I could do.” In a moment, his eyes opened, and they landed on Declan. “So, yeah. I hate our father. I’ve hated him for years, because I know what kind of monster he is.”
Declan got to his feet, standing less than a foot away from his brother, though I detected distance between them. “Why didn’t you ever tell me? Why’d you keep this to yourself for the last ten years?” He was hurt, and rightly so. The secrets Will had kept were huge ones.
“Because I wanted you to have a normal childhood. I wanted you to be safe and happy.” It was more than obvious that Will cared for Declan more than he cared for his own self, and my heart swelled.
I didn’t have anyone like that, no family members like that. I might’ve had my group of guys now, but the way Will was with Declan was something else. The ingrained loyalty, something nothing could shake or break.
“But it was all a lie,” Declan said, finally realizing just how much his brother had done for him over the years. “You should’ve told me. Maybe not then, maybe not right away, but you should’ve said something.” His breath caught. “All those times I defended Dad to you…I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” Will said. “You’re not.”
“I always thought that…that Mom just died. That she got sick, that the doctors didn’t catch it in time. That’s what Dad tells anyone who asks.” Declan’s shoulders slumped. “I guess I should’ve known, since he never gets into specifics.”
I inched towards the two brothers, wrapping an arm around Declan’s lower back, causing his sad eyes to look at me. Those eyes were kind and warm, those eyes made my heart skip a beat and my stomach fill with butterflies. Anytime those eyes looked at me, I drowned in their beautiful amber depths.
“No matter what happens,” I told him, leaning my head against his arm, “I’m here. I’m here for you both. We’ll get through this.” And maybe, just maybe, once this new storm passed, everything could get back to normal. Or, well, whatever normal would be, considering none of my days at Hillcrest had been normal so far.
The news Will had shared made the late afternoon tick by slowly. Will went out and got McDonald’s, mostly for me, and as we ate, we tried to relive the good old days by playing some Mario Kart. Didn’t work too well, but at least we were trying. At least we were attempting to be carefree and happy, right? Even if it didn’t work out so well.
Will couldn’t stay the night; he had an early class in the morning, and he was trying his best not to flunk out. I understood, and I knew I might be better able to cheer Declan up if it was just me and him. Me, focusing on him, I meant.
That night, as I watched Declan get ready for bed—taking off his shirt and letting the fabric fall to the carpet, wearing nothing else but flimsy athletic shorts, his usual nightly ensemble—I didn’t quite know how to comfort him. Was sex inappropriate at a time like this? Probably.
So, with sex off the table, there was really only one thing I could do, and that was simply to be with him.
I changed out of my clothes, slipping into a loose shirt and nothing else. After brushing my teeth, I flipped off the bathroom light and meandered through the dark dorm room until I reached Declan’s bed. He was already laying down in it, so I grabbed the covers off him and lifted them. Declan scooted towards the wall, giving me some more space on this tiny twin-sized bed.
As I set my head on his pillow, I stared at his face through the darkness. A bit of moonlight streamed through the blinds of the window just above the bed, giving me enough light to see that his eyes were open and that he was watching me, too.
I gave him a small smile, slowly moving a hand towards his face, running it along his cheek, catching the bits of stubble there. Usually Declan kept himself clean-shaven, but after the day he had, I didn’t blame him for wanting to be lazy, for not caring too much about his appearance. I liked a scruffy guy just as much as the next girl.
“You know I love you, right?” I asked him through the darkness.
Declan responded by snaking a hand around my lower back, pulling me against him under the covers. The moment my body touched his, I held back a sigh. I loved feeling every lean inch of him against me, and with his shirt being off, it was all too easy to lose myself in the warmth his body flooded mine with.
“I do,” he murmured, his breath hot on my face. His hand gently held onto the curve of my ass, holding me against him. I wore no panties, so feeling his hand on my smooth bottom made my inner thighs clench.
It was a bad time to think of sex now. A very bad time. Declan was obviously stressed, and I just wanted to be here for him.
His head inched closer to me, and his eyelids fell as he whispered, “I love you, Ash. More than anything in the world.” Such kind, soft, loving words. Words I honestly never thought anyone would say to me. Ray had never been a sweet-talker, n
ot one to whisper sweet nothings in my ear.
It was almost comical, how bizarre this was to me. Me, comforting someone else, someone I loved. Me, listening to him whisper those words right to my face, as if they were nothing to be ashamed of. God, this was how life was supposed to be—murderous father notwithstanding. Just people in love, holding each other through the night.
It wasn’t the first time I’d held onto Declan as I slept, but it was the first night that I swore to myself I would never, ever let him go.
Chapter Nineteen – Ash
The next day campus was swarmed with rumors, most of them involving Dean Briggs. None of them had the whole story, though. Some of them said Dean Briggs had been arrested for partying it up too closely with some of his students. Other rumors suggested he’d been caught doing drugs in his office. Yet another one said he was involved with the murder of that Stanton student.
No, no one quite knew the truth, so it was ridiculously hard to keep my head down and my mouth shut as I went to class.
It must’ve been on the news, had to have been spread around on social media somehow. How else would literally everyone know about it already?
You know, it was kind of funny, though, how quickly the rumors spread like wildfire. It was sort of like that telephone game I remembered playing back in elementary school: the game where someone in the front whispered something into the ear of the person sitting next to them, and then that kid was supposed to repeat what was said to the person on their other side. Over and over until you reached the end of the class, the kid in the back.
And you know what? Very rarely did that kid in the back stand up and say exactly what the first person had whispered. It always got twisted, misshapen. Maybe some students misheard it during the initial whispering from their neighbor, or maybe they told lies purposefully. You never could trust a room full of kids…kind of like you couldn’t trust a campus full of rich boys who had nothing better to do than to gossip.
I could only imagine how terrible Declan felt, going to class, hearing the whispers. For once, the whispers weren’t about him; with Sawyer gone, the endless mocking had quieted, and hardly anyone stuck anything to our door anymore. It was a nice change, but it wasn’t for any good reason.
Sawyer.
Damn it, I’d done really good lately not thinking of the boob, but it was as I sat in the back of my statistics class that my mind wandered to him. How was he doing in rehab? Was he doing better? I hoped he was learning a new way of looking at things. That’s what the problem was with addicts; they didn’t view things how they should. Everything was always about the next fix, the next dose. I’d been stupid to look at Sawyer and not see just how deep his problems ran.
Sawyer Salvatore. The poor, broken rich boy who drowned his sorrows and his problems with alcohol and drugs, and when those failed, the legs of whatever girl was nearby.
It was beyond stupid, but I missed him. I missed him, even though I knew rehab was where he should be. I missed his stupid smirks and his sometimes witty retorts. Those beautiful jade eyes. Everything about him, everything I knew I shouldn’t like but did anyway, I missed.
Would Sawyer even remember me, once he got out? Would he come back here, or would he decide it would be better for him to go somewhere else? This campus held nothing but bad memories for him.
And me. This campus held me, and even though I cared for the douche, I knew even I wouldn’t be enough for him. Not unless he changed. Really, truly changed—and frankly, I didn’t know whether Sawyer was capable of it. Some said people were like seasons, changing with time, but me? I didn’t know if I believed that. I think some people were just ignorant enough to refuse to change.
Sawyer was not something I should spend much time thinking about, not now. Not after what I discovered yesterday.
I was ninety-nine percent sure Dean Briggs was in some kind of twisted relationship with Sabrina Salvatore, and since she was only seventeen when she died, it was most definitely an illegal relationship. Just like Ray and I, actually, but what made it even worse was that Dean Briggs was Declan’s father.
Father and son, banging the same girl. Kind of nasty.
Did Dean Briggs kill her, though? Even if he abused his wife, even if he eventually led his wife to commit suicide because she knew no other way out, why would he kill Sabrina and have her write that note? It didn’t make sense to me, but maybe I was thinking about it too hard. When passion was involved, nonsensical decisions were made. If Dean Briggs truly loved Sabrina, there wasn’t anything that was off the table.
Maybe Dean Briggs found out she’d been sleeping with Travis, too—but then why wouldn’t the note blame Travis?
Ugh. See? No fucking sense. I hated it. With Ray gone, I thought things would piece together, that I could stop and breathe, that I wouldn’t feel so constricted, like my life was falling apart around me.
Oh, my life had already fallen apart. This was the aftermath. This was me trying to pick up the shattered pieces and shove them back together, but everyone knew that once a vase was broken, no amount of glue could truly get it back together the way it was before. Some things were just pointless. Me trying to make sense of all of this was probably one of those things.
When class let out and all of the students hurriedly shoved their books and notebooks away, practically stampeding out of the classroom, I was one of the last ones out. I spotted a familiar face standing in the hall, leaning against the wall and looking absolutely drop dead gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous that instantly made your panties wet and your heart skip a few beats. His serious expression helped with that, along with his sparkling blue eyes—and those tattoos. Those tattoos that still peeked out from underneath his flimsy coat every time he moved his arms.
Yeah, a girl like me got weak at the knees when faced with a boy like that. Travis might’ve been a monster, but he wasn’t like Ray. He might have a strange view on some things, might not act like a normal twenty-year-old guy, but he was mine all the same.
Mine.
And to think, when I first met him, I thought it would be better to stay away from him. Little did I know at the time I’d need Travis’s help to truly overcome my past.
I met him, watching as he pushed off the wall, his sapphire gaze checking me out and not bothering to hide it. “Well, well, well,” I mused, linking my arm through his as we started to walk out of the building. “Look who it is. My newest stalker.” Making jokes about being stalked was probably not the best thing to do, but sometimes I resorted to humor at terrible times. A habit I’d picked up on from Kelsey.
Outside, the sun shined, but it was not a warm day. A cold front had settled over Hillcrest; it wasn’t snowing, but it was almost cold enough to. The way these rich students were bundled up with scarves and mittens made me laugh inside. If they thought this was cold, they should go up north, where this was a nice day in wintertime. I wasn’t bundled up like them, and neither was Travis. Travis was too cool to be cold, or something.
“Can’t help it,” Travis spoke, giving me a tiny smile. He didn’t often smile, but when he did, it warmed me in every which way, made me want to tear off my clothes and tell him to take me here and now, wherever the hell we were. In this case, we were walking along one of the many walkways in campus, with a bunch of other people around.
Probably not the best thing, to fuck while everybody and their brother could watch.
Of course, there was one brother who I didn’t mind watching—ahem, ahem—but that was beside the point. The point being…I didn’t know. My mind was going off in crazy directions today. Today was not a good day.
“I need to see you as often as possible,” Travis went on, glancing at me as we walked…wherever it was we were walking. We could go back to my dorm, but seeing as how Declan was still in class for another hour, I didn’t see the point. There was another place we could go, a place I hadn’t been since that first time, when he chained me up to his bed to punish me for going on a date with Sawyer.
W
ell, going on the date, kissing him, and giving him a handjob.
“Why don’t we go back to your room then?” I suggested, tossing him a smile I hoped was sparkling and pretty, batting my eyelashes just right even though I knew I didn’t have to try so hard with Travis. I had him as obsessed with me as Ray was, only his obsession made a fire grow within me, not revulsion.
Yes, even knowing what Travis did with his brothers. Even knowing that he was a killer, too.
Things were just different, what could I say?
“We could go to yours,” he said. Together, we stopped on the sidewalk, other students walking around us. Me being a novelty on campus had long worn off; that, and they had new gossip today, with the Dean and all that.
“There’s actually something I’ve been meaning to do in your room,” I spoke with a shrug. “I say we go to yours for a bit, while Declan’s still in class.” I played a dangerous game here with him, I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself. This time, it wasn’t going to be me locked in those chains.
I assumed he had more, or the same ones he’d used on me. I’d seen other little toys in his dresser drawer—and truly, it was a good thing he didn’t have a roommate, because otherwise, there would be a lot to explain.
Travis didn’t argue with me, and together we walked to his dorm building. It was almost like a weird sense of deja vu, me walking in there, getting on the elevator, my heart excited. Last time, I hadn’t known the extent of how twisted Travis’s mind really was, or how involved he was in Sabrina’s death. He wasn’t her killer, but he could’ve saved her. That…that should’ve been enough to give anyone pause, but I wasn’t a normal girl.
Hell no. If there was one thing I knew by now, it was that I wasn’t normal. I’d lived through things most people didn’t dream of, seen things that would give anyone nightmares. Hell, I still thought about Brooklyn and how she was torn apart more often than I wanted, had night terrors about Ray and all those nameless graves in the dirt more than I should, but that’s the thing about me. I might’ve felt fearful, but above all else, I was a survivor.
Killer: A Dark College Romance (Hillcrest University Book 5) Page 16
