Waiting in the elevator to get down to the ground floor was torture. Turner tried to call his dad and cursed when he didn’t answer.
We wedged out into the lobby before the elevator doors were even fully open. Heart hammering in my chest, I led the way to Dad’s car and jumped into the driver’s seat. I had to adjust it, my fingers fumbling on the bar under the seat as I cursed bloody murder.
I started the car and peeled out of the spot, the tires screeching as we took off.
“Which way, Turner?” I shouted. I knew the park he’d mentioned, but I’d been there only a handful of times and not recently.
He was already looking it up on his phone. “Turn right at the end.” He pointed.
I glanced down at the clock in the dash, 10:56 illuminated in neon green.
For the next seven excruciating minutes, Turner directed me while trying to call and text his dad. I drove like a crazy person—flying past intersections, barely slowing down at stop signs, skidding around corners.
As soon as we reached our destination, I stopped the car with a lurch across three parking spots and killed the engine, and we both launched ourselves out of the vehicle, leaving the doors wide open.
“Jenny!” Turner bellowed as he ran across the grass. “Jenny! Where are you?”
“Turner!” Her high voice reached us before we could see her. Only seconds later, the young girl came running out of the pitch-black trees and into her brother’s waiting arms.
I stopped halfway between them and the car, breathing a sigh of relief and resting my hands on my knees.
I couldn’t make out what they were saying to each other, but Turner pushed her out and held her at arm’s length, speaking earnestly while visually checking her for injuries.
I ran my hands through my hair, adjusted the sweatpants on my hips, and started walking over slowly.
“. . . sure you’re not hurt?” Turner’s voice was somehow both stern and worried.
“Yes. Shut up. I need you to take me away. Can we go? Away from here. Just me and you,” she pleaded, obviously panicked.
“What? What are you talking about? Jenny, what happened?”
She tugged his arm and tried to pull him in my direction, but he dragged her back to his side, still trying to calm her down.
Headlights appeared at the parking area’s opposite entrance, snaking down the drive toward us. I frowned. Who would be out here this late?
“He killed Mom!” Jenny yelled. “He didn’t know that I saw it, but Jayden knew, and then I couldn’t take it anymore, and I ran away, and I think he knows now.”
“Holy fuck. Who killed Mom? Where is she?”
“Boyd. It was about six months ago. Turner. She’s gone.” Jenny sobbed, and Turner hugged her, shooting me a desperate look.
But my focus was on the approaching car.
Dread washed over me like a waterfall as I realized why another car was in the park in the middle of the night. They were here for the same reason we were.
To get Jenny.
My suspicion was confirmed just as it articulated itself in my mind.
“Fuck. Turner?” I waved my hand to get his attention, my eyes still glued on the two men getting out of the car. They hadn’t spotted us yet. “We have to go. Now.”
“What?” He frowned, then looked over his shoulder.
Jenny followed our gazes and spotted them at the same time . . . and screamed as only a teenage girl could.
It pierced the night.
Turner and I took off at the same time, Turner dragging his little sister along with a firm grip on her wrist.
In the same instant, the two men looked over and started sprinting in our direction.
I kept glancing between the men and the waiting car—our only escape—as I pumped my legs. They were too close. They were going to cut us off.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Turner realized it too. He pushed Jenny and me behind him, and I grabbed her skinny arm and pulled her close. She gripped my T-shirt as if her life depended on it, her whole body trembling in my arms.
As they got closer, Boyd threw an arm out to signal his son to stop running, then looked us over with his calculating gaze. Jayden’s eyes widened as he glanced from me to Jenny to Turner and back again, trying to figure out how it all fit.
I suddenly felt sick.
I was face-to-face with one of my tormentors, mere hours after I was convinced he would kill me.
Every mean word, every shove, every sneer and look of disgust he’d ever thrown my way flashed through my mind. For a second my vision blurred, and I had to swallow down bile.
“Jenny, come here this instant.” Boyd pointed harshly at the spot next to him, his voice the epitome of a chastising parent.
Jenny just plastered herself tighter against my side.
“She’s not going anywhere with you.” Turner’s voice was deathly calm, but the tension in his body told me he was ready to explode at any second.
“Dude, what the fuck is with you tonight?” Jayden shook his head and narrowed his eyes in anger. “Give me my sister.”
“My sister,” Turner growled.
Boyd laughed lightly, the sound one of pure menace. “That’s why you looked familiar. That bitch would not shut up about her other kid. The one she left behind. Kept wanting to go find you.”
“What?” Jayden looked between them, genuinely confused. Did he not know? Unable or unwilling to process the situation, he stuck with anger. He took a step toward Turner and threw his arms out, looking as if he might throw a punch at any moment. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“You.” Turner pointed at Jayden, then at his dad. “And him.”
“You wanna go? Let’s fuckin’ go!” Jayden beat his chest with his fist, but I kept my focus on Boyd. He was staring at Jenny so intently it was making my skin crawl.
“I already put you on the ground once tonight,” Turner responded, “and I’ve been itching to beat your sadistic ass to a pulp. Don’t test me.”
They were seconds away from throwing punches. Turner could easily take Jayden, but could he take both of them at the same time? Maybe Jenny and I could make a run for the car.
I glanced in its direction. The wide-open doors were barely a hundred feet away.
“That’s enough!” Boyd roared. “Give her to me right now!”
Turner didn’t reply. Instead he simply rolled his shoulders and lifted his hands, ready to fight.
My heart was beating so fast I thought I might pass out.
Jenny was crying hysterically.
With an angry yell, Jayden lunged. Turner dodged him, grabbing his shirt and using the momentum to shove him to the side. Jayden lost his balance and toppled, but in an instant, he was back on his feet.
The two boys clashed, throwing punches and kicks as Jenny and I inched backward. I was too scared to make an all-out run for it. What if Boyd grabbed us, hurt us? And what about Turner?
As if to prove my point, Boyd jumped into the fight. Between the two of them, they soon got Turner onto his back.
I looked between them and the car.
Stay and try to fight two men twice my size?
Or try to run and get help?
I had seconds, at best, before Boyd was no longer distracted with beating the crap out of my boyfriend. It was now or never.
I have to get Jenny to safety.
I have to help Turner.
Indecision churned inside me, tearing my heart down the middle. My eyes flew between the open car and a hefty branch, about the size of a baseball bat, on the ground next to us.
Run or fight? Fucking decide, Philomena!
A blur of movement sped past us, making me gasp.
Turner’s dad tackled Boyd and laid into him. “Keep your hands off my kids, you son of a bitch!”
After landing a few solid punches, he rushed over to where Turner had already thrown Jayden off, and helped his son to his feet. “You OK?”
Turner swayed and shook his head
as if to clear it. “Yeah.” He coughed, leaning over.
Jayden and Boyd were already limping away as fast as they could, throwing worried looks over their shoulders.
Turner’s dad made to run after them. “Hey, get back—”
“Dad!” Turner stepped in front of him and placed a hand on his chest. “Let them go.” He looked pointedly in our direction.
His dad’s shoulders slumped, and he slowly turned to face us.
Turner walked to our side. I wrapped one arm around his waist while keeping the other around Jenny’s shoulders, careful not to hurt him more.
“Jenny,” their dad breathed, his daughter’s name falling from his lips like an anguished prayer. He fell to his knees and stared at her as if she were some kind of miracle, his eyes filling with tears. “My baby girl. I missed you so much.”
Jenny turned wide, watery eyes up to her brother, and he gave her a small, encouraging smile.
“I told you,” he said, the deeper meaning lost on me.
Jenny looked at the grown man on his knees in a park in the middle of the night, then slowly made her way toward him. When she stopped only inches away, he didn’t make a move to touch her. He kept very still, as if she were a rabbit that would bolt if he made the wrong move, said the wrong thing.
“Daddy.” The word came out on a sob, so low I hardly heard it. Then she wrapped her skinny arms around his neck. He held her as if she might evaporate in his grip and gave us the biggest, most emotionally charged grin I’d ever seen on a grown man’s face.
Turner and Jenny both refused to go to the hospital, and their dad didn’t argue too hard for them to go—I had a feeling he was worried about what kind of questions might be asked. The man didn’t want to lose his children.
Instead we went straight home. Turner’s dad—who insisted I call him Simon and kept apologizing repeatedly that I got “dragged into all this crap”—followed in his car behind us. Jenny wouldn’t leave Turner’s side, so they sat in the back as I drove at a much safer pace.
After we parked, Turner said he’d see me to my door. Jenny refused to go anywhere without him, and Simon declared he was never letting any of them out of his sight again. So even though I tried to protest, in the end all four of us piled into the elevator.
As the doors opened on my floor, several voices I recognized echoed down the hall. I winced and dragged my feet around the corner.
This was not going to be pretty.
Packed into the corridor in front of my apartment were my parents; Donna; her parents; my boss and Mom’s friend, Leah; and two police officers. They were all talking over one another as the police officers tried to ask questions. My mom was crying, and so was my aunt.
Donna spotted me first.
“Mena!” She barreled past the others and ran straight to me, wrapping her arms so tightly around my neck I almost couldn’t breathe.
“Hey,” I croaked.
“I’m so glad you’re OK,” she whispered frantically. “I’m so sorry, but I was so fucking worried. I didn’t know what else to do.”
I pulled away and frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I told them.” She managed to give me an apologetic wince before she was shuffled out of the way. Then it was my mom and dad cutting off my air supply.
“Guys,” I wheezed. “Can’t breathe.”
“Oh my god.” My mom held me out at arm’s length. Her face was tear streaked, her hair a mess. “Is there something wrong with your lungs? Brad, we need to take her to the hospital.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my lungs. Would you calm down?” I bugged my eyes out.
“Calm down? Calm down?” She was doing the opposite of calming down. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? When Leah called and told me you didn’t show up for your shift . . . and then we came home and you weren’t here, and the balcony door is busted . . . and then . . . when Donna told us . . .” She started crying again, covering her face with her hands for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and looked at me with some unfathomable emotion in her eyes.
Tears welled in my eyes too. I felt like shit for making everyone so upset—not that it was my fault. But it just rubbed salt in the wounds. The literal wounds I had on my body.
“Philomena.” My dad’s voice was low but barely restrained. “Whose clothes are you wearing?”
“Uh . . .” I glanced down at Turner’s T-shirt and the sweats hanging off my hips. When I looked back up at my dad’s face, he was staring daggers behind me—at Turner.
I stepped directly in front of my boyfriend, shielding him with my body, and threw my hands out. “None of this is Turner’s fault. He saved me.”
“Saved you?” Now my dad was confused.
I swallowed around a massive lump in my throat.
This was not how I wanted my parents to find out I was sexually active. In fact, I didn’t want them to find out at all.
But that awkwardness was nothing compared to the anguish I felt at what I would have to do next.
“Yes. I got in some trouble tonight.”
“Mena,” Turner interjected, a hint of reproach in his voice as his hands landed on my shoulders. “You didn’t just get in trouble. I think it’s time you tell your parents the whole story.”
Dad narrowed his eyes at the comforting hands on my shoulders.
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, I’m planning to. Can we just . . . go inside?”
We were all still packed uncomfortably in the dingy corridor. One of the fluorescent lights was flickering, and I really needed to sit down.
The radio on one of the police officers’ shoulders crackled something unintelligible, reminding me they were there.
The other officer addressed us. “We have to attend an emergency situation, but we will need to speak to you all again. I’m glad your daughter is safe. We’ll be in touch to take statements.”
She smiled at my parents, and they rushed away.
Leah stepped up to kiss my cheek. “I’m glad you’re OK.”
“I’m sorry I missed my shift and didn’t call. My phone is ruined.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She gave me a reassuring smile and turned to my parents. “I’m going to head home too.”
“Thanks.” Mom hugged her before Leah rushed off to catch the elevator.
“Want me to come in with you?” Turner asked.
What I wanted most was to collapse into bed and sleep for a week solid, but yes, I wanted him to hold my hand while I had the most difficult conversation of my life with my parents. I suspected he’d be more of a distraction though, judging by the dirty looks my dad was throwing him. Plus, he needed to be with his family. Jenny was leaning into her dad’s side, asleep on her feet.
“No,” I told him. “Go be with your family. Get some sleep. I think this is something I need to do alone.”
“Are you sure?”
I turned to face him. “Positive. Go.”
He pulled me in for a hug, and I melted into his warm embrace, drawing strength from his strong arms. He kissed the top of my head and released me, then walked away with his family.
I turned to face mine.
They all filed into the apartment, and I dragged my feet after them. Donna took my hand as I passed. “Not alone,” she leaned in to whisper, picking up on what I’d just said to Turner. “Never alone.”
I squeezed her hand and closed the door behind us.
I dropped the mascara in the makeup case and smiled at my reflection in the mirror. I’d gone for an understated look with some subtle embellishment that made my dull blue-gray eyes pop. Turner kept saying how much he loved my eyes.
My hair was done too, sleek and straight, hanging down my back. I smoothed the front of my crisp white shirt with my hands, double-checking that I hadn’t gotten any makeup on it.
It had been two weeks since that disaster of a night, and I hadn’t been back to school or seen any of my classmates since. Good riddance. Today was my first day at Fulton Academy. My b
rand-new uniform fit me perfectly, the shirt sitting just right on my shoulders, the pleated skirt hugging my hips and stopping halfway down my thighs.
I frowned, wishing my thighs weren’t so thick. But I pushed that thought away. I had enough shit to be nervous about without getting obsessed with how my thighs touched.
Of course, I knew the girls would be there with me, that I’d met all their other friends, that the staff had been informed of the situation at my previous school. But knowing didn’t stop me from having intrusive, panic-inducing thoughts. What if the girls turned on me? What if I did something to piss them off and ended up friendless again? What if the other kids started picking on me? What if the teachers had just said what my parents wanted to hear and were actually just as apathetic as the ones at my old school? What if this was just a dream and I’d wake up any moment and have to go back to that hellhole?
I took a deep breath and leaned on the counter, staring at myself in the mirror. This was who I wanted to be—who I was. “You can do this Mena,” I whispered to my reflection.
Part of me wanted to take the uniform off and just go back to bed, but it had been hard enough to get my parents to agree to this. No way was I going to jeopardize it.
That night, after Turner and his family left, I’d sat at the kitchen table and told mine everything.
When my mom got the voicemail that I hadn’t shown up to work, Donna had suspected the worst. She’d told my parents I was being bullied and that she’d tried to help, but in the rush to get back and check our apartment, she hadn’t had time to tell them the whole story.
That part fell to me. With my cousin by my side, holding my hand, I told my parents how miserable my school life had been since we’d moved to Devilbend. When I got to some of the harder parts, my voice wavering, Donna jumped in and filled in blanks. I told them what had happened that night—everything minus the sex with Turner. I didn’t think that part was relevant, and I certainly didn’t want to talk about it with my parents and aunt and uncle.
There was a lot of hugging and crying, a lot of questions, but no plans were made. I collapsed into bed that night and stayed there the whole weekend.
Like You Care: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Devilbend Dynasty Book 1) Page 16
