by Dean, Ali
“We know you know, Hazel, so better to answer now and we’ll let you go. When did your Dad start giving information to the Donovans?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” This was 97% true.
“Hazel, this will get ugly real quick if you keep saying that,” Sean said, his voice inches from me now. “So tell me, when did Cruz and his little crew start messing with us? Is his father involved? Is your father feeding them information?”
I shook my head more adamantly. “Sean, seriously, I don’t know shit. I only started hanging out with those guys again at that party at the Lake. You were there. That was the first time I started hanging with that group. And they don’t tell me anything.”
He traced a finger over my collarbone and I tried to suppress the shiver of fear at his unwanted touch. “Don’t touch me.” I tried to sound fierce, but knew I had no way of backing up the words.
“See, I know you’re lying,” Sean said, his finger continuing to trail under my shirt to my shoulder. I was thankful I was still in my soccer clothes because I was fully covered. Up there, at least.
“Cruz claimed you that night at the Lake. All those guys did. I saw it with my own eyes. You saw it too, right Branden?”
“Yep. As far as I can see, she’s not just Cruz’s girl either. She’s more than that. She’s one of them. They’re up to something. Otherwise they wouldn’t hate us so much.”
“And she lives with her dad. She knows something. Probably everything.”
“What are you talking about?” I could hear the fear in my voice and knew they could too.
“You’re going to tell us everything you know, Hazel. We’ll make it easy for you. Fun even.” Sean taunted me as his finger trailed back up to my lip, tugging on it. Then, in one quick motion, he grabbed my chin with his other hand, pulled my jaw down, and another hand shoved something in my mouth and tilted my head back. I felt the pill in the back of my throat and tried to cough it up but it was too late. The hand had pushed it all the way down and I felt the pill as it slid down my dry throat. It burned, and my stomach twisted at the invasion. They’d just force-fed me a pill. I’d never been so terrified in my life.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I sat there in the dark basement for a while. Maybe it was only ten minutes, but it felt like an eternity. The guys went upstairs and I didn’t hear anything except my own breathing and a few creaking floorboards above me.
I’d told myself they were just messing around, seeing what they could learn from me while pissing off Cruz and the guys. But I knew now this wasn’t some high school prank. This was business to them. They’d done things like this before. They seemed to have a plan, an agenda, and they weren’t the least bit fazed by my predicament. They weren’t laughing and neither was I.
It was as if I was watching this happen to someone else. They’d set this up to throw me off balance. Maybe they even had a friend bring me not only because it got me away from my dad and Cruz, but to rattle me and make me doubt who I trusted. It was all planned out. They wanted to see if the blindfold and duct tape would scare me enough to get me talking. It hadn’t, and now they’d given me something that would get me to talk.
At first, it was hard to tell if I felt any different. All the sensations became more acute, and I couldn’t be sure if that was simply from sitting here awhile, or from the effects of the pill. The sticky tape on my legs, the rope pulling on my skin around my wrists, they were magnified. My chapped lips, the dryness in my throat. My forehead itched and I could nearly smell the dried sweat from practice on my temple. I became more aware of all the little discomforts.
When they came back downstairs, I was scared, but there was another emotion there too, one I refused to acknowledge.
“How ya feelin’, Hazel?” Sean’s voice was smooth and rumbly as his hands brushed the back of my neck. He loosened the blindfold until it slipped down my face.
The room was dark, but the contrast still caused me to blink a few times. Sean was hovering over me and Branden was sitting in a chair across from me. He had one ankle crossed over his other leg and his lips were curved in a smile I could only call sinister.
Meanwhile, Sean was now kneeling in front of me. His palm rested on my ankle and began to move upward, over the calf, behind my knee. I was still in shorts from practice. I wanted to kick him in the balls, I probably could have from this angle, but my legs were secured to the chair. As his hands slid over my body, it was like I was watching a movie unfold, and I became detached. I was watching this happen, but my mind was barely participating. My body, however, was fully engaged. His skin on mine felt strangely erotic. I’d always been able to see that the Malone boys were handsome. But I’d never bothered to go beyond that. Now my belly fluttered with intense attraction as Sean’s eyes softened and his hand continued up to my inner thigh.
“Has Cruz touched you here?”
That question was like a bucket of ice water and I shivered as my voice shook out a word automatically. “No.”
It wasn’t strictly true. He had touched me over my jeans once in that exact spot. But something told me to lie. A rebellious streak that said not to give in to this game. If I gave just an ounce of confirmation to their belief Cruz was close to me, they would pounce.
“No? Why not? Don’t you like it?”
I swallowed. I did. I hated that I did, but I craved more of it already as his hand paused inches from where my body begged for touch. I realized through the fog that whatever pill he’d given me must have caused this reaction. I couldn’t control it, even as I squeezed my eyes shut and struggled to get ahold of my body.
“Branden, come over here, let’s make her feel good.”
I shook my head back and forth but my body warmed at the possibilities. Why were they doing this? Did they really think it would get them what they wanted?
“Here’s how this is going to work,” Sean told me. “You tell us something we want to know, and we make you feel good. It’ll be easy. Fun.”
“Should I untie her hands?” Branden asked, his fingers trailing along the inside of my wrists. Even that small touch heightened the building need. “She might want to touch us back.”
“Maybe later,” Sean said.
Branden crouched on my other side, his eyes glued to my chest. “I would love to get you out of that shirt.” His palm reached for one of my breasts. I should have been repelled, disgusted. I was, and my chest tightened in revulsion as he squeezed me and caressed a thumb over the nipple, but I was also shuddering with the sensation. Even over my sports bra, it sent tingles through my bloodstream.
The lack of control terrified me, but exhilarated me too. I didn’t want this, but if I had, I could understand why people did drugs. It was a horrible realization, but I was too delirious with sensation and want to care.
The guys shared a look, and Sean stood abruptly. Branden’s hand fell away.
“Get away from my daughter.” I heard the voice, but I barely recognized it.
The man standing at the bottom of the stairs didn’t really look like Dad either. He wore black sweatpants, the ones he wore around the house at night, and the gray tee shirt was one of many like that he owned. Yet this man was pointing a gun in our direction. He held a gun like he’d done it before, many times. The expression on his face? It was murderous. He would shoot.
“Dad?” My voice was timid, and I cleared my throat. I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t remember why. “Dad?” I asked again, a little stronger this time.
He didn’t answer. “Bodhi, get her untied.”
Footsteps rushed down and my cousin was suddenly there. Shame washed over me when I saw the same murderous expression on his face.
No one said a word as Bodhi untied my hands and ripped the tape off from around my feet. He tried to help me up but I didn’t want him to touch me. Four sets of eyes followed me as I walked across the basement and past my dad, who continued pointing the gun at Branden and Sean. As I walked up the steps, I wanted to d
isappear. I didn’t want anyone looking at me. Touching me. Or even thinking about me. I wanted this all to be over.
I knew that was wishful thinking. I knew this was only the beginning. It felt like war had just been declared and this had been the first attack. No, that wasn’t it. They’d been at war a long time if the events of this past week were any indication. This was just the first time I’d been directly involved.
In that moment, I didn’t know myself at all. My body didn’t even feel like mine. It wasn’t strong, solid, confident, sexy, none of the things I’d tried to hold on to as armor throughout each day. Each time I confronted something new. Now my limbs were loose, sloppy, dirty, and all wrong.
I felt them beside me, Dad and Bodhi, as I pushed open the door to the outside. Fresh air didn’t help though. The men who tried to hold my elbows were like strangers to me just then. I shook them off and made my way to Dad’s Land Rover parked in the drive and got in the backseat, grateful to find it empty. Then I heard another car and turned to find Spike’s Hummer going way too fast toward us, dust flying up around him.
But it wasn’t Spike who jumped out of the driver’s seat a moment later. Cruz sprinted forward and my door swung open. He choked out my name and pulled me into his arms. I wanted it to all go back to normal. For everything to be okay now. But despite whatever drugs were coursing through me, I now couldn’t handle any touch at all. I didn’t want comfort. Hell, I wasn’t even sure what going back to normal meant.
A new sensation hit me hard. It burned through me. I was furious. Filled with an outrage that must have been building for a long while, because this couldn’t have come from nowhere. It was fully established, built up so high over the years that it came crashing out of me now with a ferocity that startled everyone in its path.
“Get off of me,” I half growled, half screamed.
Cruz froze. He then released me enough to look me in the eye. “Hazel?” His voice was gentle but all I heard was condescension.
“What the hell is wrong with you? All of you?” I threw my hand out toward Bodhi and Dad, and now Spike too, who must have been in the Hummer’s passenger seat. They were all hovering around the Rover now, watching the spectacle. “I don’t know what you think you’ve been doing all this time, keeping secrets from me and then letting me be a pawn in your games. But I’m done, with all of you. Just tell me whatever the hell I need to know next time to get out of trouble but this, whatever this is, is bullshit.” I didn’t even know what I was saying, but I knew they all wanted me to just shut up already.
“We’ll talk about this at home,” Dad said, walking around to the driver’s side.
I pushed Cruz hard enough he stumbled back, then I slammed the door shut. We couldn’t even talk at home anyway, since it was bugged. Bodhi opened the passenger side door and looked at Cruz. He didn’t get in though. Neither of them did. After a few seconds, Bodhi shut the door.
I glanced behind me as Dad drove us out of there. Bodhi turned like he was going inside but Spike caught him and wrestled him into the backseat. Cruz watched us drive away for a moment, turned his head to the house, then jumped in the driver’s seat. They were following us a second later.
Bodhi and Dad had seen what was happening down there, and I couldn’t process that. Would they tell Cruz? Would I? I shook the questions away and grasped onto my anger, the only emotion I could tolerate right now.
I sat in the backseat with my arms crossed, pouting like a kid. I hated this feeling. All of it. I didn’t want them to know about the pill that had been forced down me either. They didn’t need another reason to treat me like a child, a victim.
I was acting like one though, and I knew it. But I couldn’t care. I was so damn angry. At all of them. At my state of helplessness. That I’d had to be saved. That I didn’t know anything and now didn’t know if I wanted to.
Dad parked outside our house but didn’t go in. “What happened, Hazel?” he asked, his eyes still trained straight ahead.
My chest burned at the monotone way he asked it. Like I was nothing more than the pawn I’d been treated as in this game I didn’t understand. “I didn’t tell them anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Dad’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the steering wheel.
“Hazel, that’s not what I’m asking. I saw them touching you.” He barely got the words out and though I could only see his profile, I noted the anguish. “I’m not good at this, Hazel. I want to know if you’re okay. But I know that’s not the right question to ask. You’re not okay. I don’t know what to do.”
This was an entirely different man in the car with me now. Not the one who’d pointed a gun with authority, but a vulnerable one who sounded lost. Kind of like I felt.
“Dad, I need to know what’s going on. I have to know everything, even if I don’t really want to. I’m already part of it whether you want to keep me out or not. It’s too late. Once I know why this happened, maybe then I can be okay. Right now, I’m fucked in the head. I need to be alone. Can I just go to my room and do that?”
I couldn’t be angry with my dad when he was like this, but the truth was that I was still furious. He was hurting though, in a way I could understand. I felt alone and helpless too, but for different reasons. I also wasn’t myself. The drugs were still in me, and while the events of the past half hour had snapped me out of the spell I’d been under, I wouldn’t be able to hold it together much longer.
Dad turned to look at me then and his eyes drifted to the window. I followed his gaze. Cruz was standing on the sidewalk, arms crossed, waiting.
“I’m not going to send him away, Hazel. You can shut yourself in your room but I need to talk to him. I also need him here to keep me from turning around and going back to shoot those little shits.”
I couldn’t help it. Despite everything, I let out a surprised little chuckle at Dad’s confession.
“Fine. I don’t want you going to jail.”
I brushed past Cruz without a word and went straight to my room. A new wave of shame and disgust hit me once I was sitting on my bed. Why was I now repelled by the idea of Cruz’s touch, when I’d let Branden and Sean touch me less than an hour ago? I felt as if I was losing my mind. I was slipping away, and I didn’t know who I was anymore.
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dark when I forced myself off my bed to shower. I scrubbed my skin until it was raw, but the shame inside me remained scalding. The drugs were leaving me now, and I knew that everything I was feeling was real. It wasn’t masked or heightened by anything artificial.
I went back to my room, trying to find a numbness or anger or anything to hold on to as I pulled on sleep shorts and a tank. Anger was the easiest. Anger at everyone. Dad, Louise, Branden, Sean, the guys. Cruz. But even anger was like a stabbing in my chest. I sat back on my bed and stared into nothing. It had been hours since that pill was shoved down my throat, and it might have been gone from my system now. But everything inside me was still a mess. Nothing felt right.
The door opened and there was Cruz. He asked me if I was hungry but I shook my head.
He shut the door behind me, locked it and came to sit beside me. “Your dad said I could come up. He said I could sleep here with you tonight if you wanted.”
I let out a harsh laugh. “Dad doesn’t know what to do with me so he’s given up. He’s pawning me off on you. But I don’t want you near me right now, Cruz.” The words were meant to hurt him, but they didn’t hit their mark.
“No. You’re not pushing me away right now, Hazel. I’ve let you do that one too many times. I’m here. I’m not leaving. You can rage, you can hit me, you can cry, claw at me, whatever you need. But if you ask me to leave, I won’t. I’m staying right here.”
His resolute words sparked something inside me. The anger was fueling me, even as I’d sat here stewing in it, but the words he’d declared and the earnestness with which he’d said them, it made the anger wash away. Instead, I found that big fat tears were
streaming down my cheeks and my vision blurred until Cruz was just a hazy silhouette before me.
Everything poured out of me. Hot, ugly tears. Snot. Sobs. Jumbled words of confusion and sadness and loss. I didn’t even know what I’d lost. The decision whether to be in this with them, I suppose – it had been ripped from me even if earlier today I’d already come to a decision. It didn’t feel like mine anymore. I had no control.
Cruz took all of it. He rocked me and gave me the comfort I didn’t know I was desperate for.
“They touched me, Cruz. When I wouldn’t answer their questions they shoved a pill down my throat. And then they touched me, but I didn’t hate it. I did, but I didn’t.”
I choked on my words, needing suddenly to get them out. Needing to confess and be absolved. Or not. I just needed to get it out so I wasn’t holding it in alone. “Whatever they gave me, it made me blind. I wanted to be touched. I think I liked it. Dad showed up though, before it went anywhere.”
Cruz’s voice was hoarse when he choked out, “Where? Where did they touch you?”
I showed him, pointing to my ankle and moving my finger all the way up to the apex between my legs.
Cruz’s eyes flashed and he pulled me to lay back on my pillow. Then he took his hand and rested it on my ankle, exactly as Sean had done.
“Like this?”
I nodded, watching him.
“Are you still feeling the pill?” he asked, his eyes searching mine.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
I watched him swallow and blink a few times before his hand began to move slowly. Over the curve of my calf, under my thigh. His touch was different. It made my lower belly flutter with need, just as Sean’s had, but with Cruz, it was safe. It was right. It gave me a little peace. Enough to get me through the right now, at least.
When he reached my upper leg, inches from my core, he cupped me. But then he started over, this time with his lips. He trailed kisses from my ankle all the way back up.
