ICE (The Benders Series)

by B. T Hoax

  Kenna, however, was having difficulty maintaining a similar restraint. She wanted him. Badly. Even with their shirts between them, being so close was the ultimate temptation. As she slid a hand from his chest and downward, she could feel every ridge and dent of his godly sculpted abdomen. And she crept further upon its slow descent until it finally reached a very private and very firm place.

  Jon seemed to grimace at the touch at first as he parted her lips from hers. “Kenna,” he scolded in a harsh whisper.

  But before he could proceed, she removed her hand and swung her legs around him in one effortless motion. Her arms flung themselves around him and pulled him downward so that his lips- and the rest of him- were entirely against her.

  Once again, his kisses became heated and passionate as their mouths met in zealous thrusts. In the moment, everything seemed easy and right and exhilarating. Jon quickly moved his mouth to her neck as he nipped and tugged at her flawless and tingling skin. His hands, too, began to lose their innocence as one found a place on her breast and the other underneath her round lower cheeks.

  Kenna couldn’t hear her orgasmic gasps as he touched her and kissed her. She was hardly in a state of consciousness.

  Just when she thought she might explode with ecstasy, Jon made an abrupt and painful bite to her clavicle. She almost jumped away from him as a reaction to the unexpected action.

  “Jon, not so hard,” she whispered. But as she said it, his teeth came down again, biting her just underneath where he previously had. Kenna immediately winced in pain and tried to push his face off her. “Jon,” she cautioned more seriously. “Okay, I get it. We’re done.”

  Her words didn’t have any sort of impact on the Colewell as he continued on his ravenous pursuit. The girl realized, now, that she had made a very grave mistake as adrenaline and fear began to surge throughout her body.

  “Get off, now!” she hollered. When she spoke, a hand came and covered her mouth and pushed her head downward into the bed. Instinctively, she began to kick and flail about, but as she did, he bit at her harder and squeezed her face with almost enough force to dislocate her jaw.

  Luckily, Kenna was able to pinch his side hard enough so that he had to remove his hand from her face to better control her more punishing limbs.

  “Jon!” she pleaded helplessly.

  With no reply, she knew that he was gone and that her chances of escaping him had just dramatically declined.

  “Help!” she screamed as loudly as possible. Her only hope was that her cries might reach an ear of someone upstairs.

  Her fear was becoming powerless to the physical pain she was in as she felt blood dripping on her neck and shoulder where he continued to growl and gnaw at her. But that was the least of her worries. One of his powerful arms had savagely torn her shirt and was now working on the button on her pants. She was crying and screaming and thrashing as he continued to barbarously charge her more exposed body. With every effort she had, she twisted her legs together, praying that her strength might prevent him from getting what he was after.

  But his mass was too great, her power no match for his. As he finally undid the button and began to tug on her jeans, someone came bursting through the door.

  Jon didn’t even flinch at the entry, but Kenna screamed, “Help me! Please help!”

  Before she could say anything else, Bryce barreled at his brother, knocking him off the girl and onto the other side of the bed.

  “Run!” he instructed as Kenna rolled off the bed and onto the floor. As she got up, though she heard Bryce hit the wall hard, and Jon came back at her, throwing her down against the hard ground as he asserted his supremacy once more. Kenna became lightheaded from her head whipping back against the ground, so much that the dark room became blurry giving her even less a chance to fight him off.

  Bryce was quick to his feet though and charged his brother again, able to knock him off Kenna and onto his side.

  “Run!” Bryce hollered again. This time, Kenna was able to make it to her feet and out the door. She ran and stumbled against the walls as she climbed up the stairs and toward the front door. Just as she made it out the door, she felt the house shake and heard a blood-curdling yell from inside the house.

  She didn’t know who it was. Bryce or Jon.

  Could she really just leave Bryce there defenseless against his older brother? She looked to see if Elisa’s vehicle was in the lot and it wasn’t. Feeling the terror and panic take control over her limbs, Kenna dove into her car, certain that if Jon had defeated his brother that he would come after her next. With distress overwhelming her thought process, she sped out of the driveway and into town, where she parked a few blocks from her house.

  She looked at her hands that gripped the wheel tighter than ever before. Her breaths came fast, and she shuddered at every exhale as she attempted to come to terms with what had just happened. Kenna glanced down at herself. With nothing on but a black bra and an unbuttoned pair of jeans, she knew she couldn’t simply waltz into her house and give her father a good explanation. As she continued to stare at herself, she noticed the bruises forming around her collar bones, the scratches down her sides, and the blood that sat smeared across her chest.

  She closed her eyes, hoping that it was just a bad dream that she might snap out of. But when she opened her eyes and glanced in the rearview mirror, Kenna knew that the incident was very real. She got closer to the mirror. Several purple circle and popped blood vessels were making home to her neck and a blue marking formed on her jawline where his hand had gripped her face so strongly.

  As her breathing steadied, she felt tears begin to form in her eyes. Immediate guilt and fear of her father began to engulf her.

  It was all her fault. Jon had given her several warnings, but she pressed on… and on…and even again testing him at every touching of their lips. She was asking for it to happen. She practically begged for it to happen. And what was worse, she’d put Bryce in imminent danger.

  Kenna reached for her pocket, but her phone had been left behind. She had no way to reach Bryce or contact anyone to ensure his well-being.

  She didn’t know what to do. As her problem-solving skills returned, she reached for the sweatshirt that sat under her back seat as part of her winter safety kit and drove to the only place she thought she could go.

  When she rang the doorbell, a curly-haired young man answered. Kenna could hear the laughter and crying and chaos beyond the doorway as he left to retrieve Kenna’s friend. And so she sat at the doorway of the big blue house with her sweatshirt hiding her nakedness and woundedness until Britney came through the entry with a startled look on her face.

  “Hey? What’s up?” she asked with a pleasantly surprised expression.

  “We need to go somewhere private. Now,” Kenna said with great urgency as she grabbed her friend by the arm and dragged her past her family and up the stairs.

  “Whoa what’s going on?” her friend questioned as Kenna flung her into the bathroom and closed the door quickly behind them.

  “Call Bryce,” she instructed as she faced her perplexed companion

  Britney didn’t think twice as she pulled out her phone and made the call. “No answer,” she said when she reached his voicemail.

  “Shit,” Kenna muttered angrily.

  “Kenna, what is going on?” Britney demanded now, growing more confused and concerned with every passing moment.

  The blond bit her nails as she thought. “Text him,” she ordered. “And his mom and brothers. Whose ever numbers you have. Just say hey. Just try to get a response.”

  Britney once again followed the orders without hesitation. But after messaging both Bryce and his mother, she could no longer go without answers. “Tell me what’s going on. Now.”

  Kenna looked away from her as she began to pace the bathroom with anxiety.

  “Now,” she demanded again as she crossed her arms with authority.

  Deciding that she had no choice, Kenna lifted off her sweatshirt t
o reveal herself. Britney’s hand went immediately to her face as she gasped in shock. “Oh my- Kenna!” she shrieked, horrified by the sight that lay before her. “What happened?”

  “I…” Kenna choked. “I don’t know.” She said, realizing that she hadn’t come up with a good story yet. “There was an accident,” she started in what she thought might have been a convincing enough lie.

  “Accidents don’t leave FREAKING bite marks! Did Jon do this to you?” she fired back.

  Kenna had forgotten how observant her friend was and quickly backtracked. “There was an accident. Then a fight broke out and… I just need to know if everyone is okay,” Kenna stammered, stretching the truth as if it were an unbreakable rubber band.

  “I’m calling the police,” Britney rejoined as she proceeded to dial her cell phone.

  “No!” Kenna argued as she approached the girl. “You can’t do that!”

  And just when Britney was about to hit call, her phone began to vibrate.

  “It’s Bryce,” she said before answering.

  “Let me talk to him,” Kenna insisted as she reached for the phone.

  Not pleased, but unwilling to argue further, the furious girl handed her the phone. Kenna answered as swiftly as possible, “Bryce?!” she practically screamed into the device.

  “Kenna?” It was Bryce. He was alive, but she could hear his pain though he tried to hide it with his words. “Are you okay?”

  The girl heaved a sigh of unmatchable relief. “Are you okay? Is Jon okay? Bryce, I was so afraid,” she said as went into a meltdown. In an instant, she had crumbled to the floor and the tears came pouring from her eyes.

  “We’re… alive,” he answered as she continued to sob. “But everything is still blurry. But that’s better than black.”

  Kenna couldn’t talk anymore, and she handed the phone back to her friend.

  “Bryce, do I need to call the cops?” Britney interrogated right off the bat. “What the hell happened to Kenna?”

  Kenna couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation over her cries. She wouldn’t have even known that the discussion had ended if Britney hadn’t wrapped her arms around her as she kneeled next to her on the floor.

  “Are you okay?” she asked sympathetically. “Do you want me to call your dad?”

  “No,” Kenna managed to say through her weeping. “What did Bryce say?” she questioned as her sobbing softened into more manageable crying.

  “Nothing that I believe,” Britney warned. “He said that you and Jon were experimenting, and his mom freaked out at everyone when she caught you. Again, I don’t believe a word of it. And you can bet that I’m going to beat Jon’s ass for whatever he did to you. Mark my words,” she said with an unprecedented snarl that Kenna would have never guessed could come from her mouth. “No one messes with one of my friends. I forbid you to see him.”

  Kenna put her head down and saw her half-naked self once more. She truly was a horrific sight, so horrific that even Britney went crazy at the view. “I don’t think his mom would approve anyway,” Kenna said with a nod. “I just don’t know how to go home. I really think my dad will kill someone if he finds anything out,” she said as the tears came once more.

  Britney squeezed her again, then took her friend by the shoulders and stood her up. “I have a few turtlenecks that you can borrow until you are ready to tell him,” she said in a friendly and motherly fashion. “But I don’t recommend lying for too long. Parents have ways of finding things out. It’s best that he feels that you trust him.”

  Kenna acknowledged the statement with a brief nod. She then proceeded to clean herself up and throw on one of the shirts that Britney had agreed to lend her. After the tedious process and a long talk with her friend along which ended with Britney’s permission to go, Kenna drove home to where her father was already waiting for her.

  INTERLUDE TWO

  At first, I thought it was a voice inside my head telling me to go downstairs. But then, I thought I heard screaming.

  I stopped what I was doing and waited in silence, hoping that the silence would remain.

  It didn’t.

  There was screaming.

  Not ecstatic screaming.

  Save-me screaming.

  I jumped instantly from my lounge on the couch and dashed toward the basement where I knew the cries were coming from. Kenna was in trouble. Someone had to do something. If my mother hadn’t been shopping, she would have been the obvious hero of choice, but with her gone, there only remained us three brothers.

  And when I got to the basement door, there they were. Dax and Graham. Standing there. Almost like they were protecting the opening.

  “Guys, can’t you hear that?” I questioned immediately though I was out of breath from my sprint.

  “Hear what?” Dax asked quite feloniously.

  “Yea, I don’t hear a thing,” Graham added with a smirk.

  I gave them a grim look. Could they really be that deaf?

  When Kenna screamed again, I knew that they were lying and that they were indeed guarding the entrance. No one could have missed her cries for help, even from the floor above and behind a closed door.

  I clenched my jaw and made an attempt to push past the pair. If it was going to be me to go attempt to help Kenna, then so be it. But as I moved towards the door, Dax held out his arm and shoved me backward. Though it wasn’t a hard push, it was evident at this point that they had no intention of letting me through to help Jon and Kenna.

  “What gives?” I shot at him as I stepped forward again.

  He again stopped me. “Bryce, it’s a suicide mission to go down there. Let what is going to happen, just happen. We’ll say none of us heard a thing.”

  I glared. I felt my face forming an intense and furious expression. “The three of us could maybe stop whatever is happening. Let’s all go,” I suggested quickly, hoping it might be enough to sway them.

  But neither one of them budged.

  “Give it up Bryce,” Graham said with an evil twinkle in his eye, one that I wished I could have punched right out of him.

  “Just let me go, then,” I insisted. We all heard her scream out again, and I knew time was running out.

  “Sorry,” Dax laughed when I tried to push past them once more. “Let’s be real. After today, there will be one less flame to worry about.”

  “And better, one less Jon. He’ll be shipped off tomorrow once mom finds out,” Graham added with a malicious chuckle.

  I didn’t know what to do. At this point, though, I realized that I didn’t have much of a choice. “Fine,” I agreed as I let my tightened shoulder muscles relax. I turned and acted like I was conceding their argument. And just when I hoped that they’d begun to let their guard down, I flipped around and extended my arm to let out a fierce blade of ice.

  Although neither of them necessarily saw the move coming, they both managed to dodge the ice, leaving me with an unfortunate two on one scenario. Normally, I would have dueled them with my bending, but I knew my odds of victory in such a case were low. I mean, maybe they were higher than a me vs. Jon scenario, but I still felt like I had hardly any chance at beating them by just bending.

  As a result, I did what neither of them could have predicted. Before they could conjure up their ice and blast me down, I charged them with full and unrelenting speed. My first move was to land a quick but forceful gut-punch into Dax’s stomach. And with him leaning over to catch his breath, I met Graham in a classic football tackle. With him on the ground, I rolled until I was on top of him. And when I was, I managed to pull off a few facial jabs before Dax recovered and tackled me off him.

  But he was no match for me. For once in my life, my size seemed to be giving me an undeniable advantage. With everything happening so fast, I hardly realized that I was once again on top landing harsh blows to my older brother. I didn’t even realize that his nose and mouth were bleeding or that Graham had stepped back to propel ice in my direction. Out of sheer instinct, I managed to
dodge his bullets and even pull up Dax as a shield.

  With those bits of ice striking him, I knew Dax had no strength left to fight me. And with it just being Graham and me left, I was suddenly the higher seed.

  As we stared off, I realized that there was no sense in fighting him. I had to save my strength for the real threat…Jon. With that thought in mind, I managed to hear another of Kenna’s wails. As a result, I pushed past my brother who was honestly scared of me at that point and made my way into the basement.

  Here goes round two, I told myself as I hurried down the stairs.

  They were in Jon’s room, so I made my way down the hall and burst through the doors, completely unaware of what was about to happen. With adrenaline rushing through me, I had hardly any time to take in the scene before me, though looking back on it, I wish I could erase the memory from my mind.

  Though it was dark, I could tell that Kenna was on her back in bed while Jon sat on top of her. He was clearly wrestling with her jeans as she tried to fight him off with whatever strength she had left.

  Luckily, Jon hadn’t even flinched at my entry. I raced towards the bed and lunged at my brother with enough force to knock him off the girl.

  “Run!” I hollered as I fell alongside Jon.

  He was growling and raging as he hit the wall beside the bed. Before I could recover from the collision, Jon gave me an elbow to the gut that knocked all the wind out of me.

  But as usual, I wasn’t his target. Kenna was.

  He left me and proceeded to catch the half-naked girl and throw her harshly to the ground. But with my epinephrine seeming to hit its peak, I flew off the bed and managed to knock Jon off her once again.

  “Run!” I shouted as she slowly got up from the floor. She seemed to shake herself off for a second then suddenly bolted toward the door.