Fear You

by B. B. Reid

  “I don’t want to talk about her. She’s nothing to me.”

  “You don’t act like it.”

  “Look, I did what you asked, and now I moved on from it. You got whatever the hell it was you needed out of Monroe and cleared your name. It’s over and done with.”

  “Except you caught feelings.”

  His expression contorted with barely concealed rage before he expertly recovered. “I didn’t catch feelings. She was an amazing fuck.”

  For some reason, hearing him speak about Willow like that, and knowing Monroe wouldn’t like it, pissed me off.

  And then, the realization that I wanted to defend her best friend to make her happy pissed me off. I wasn’t her savior, and I wasn’t her friend. I tried that route, and she stabbed me in the back the first chance she got for trying to protect her.

  I had no right to be pissed with Dash. I put him in the situation to mess up a chance with the only girl he’d ever been crazy about despite his firm denial. I knew it was only his ego talking. The girl was definitely giving him a run for his money when any other girl just wanted to run with his money.

  It was the reason why I decided to break my own rule.

  “Dash… I know it won’t help but… if I could go back…”

  His grim expression was quickly replaced with astonishment. I wouldn’t bother to say more because apologies weren’t something I ever did. In fact, this may have been the only time I ever had. There were many times I’d come close to giving in to the torment in Monroe’s eyes but never did.

  I never would either.

  Because she was also the only person who could destroy me.

  She just didn’t know it.

  His eyes widened and then narrowed. “Are you actually apologizing?” I’d caught him off guard, so naturally, he would be wary being the person he is. He may have grown up with a silver spoon, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t street savvy. He trusted as little as I did.

  I shrugged and watched his shrewd eyes assess me. When he found whatever he was looking for, he nodded and turned to the building. “Let’s get this over with.”

  We headed to Keenan’s room in silence. Quentin was still standing guard when we arrived, but someone else was in the room, which explained the nervousness I noticed when I entered.

  I groaned in frustration before asking, “What are you doing here? I told you I had it tonight.”

  “Where have you been?” my uncle barked and stood up in my space. He towered over me by a good three or four inches, but I refused to feel small next to him.

  “I had something to take care of.”

  “It’s almost two in the morning! What could require you to be missing for over eight hours?” he shouted.

  “I wasn’t missing. I was busy.”

  “You told me you would be at the hospital. I expected you here.”

  “Are you actually trying to be a parent?” I smirked despite the fact I was a hundred miles past pissed off.

  “Keiran, you are trying my patience—”

  “Then leave,” I interrupted. It’s what you’re best at, isn’t it? You run and you hide. You aren’t a parent, and you never will be. Keenan and I take care of each other.”

  “Is that why he’s lying in a hospital bed? Because you took care of him? You protected him?”

  “No,” I growled, feeling my blood run cold. “He’s lying in a hospital bed because you didn’t protect me.”

  Fuck.

  That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  I wasn’t supposed to care.

  John had gone still along with everyone else in the room. I felt a pull that couldn’t be mistaken, and when I looked at him, I met darkened eyes much like mine.

  Keenan was awake.

  The last time I saw him awake, there was hatred, but with hatred came anger and pain. Pain that I had caused.

  It wasn’t new to me, but I’d never done to anyone I cared about.

  I blamed him.

  He was the one who made me care when I told him repeatedly it was a mistake. A mistake that I knew he now regretted.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His voice was raspy from sleep or from not being used. Knowing Keenan, he’d already befriended all of the hospital staff and made them love him.

  He was always best at that.

  I had been a coward before today, not wanting to face him or relive the very look he was giving me now.

  I guessed I deserved it. It was the same look I used to torment Monroe for ten years.

  “We need to talk.” I silently communicated to him that it was bad, and it was necessary. He wouldn’t talk to me otherwise.

  “Sheldon?”

  I shook my head, but then remembered what else happened that night. “I’m not sure yet.” I made sure to make eye contact with Dash as well.

  “What have you done?” John spoke up. I’d forgotten he was in the room when Keenan woke up. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m cleaning up the mess you and my mother started. Someone has to do it since you’ve been a coward the last ten years. Your decisions have come back to bite you in the ass. It’s coming for your son next, so if you want to be a father for once, you’ll stay out of my way.”

  “Keiran, I could help you. I want to help, but you can’t keep shutting me out. I know what I did, and I know nothing can change the past, but I can do something about tomorrow. My brother may be greedy, but he isn’t stupid and right now, I am the only person you have who knows him.”

  It never occurred to me before John would be exactly what I needed to draw Mitch out. The fact of the matter was I didn’t know my father. I was only with him for little more than a week, and in that time, he barely spoke to me. Food was shoved in my face, and I was kept isolated in a barren room of a small shack that was likely loaned to my father by an acquaintance.

  “He’s right,” Quentin said.

  He was right, and I knew it.

  “I don’t trust him.”

  I stared into my uncle’s eyes as I spoke so I didn’t miss the glint of pain before it disappeared.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, son, but as the adult I have to step in. I can no longer overlook your indiscretions.”

  Disbelief and anger flared inside me. My feet brought me closer to my uncle until my chest brushed his. I was ready to threaten my own uncle if need be, and Keenan must have known because his voice cut through the thickening tension.

  “You should leave.”

  John’s head, along with mine, snapped to face Keenan. He was struggling to sit up so Dash rushed over to help him. Keenan begrudgingly accepted his help, but I could tell his pride wanted to push him away.

  I wondered who he was speaking to until his hard gaze landed on John.

  John noticed as well and started to protest. “Son—”

  “I think that’s a little misleading, don’t you think?”

  “What are you talking about? You are still my son.”

  “But you’ve never been a father.”

  “Keenan—”

  “Leave.”

  After a few moments of glaring, John finally stormed for the door. He opened the door to leave but stopped to direct his threatening glare on me. “I want you home straight from school tomorrow. We need to talk.”

  He left without an answer, which was just as well because I wasn’t about to give him one. After a beat, I nodded to Q to make sure he was gone. My uncle wouldn’t give in to anyone so I knew there was a reason he did now.

  “All right, what the hell is going on? I’ve never seen you afraid before.”

  “I’m not afraid. I’m worried.”

  “So what’s up?”

  “This.” I threw the now crumpled photo on the table near Keenan’s bedside. Dash grabbed for it first and cursed before passing it to Q, who clenched his jaw and finally handed it to Keenan.

  “Son of a bitch.” He finally looked up at me after staring down long and hard at the picture. “Who?”

  �
��Who else? It had to be Mitch. It seems to be his M.O. He left Monroe the same thing on her birthday—a card with a picture.”

  “Have you heard from him since it all went down?”

  “Not a peep.” I thought of what John said about Mitch being as smart as he is greedy. “He’s laying low.”

  “How did you get this?”

  “It’s the proof Mrs. Risdell had.”

  “Again…” Dash said, eyeing me warily. “How did you get this?”

  “I paid her a nighttime visit.”

  “Jeez, Keiran! What are you thinking? What if she calls the police?”

  “She won’t and if she does, I’m prepared for it.”

  “Do I want to know what that means?” I shrugged my answer and looked at Keenan, who had been sitting silently since he heard Mitch’s name.

  The slick fucker had taken a picture of Keenan placing Trevor and then Anya in Dash’s car the night of the fair. The other picture was of them driving off.

  It was all that was in the envelope, but I knew there had to be more. The girls were there that night so there would be pictures of them, also. Mitch would be saving them for a better advantage, which meant I needed to get to him before he had the chance.

  “So what’s the plan?” Keenan asked and tossed the pictures down. “We have to protect them.”

  Them being Monroe, Sheldon, and Willow. Five months ago, I never thought I would be in a place where I would fight to protect her from anything. I had mixed feelings because of what had gone down two weeks ago. I was still mad as fuck for a number of reasons, and they all involved her.

  “We wait for him to make a mistake.”

  “That could take months,” Dash argued.

  “He doesn’t have months. He needs money, and if he used the amount of resources he needed to get this far, then I’m sure he’ll need it fast.”

  “We could lure him out,” Quentin suggested.

  “But if he took that picture, it means he’s watching and closely. He’ll know if we try anything. He will react.”

  “So let him try something,” Keenan growled.

  “And if he runs?” I couldn’t keep the exasperation out of my tone. “What if he exposes the rest of those pictures? If he has these, then he has pictures of Sheldon, Willow, and Lake. We can’t risk them.”

  “But we have to do something, or we will risk them.”

  “Keenan, we need to do this with a level head.” The tension in the room kicked up a notch or two, and I knew that he was pissed.

  His eyes narrowed into slits, turning darker by the second as his lips curled into a sneer. “A level head? Please share your idea of a level head? Did you have one when you killed our mother?”

  “This. Is. Not. The. Time.”

  “Let’s get something clear. The only reason I didn’t kick you out along with my father is that I needed to know how much you screwed up. We aren’t cousins, we aren’t friends, and we definitely aren’t brothers.”

  “Are you done?” He only glared back at me. “You may hate me, but I’ll always protect you. I fucked up, but I told you, Keenan. I fucking warned you all those years ago... I’m not a good person.”

  “At least we know you can tell the truth.”

  “I’ve never lied to you.”

  “But you sure left a lot of important shit out. Kind of convenient, don’t you think?”

  “I didn’t know she was our mother.”

  “It doesn’t matter. She could have been someone’s mother, but that didn’t matter to you. You killed her anyway.”

  “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

  “I know enough.”

  “You don’t know anything but what Mitch told you.”

  “You didn’t bother to say otherwise either.”

  I didn’t realize we were shouting until a nurse came in and ordered us to leave. Visiting hours were over.

  “They are going. I’m staying,” I told the nurse.

  “I don’t want you here.”

  “Don’t be a brat.”

  “Fine. Then I don’t need you here.”

  “Tough. You aren’t staying here by yourself.”

  Before I could argue, he called out to the nurse waiting by the door. “I want him gone and removed from my list of authorized guests.”

  “You got it, sweetie,” the nurse gushed. When she turned her attention to me, her eyes widened in that familiar look of lust. She moved as if to usher me out, but one look at my face had her stopping in her tracks.

  “Keiran, leave,” Dash offered, his voice gruff with aggravation. “Just go. I’ll stay with him.”

  * * *

  “Stab him.” The knife pierced flesh.

  “Again.”

  The sound of tearing flesh and running blood as it seeped from the man’s body mingled with the emotionless commands from Frank.

  “Pierce him deep, boy. That’s it,” he encouraged when I obeyed.

  A profound and unsettling feeling continued to build in my stomach as I mindlessly drove the knife into the bound man. Arms, legs, and even his knees. The sickening crunch of bone was worst of all.

  His screams were muffled by the gag, but his eyes watched and pleaded with me as he held on to what little life he had left. Even now, I could see the life draining from his eyes while I used him for practice.

  Think of them as your canvas, Frank would tell me.

  They would never let me outright kill them. I had to torture them first with pain that would maim but not kill.

  I was no longer sure this was what other human beings were meant to do. Lily said it was wrong when I finally confided in her. I don’t know why I told her about the things they took me to do. After a month of not being able to shake her, she became someone to talk to, and when she still wouldn’t give in, and do what they wanted, she became someone to protect.

  Lily.

  I let my mind wander to her and all the good she was teaching me. She told me about home, she told me about her parents, her dog, and even her older brother, Keiran. I wished secretly that one day I could be Keiran. Someone with a family, home, and even a school to go to.

  Finally, the man died with what might have been a gut-wrenching scream. His gag saved me from having to endure the sound of his life fading away, but somehow, the effect was just the same.

  I stopped driving the knife into his lifeless body and desperately swallowed back the need to empty my stomach.

  He was the fourth man I killed today, and when I looked around the room to see the other bodies, I knew he wouldn’t be the last.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lake

  The tapping at my window started off as a figment of my dreams. A dream I didn’t want to wake up from so imagine my irritation when the tapping continued followed by the melodious chiming and buzz of my cell phone. Fantasy and sleep faded away to the less appealing reality of being woken in the dead of the night.

  If it carried on much longer, my aunt would wake up, and then I would have to spend the rest of my night explaining to her why there was a teenage boy throwing rocks at my window.

  I knew without answering the call that it was Keiran. He was the only one who dared to go against his own rule to pursue me.

  “This is getting really old, you know. You can’t just pop up and worm your way inside my house whenever you feel like it,” I grumbled to myself, knowing he couldn’t hear me.

  I stomped to the window, my bare toes gripping the plush carpet, muffling the sound of my anger. Frost covered the window from the cold night air, and when my fingers gripped the window to pull it open, it was a little more forceful than necessary.

  “You’re kidding me, right?” His face and body were partially obscured by the night shadows. Even so, I could make out the dark hoodie he wore, the hood pulled over his head with the shiny locks of his dark hair peeking out.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “It’s three in the morning, Keiran. Care to take a guess?”


  A boyish grin tugged at the corner of his lips. “I never took you for a cranky sleeper.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  He shrugged carelessly and looked away before meeting my eyes once again. “I wish I knew,” he finally answered and scratched at the stubble on his chin. I loved the light spattering of facial hair on him. It was a glimpse of the man he would one day become. A shiver worked its way through my body at the thought of an even more powerful Keiran.

  “You obviously came for something or else you’re just a creeper.”

  He snapped back his hood and narrowed his eyes, anger gleaming from his stormy gray orbs.

  “Are you going to let me in?” he asked impatiently.

  “I wasn’t planning to,” I answered back sweetly and twirled my hair around my finger for further insult.

  He nodded once, and when a smirk appeared, my hand dropped apprehensively. “Baby, I’m getting in there one way or another. So you can either let me walk through the front door like a good girl, or I can make a lot of noise climbing through the window. Then I’ll watch you explain to Auntie dearest why I’m in your bedroom at three in the morning… especially if you were caught in a rather compromising position.” The smile that lit up his face was charming and playful, but the message in his eyes was anything but.

  “I could call the cops.”

  “And what will you do when I’m out again and standing on your front doorstep? Are you prepared to pay the consequences?”

  “Stop trying to mind fuck me,” I spat.

  “It’s not your mind I’m interested in fucking.”

  “At last… the real reason you decided to look like an idiot in the middle of the night. Goodnight, Keiran.” I gripped and slammed the window shut before he could say anything more. Already, I felt myself caving under the powerful spell of his possession.

  I slipped back inside my covers, closed my eyes, and pretended the complicated, emotionally wrecked boy standing outside in the dark didn’t occupy all my attention. We both knew what would happen if I let him inside. It was likely the same potent pull that always tugged at my heartstrings that led him here.

  The sound of my phone chiming broke the silence. I knew it was him without having to look. Unfortunately, curiosity won the brutal fight over my resolve, and I checked the message: