Angel's Halo

by Terri Anne Browning

  Okay, so that’s the biggest lie I’ve ever uttered. I’m still a fucking mess and don’t think I’ll ever get over Bash walking away from me when my brother practically handed me over on a silver platter. After dishing out Bash’s punishment for daring to touch me, Jet actually gave him his blessing. If anyone could take a beating like that and still come back for more, then he deserved me, or at least that’s what Jet had said at the time.

  But Bash left town the next day and no one even knew where he’d went until he called to check in with Uncle Jack a few months ago.

  “Raven …” He blew out a long sigh.

  “Don’t.” I shook my head. “I really don’t have the energy for this tonight. I might never have the energy for it.”

  “I came back, Raven. I’m here for you.”

  My heart clenches, wanting his words to be true. But we both know they aren’t. “You came back for the club because Jet wanted you as his replacement and the Originals agreed. I had nothing to do with it.”

  “You had everything to do with it!” He explodes, but I don’t flinch. Even in a rage Bash would never lay a hand on me. “If it weren’t for you I never would have accepted the job. You were the reason I said yes, the only fucking reason I would ever step back into this life. Every day for the last fifteen months I’ve missed you to the point of madness. Every day I’ve struggled with myself not to come back and take what is mine.”

  “I’m not yours, Bash. You gave me up the day you walked away without a backwards glance.” I tell him calmly even as the tears stung my eyes. “Stop lying to me and especially to yourself. If I meant anything to you, then you wouldn’t have snuck away in the middle of the night like some thief without so much as a goodbye or even a fuck you.”

  The car fills with his tension. I can nearly taste his anger. “You think it was easy for me, Raven? You think I didn’t hate myself even as I was passing that stop sign down the road? Do you think I even felt alive when I was so far away from you? You are my soul, girl!”

  A lump forms in my throat and no matter how many times I try to swallow it down it just won’t go. I suck in a sobbing breath but don’t say anything, not that I could anyway. Not without losing it completely. Not without showing him exactly how broken I’ve been—and still am. Instead I reach for the door handle, desperate to get away from the man that I love.

  I’m outside and running through drizzling rain before I even hear the driver’s door open. The house is dark, but I need the darkness. I can hide better in it, not that I think I can get away from him if he decides to come after me. But at least in the dark I can hide my pain, my brokenness.

  Hawk

  As soon as Bash disappears down the stairs of the frat house with my baby sister, I turn to the girl still sitting on the couch. I hate seeing Felicity like this. Hate how broken her spirit is. No woman should ever be this destroyed over a guy, especially a bastard like Jet.

  Sighing, I drop down beside her. Felicity’s hands play with the nearly empty bottle of cheap tequila while her eyes continue to watch the door Bash and Raven just left through.

  “They aren’t coming back. She just talked him out of committing murder. It’s best if she keeps him away from people for the next few hours.”

  Felicity shrugs but doesn’t say a word. I settle back into the couch and take in all the changes in the girl I’ve known from birth. The old Felicity had been vivacious but reserved with those she wasn’t comfortable around. Her eyes, so startling blue that I always compare them to blue forget-me-not flowers that my mom used to grow in our back yard when I was a kid. Felicity has always been curvy and I’m just enough of a bastard to have fantasized about her a time … or three. But in the last six months or so she’s lost a lot of those soft curves only to be replaced by a sex-on-legs version of sweet little Felicity.

  Her eyes are no longer as blue as those forget-me-not flowers I love so much. Gray storm clouds have entered her eyes, something that’s been there since the night I had to leave my bed and bring her to the ER that one cold night.

  “Flick …” I rub a tired hand over my face, wishing I could help her but knowing that the only one that can is sitting in a prison cell. “No man is worth destroying yourself over. Haven’t I told you and Raven that a million times growing up?”

  “This isn’t about Jet.” She finally turns to face me, those eyes so stormy looking that it breaks a little piece of something inside me every time I see them. “I can’t sleep at night. I can barely eat. It isn’t Jet that made me like this. It’s me. I broke me and I can’t put myself back together again. But I’m trying Hawk. I’m trying so hard.”

  “Is this about the … baby?” It’s hard for me to even say the word baby. I nearly had a little niece or nephew, but it was taken away before it even had a chance to be loved by a family that would have moved Heaven and Earth for it. If I’m still so shattered over it, then I know that Felicity has to be too.

  I know that Jet has to be fucked up in the head over it.

  Her chin trembles telling me that this is entirely about the baby. “What can I do to help you, Flick? How can I make this better for you?”

  “You can’t.” Her voice breaks ever so slightly, and then she clears her throat. “Like I said, only I can fix me.”

  Muttering a curse, because I’m not exactly stable when there’s something broken and I can’t fix it, I pull her into my arms and kiss the top of her head and she lets me. She’s so trusting. Having spent my life watching over her and my baby sister, she knows she can trust me with her life. Despite a few inappropriate fantasies that I might have had in the last few years, I consider Felicity like a sister. She’ll always be my little Flick—the name that Raven had given her because she couldn’t say Felicity when she was a baby.

  “If you need anything, Flick—anything—you come to me. Do you understand? Day or night, I’m always here for you.” She nods, cuddling into my embrace a little more. “I’ll always take care of you, sweetheart.”

  A shuddering sigh escapes her. “I know.”

  We sit there for a long while. The music is still blaring and yeah, there are still couples having sex on the other two couches. They’re so strung out on whatever it is that’s been passed around tonight they don’t have anything on their minds but getting off. When the sounds of moaning females start to affect my body, I stand and grasp Felicity’s hand. I need to get her out of there before I do something crazy like seducing her just to relieve my aching body.

  As we start down the stairs, a sudden bone chilling screaming drowns out the pounding rock music. Felicity goes rigid beside me as I freeze on the step. Her eyes meet mine as another scream follows the first. She’s moving before I even comprehend that I should be looking around for the source of the scream.

  Felicity runs down the stairs with me right on her heels. She starts forcing doors open on the first floor looking for the girl that continues to scream as if her very life depends on it. My stomach churns because I know all the possible scenarios that we’ll find and each one sickens me.

  It’s hard to follow the sound of the screams over the loudness of the music, but Felicity seems to be getting closer. Finally, Felicity finds a room at the back of the frat house with a locked door, and the screams are coming from the other side. I move her aside and kick the door splintering the heavy wood. Using my shoulder, I push the door down and find a sight that will haunt me to my dying day.

  Chapter 7

  Gracie

  I know I’m going to regret agreeing to this stupid party as soon as Janice pulls into the yard of the frat house. The music’s playing so loud inside that I can already feel my head starting to throb in time to the drums. The two girls attacking the captain of the lacrosse team only reinforces the fact that I don’t belong here.

  I don’t do parties, and I don’t do the whole fraternity thing. I’m still a fudging virgin for fudge’s sake. Watching people having sex in all corners of the house while others watch isn’t something I’m comfo
rtable with.

  So why did I agree to come tonight with my roommate Janice?

  Yeah, I’m still wondering that myself.

  I’m not even sure I like Janice. We had been paired together by the university’s housing authorities because we supposedly came from similar backgrounds. The first impression I had gotten from the girl was that she was a bitch, and coming from me that means a lot. I try to see the best in people, but so far it’s been hard to see any in Janice.

  Still, I want to give her a chance. So when she had offered this olive branch asking me to come with her tonight, I jumped at it.

  Forty minutes later I’m seriously wishing I hadn’t.

  I could have been back in my room studying for my History exam. I could have been doing my laundry and watching Bones reruns in the basement of my apartment building. Instead I’m here, pretending to drink the red Solo cups of beer that Janice keeps shoving at me. I hate the taste of beer, and I have no head for liquor, so I pour the beer out a little at a time when no one is watching.

  I find out quick that if Janice is a bitch sober, drunk she’s ten times worse. She gets mean and insulting. I decide then that I’m going to go to the housing authorities on Monday and request a new apartment for what’s left of the spring semester. Fudge buckets, I’d even take one of their dorm rooms over this kind of abuse.

  “There you are.” Janice’s voice startles me as I come out of the first floor bathroom.

  “Here I am.” I glance behind my roommate at the two guys standing on either side of her. They may be on the baseball team, but can’t be sure. Janice is a cheerleader and is always hanging around the players. “I’m going to head home.” I tell her, ignoring the grinning guys behind her. “I have an exam that I really need to cram for.” When she opens her mouth as if to protest, I shake my head. “Don’t worry. I can walk.” It’s only two miles to our apartment and I run three times that every morning. Two miles of walking won’t hurt anything.

  The guy on Janice’s right steps forward. “We can’t have you running off on us now, sweetness. Janice promised us some fun.”

  My eyes widen when he grabs my wrist hard enough to leave bruises. “Let go of me,” I command. After watching my mother struggle through an abusive marriage most of my life, I can’t handle to be touched roughly.

  “Now, now.” The second guy moves closer, and I suddenly feel trapped. I back up until my back is against the wall. “We just want to have a little alone time, pretty girl.”

  Drunken Janice snickers behind them, and my stomach rolls when I realize she’s recording my reaction on her smart phone. “What are you doing?” I ask stupidly, still not sure if I’m really seeing this; silently praying that it’s a nightmare I’ll wake up from, knowing deep down what’s about to happen to me.

  The music’s too loud, the people standing around are too drunk or high or both to care as the two guys pull me into the room behind them. Janice follows, recording it all even as she locks the heavy oak door. I’m in the game room. A pool table takes up a third of the room and four leather couches are spread around at various angles to offer a view of the flat screen on the wall.

  I struggle against the guy holding my wrist. He’s tall, bulky, and blond. His friend, a guy I’d seen Janice making out with on the quad last week, is a little smaller with bloodshot brown eyes and red-brown hair a few shades darker than my own. I think his name was Brayden. The blond tightens his already bruising hold on my wrist making me whimper in pain as he jerks me toward the pool table.

  “No!” I resisted harder, digging my heels into the thick carpet as I attempt to slow him down. I know in my soul that as soon as I’m on that pool table I won’t be able to stop what’s going to happen.

  Brayden grabs a handful of my thick, auburn hair and starts pulling me along with his friend. “You hold her down while I go first,” he tells the blond as they lift my kicking legs and place me on the table.

  “Why do you get to go first?” the blond asks. “You just got off with Janice in the bathroom. My dick is throbbing.”

  “Because this sweet thing is my birthday present from Janice,” Brayden informs his friend.

  I’m going to vomit. Brayden’s already undoing his fly and I can’t break free of the blond guy’s hold on me. I don’t have much protection in the way of clothes. Janice had offered me one of her dresses to wear tonight and I stupidly accepted. The silky material rises up my thighs exposing my bikini briefs to everyone’s prying eyes. Even Janice, as she continues to record my humiliation, seems turned on by the sight of the white cotton material.

  A hot, heavy hand touches my thigh, and I can’t stop the scream of pure terror that escapes me. There’s no use in screaming, not over this music and not with all of high people in this house. There’s no one to save me, they’re so strung out of their minds. I’d witnessed most of them passing around drugs like candy.

  Brayden laughs and it’s so evil sounding that it chills my heart and makes something wither inside of me. “I like screamers,” he tells me as his fingers catch the edge of my panties and he starts pulling them down.

  I don’t want to give him the satisfaction, don’t want to humiliate myself even more by screaming again, but instinct takes over and I start screaming until my throat is raw. My panties are torn off, and Brayden spreads my still kicking legs wide with ease while his friend holds my wrists so tight it feels like he’s crushing my bones.

  “You swear she’s a virgin?” Brayden asks Janice.

  “Pure as snow, baby.” My roommate grins at him, and it was the most malicious thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. “And all yours.”

  His beefy fingers skim over my sex, and I scream louder, harder. I’ve never been so scared in my life, and tears stream down my face as I pray for all I’m worth …

  The sound of wood splintering seems like a hallucination, my mind attempting to offer some type of mental break in my time of need. The three evil people standing over me don’t seem to notice, but seconds later the door crashes apart and in the doorway stands my avenging angel.

  Through my tears I see him. His hair is on the longer side, pushed back from a face that’s so startlingly handsome I know he can’t be real. His shoulders are nearly as wide as the door he just forced his way through. A tight rock band shirt stretches over his impressive muscles that seem to vibrate with each panting breath he sucks in.

  My captors turn slowly, their reflexes dulled from whatever drug of choice they’d been taking tonight. Janice swings around, filming him with the smartphone before deciding that he’s not giving her anything worthwhile and turns it back on me. Brayden reaches for the jeans hanging around his ankles, jerking them up as he glares at the intruder. “Get the fuck out, man. This is a private party.”

  “Party’s over!” he roars in a voice so deep and deadly I nearly scream again. “Get the fuck away from her.”

  There’s movement behind my savior and I’m shocked to see a girl I know from school standing beside him. She’s gorgeous, her hair flying around her shoulders and her face pale with haunting blue eyes.

  “Felicity!” I cry her name, desperate for someone I trust when I can’t trust anyone else.

  “Gracie!” she exclaimed, rushing toward me.

  “Flick!” The avenging angel is quick behind her, looking frantic to keep her safe.

  The blond guy still has ahold of my wrists. I struggle in vain against them while Brayden and Janice just stand at the end of the pool table watching me. Felicity reaches me and pulls my dress down over my thighs. “Let her go, you sick animal!” she screamed, the blond man still holding me. “Hawk, please.”

  I don’t know what she’s pleading for, but the next sound I hear is the scream of pain as Brayden crumbles to the ground after two quick, hard punches to the face. Then he’s beside of the blond guy, grabbing hold of his short blond hair and twisting the guy around to face him. “Evil fuck!” I hear and then I’m free.

  I can’t move. I’m sobbing too hard,
my body refusing to cooperate with me even when I desperately wish to be as far away from here as humanly possible. Gentle fingers stroke over my hair, and I look up to find Felicity whispering soothingly to me. “You’re going to be okay now, Gracie. We have you. Hawk will kill them all if they touch you again.”

  Chapter 8

  Hawk

  The girl is still sobbing so hard her body shakes. With both sick bastards lying on the floor unconscious and the twisted bitch that had been filming the whole thing long gone, I pull a blanket off the back of the closest couch and wrap it around the girl. She shies away from me until Felicity tells her that I won’t hurt her.

  I’m still fighting the urge to vomit as I lift her into my arms, holding her tenderly as I carry her toward the closest door. Felicity flanks me, already pulling out the keys to her car and unlocking the doors as I near her Jeep. I tuck the girl into the back seat and debate leaving my own car in favor of going with Felicity. I know that if I have to come back to pick it up, I’ll kill every frat boy inside that house.

  “Where are you taking her?” I demand.

  “I can’t take her to my house. We’ll have to go to yours.”

  I nod once and run to my car as Felicity tears up the grass on the lawn in her rush to get out of there. I shoot one last murderous glare at the frat house as I start my car. The boys and I will be coming back. We’re going to make sure that this fucking place burns to the ground while those fuckheads watch.

  It’s with that silent promise to myself that I follow after Felicity.

  It’s still raining and the roads are slick. I stress over Felicity getting to my house safely but know that she can handle her cage like no one else. Jet and I had taught her to drive ourselves, and that girl can handle almost anything behind the wheel of a cage. It feels like it takes forever to get home, and I start to hit the steering wheel in frustration when I see the lights from Felicity’s Jeep as she brakes long enough to turn into my driveway.