#Swag (GearShark #3)

by Cambria Hebert

  I wasn’t a runner, but I was outweighed, and I’d clearly pushed him too far.

  Again, he caught my arm and jerked me back around. My entire body went on defense, ready to fight.

  “Let. Go.” The deep, menacing snarl echoed through the room.

  I looked over my shoulder to where Jace was standing, just inside the row of lockers. All his focus was on Dean, and the look on his face scared me.

  This was not Jace… No, this was Lorhaven.

  Even more, a Lorhaven not even I had seen before, and I’d seen him pretty pissed off. His feet were planted apart, his hands balled at his sides. The darkness of his eyes looked almost void, like he had nothing inside him that could even try to hold him back from the pure destruction the snarl on his lips promised.

  Cannon released me instantly. I stumbled back, out of arm’s distance.

  “Jace,” I panted, “let’s go.”

  He glanced at me, did a double take. “What happened to your face?” His voice was deadly calm.

  I swiped at the blood. “I’m fine.”

  “He. Hit. You.”

  I nodded.

  “She hit me first. Fucking deserved it!” Cannon yelled, like that would save him.

  “How many times? You’re bruised. Bloody…” His eyes swept down. “Your neck is red. Swollen.” He stepped closer to me, peering down. “Purple blotches…” His body went rigid. “Are those fucking fingerprints!” He roared the last word and even I shrank back.

  Jace darted down the row of lockers and, in one swift movement, grabbed Dean by the scruff of his neck and rammed his face into the metal lockers.

  Cannon made a muffled umph sound before crumpling to the ground at Jace’s feet.

  Jace spun, his fists balled. “Everything you just said was true?” he rasped tightly.

  I felt like someone punched me in the stomach. “How much did you hear?” I whispered.

  “I heard everything, Josie. Everything.” His chest heaved so heavily and so fast I actually worried.

  Tears fell once more, and I wiped at them, trying to hide the fact I was dying inside. My God, I felt backed into a corner for so long… and it was hell trying to fight my way out.

  “But there’s more, isn’t there? I heard you say it, but he stopped you. Tell me the rest, Josie. Tell me now.”

  Lorhaven

  Déjà-vu: a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.

  The emotion welling inside me, pooling in my fingertips and clouding out all my judgement, was familiar.

  Scarily familiar.

  I’d been in this state before. It didn’t end well. For anyone.

  I pushed into the locker room a short while after Josie did. At first, I let her go, figuring she needed a few to process the shit that just smelled up the entire pit.

  I talked to Arrow, Drew, and Trent. We speculated, and I watched Hopper yelling into his phone off in the distance.

  The more seconds that passed, the more agitated I became. Fuck giving her some headspace. She was independent, but she wasn’t alone anymore.

  I looked around this pit crew at all the faces I didn’t know. All I saw were people who didn’t give a flying fuck. Yes, men. Peckerheads.

  No one spoke up for her when she was accused of cheating.

  It was absurd.

  Her only friends were the ones who came here with her. Normally, none of us came but Hopper. I glanced back to him still speaking heatedly into the phone.

  She was totally alone in this.

  No wonder she wanted to cross over.

  I thought back to her politically correct response to hazing. It made a sick feeling squirm around in my gut, like I suddenly had a bad case of worms. I should have forced it out of her then. I should have seen this.

  I walked out of the conversation midsentence. I hadn’t been listening anyway. I was with her mentally and wanted to be there physically as well.

  When I shoved through the locker room door, I heard an aggressive threat come out of someone’s fool mouth.

  “Keep your bitch mouth shut, or it’s going to get way worse for you.”

  My back teeth slammed together so hard my jaw vibrated. Who the fuck was this and why did he think it was okay to talk to Josie like that?

  Fuck no.

  I was about to go around the lockers swinging when Josie started talking. The sound of her voice… I almost didn’t recognize it. Raspy and deep. Filled with pain and anguish. It slayed me… It brought me back to that night with Arrow. The night I would never forget.

  It got worse.

  The more Josie raged, the more horrified I felt.

  That’s when the déjà-vu rose up inside me, as I stood there and listened to everything she’d been going through. All the shit that peckerhead had done to her.

  She said nothing. Not one word to anyone.

  She brushed off what in my eyes went beyond hazing. She hid it, covered for these pricks, and they continued to torture her.

  Why? Because she was a woman? Because she drove better or her father had money?

  All the things I’d thrown at her in the past.

  Did that make me the same as the man who was threatening her and who I knew right down in every last cell of my body was the one who messed with her car?

  I stood there rooted into place, listening to her strained voice pour out everything as that feeling of wanting to kill grew and grew until my body shook with need.

  I was mad at the guys in this division, mad at her father for not seeing, mad at her for not saying a word… and mad at me for being just one of the same when I first met her.

  The sounds of a scuffle and the small sound of her distress shattered even the most intense of my rage. I stepped around, my eyes going right to where he restrained her.

  He heard the threat in my voice. He saw it in my eyes.

  I smelled his fear. I reveled in it. I welcomed it.

  Then she looked at me. Blood on her lip. Blood smeared across her cheek; it looked like a hand print. A bloody fucking handprint.

  Josie’s eyes were puffy, red, and dull. The parts of her that weren’t bloody were splotchy, and there was a bruise blooming out over her cheekbone.

  And her throat… that explained her raspy voice. He’d choked her, squeezed her, robbed her of air. There were fingerprints on her neck from the way this man abused her.

  He abused her.

  Her hair was flat. Her body seemed small somehow. Maybe it was the way her shoulders seemed to slump as if she’d taken all she could bear.

  I’d never seen her like this before. Defenseless, turned inside out… broken.

  It reminded me of Arrow. Of the kind of people who tortured others just because they could.

  I didn’t care what she did to him before I walked into this room. It didn’t matter at all. He did this to her. I hated him.

  When I looked up after the guy she called Cannon was crumpled at my feet, her face was exhausted and closed off.

  I understood it; I could see the way she was suffering. But, no.

  Before I busted up their little argument, she was about to spill even more. And she was going to tell me. We weren’t leaving here until she did.

  “Tell me,” I demanded again, fighting the urge to yank her into my arms and vow to protect her forever and ever. I’d die if it would wipe the look off her face. I’d take a thousand beatings to never see someone’s fingerprints on her skin again. I’d do anything for Josie.

  Anything at all.

  But I had to know. I had to know exactly what I was dealing with.

  Her shoulders slumped even further. That’s how I knew just how defeated she felt in that moment. She didn’t argue with me, not even once. She opened her bleeding lips and poured it all out.

  “One night after a late session of night driving, I used one of the private showers at headquarters.” She glanced at me.

  It took everything in me to nod encouragingly and not yell for her to hurry up.

&nbs
p; “He picked the lock, came into the room, and stole my clothes.”

  Keep it together, Jace. Don’t lose your shit.

  “So when I was finished, I had to leave the bathroom in nothing but my towel. I had some extra clothes in my locker down in the garage, so I went down there to get them. He was in the garage waiting…” Her voice trailed off, and she cleared her throat. “I got the usual catcalls, sexist remarks, and harassment. I ignored him and just pulled my bag out of the locker. When I turned around, Cannon was there.” She pointed to the douche lying on the floor, moaning like a little bitch.

  I kicked him. He curled up in the fetal position, and it gave me a brief feeling of satisfaction.

  “He ripped the towel off my body and shoved me against the lockers. He, uh, rubbed against my body and fondled my…” She motioned at her chest. “I tried to fight him off, but one of the other guys was suddenly there, pinning me against the locker so he could feel all he wanted.”

  “Stop,” I demanded, harsh. I couldn’t hear this. “Did they rape you?”

  “No,” she was quick to say. “They didn’t. They just wanted to humiliate and degrade me. The whole time he was grabbing me, he was telling me to leave the pros. No one wanted me here. You know, the usual crap.”

  I took a deep breath. It didn’t help.

  “I fought him off. Bit the hand that was restraining me, and when he let go, I threw myself at Cannon. He fell back, and I punched him in the face. Broke his nose. Just like I broke it again tonight.”

  I heaved a sigh and swallowed, trying to get the vivid images out of my head. They were on replay. They might never go away.

  “After I hit him, I kicked the other guy in the balls. I left them there, got in my car, and drove off. I was still naked, but it was dark out, and I had the bag with my clothes in it. I just wanted away from them. Of course, I was speeding. I was upset…”

  “What happened, Josie?” I groaned, knowing there was more.

  “The brakes went out on my Skyline. Later, I saw the line cut clean through. There was a trail of brake fluid leading up to where I finally was able to stop.”

  Practically raped. Attempted murder. How could she just stand there and calmly tell me this? How was she still fucking standing at all after everything?

  Enraged wasn’t even an apt description of how I felt. Numb maybe. Hollow. Void. To the point of no return.

  That’s how I felt.

  I already knew I was capable of nearly killing… This time I might go past nearly… This time I might actually succeed.

  I forced out the words. “You were hurt?”

  She shook her head. “No, just scared. I can handle a car at high speed, so I did. I steered until I came to a steep hill on the other side of town, and I careened up it. The car ran out of speed, started to roll backward. I hit the emergency brake, did a one-eighty in the center of the road, and came to a stop.”

  “Who’d you call?” I asked, thinking of her naked in the dark in the middle of some road, with a busted car, after some punks sexually harassed her.

  “No one,” she replied. “I got dressed, called a tow, and took my car two hours away. I had it fixed, came home, and never said a word.”

  “Josie,” I moaned. “Why the hell—”

  “She’s lying!” Cannon spat from the floor and pushed up to his feet. He had a welt in the center of his forehead from where I shoved his face into the locker. His nose was definitely broken, but it still wasn’t enough.

  He swayed a little, but his eyes were clear and they still buzzed with anger. “She’s making it all up, trying to get out of what she did here today.”

  I decked him. Right in the side of the head. It felt good to punch him. He went down, and I leaned over, delivering two more swift blows to his face.

  “Get off me!” he wailed, blood spouting from his mouth.

  I yanked him to his feet, and he swung at me. I laughed, pushing his arm away, and buried my fist in his gut.

  He made a sound like he might puke, and I punched him again just because he was a pansy.

  “What’s the matter?” I roared. “Can’t take it when someone you push around pushes back?” I shoved him back, and he fell into the lockers.

  I swiped out with one booted foot and knocked his feet out from under him. He fell over with a slap onto the floor.

  “Jace!” Josie said, her voice tight.

  “You said nothing!” I spat. “You let this little fucker get away with everything he did to you.”

  I punched him again. He groaned.

  Josie grabbed me by the arm, and I swung around, chest heaving, and looked at her. I knew a madman stared back, but she didn’t back down. “Let go,” I intoned, flexing my fist.

  “This is what he wants,” she implored. “If you do this, I’m the one who’s going to lose.”

  Her lower lip wobbled.

  It was my undoing.

  With one final yell, I punched the locker above Cannon, then turned away, unclenching my hands.

  “Josie,” I whispered.

  Her face crumbled. Finally, I swept her up tight against me. I flattened my palm against the back of her head, holding her hard, while my other arm held her strong. She trembled against me, her shoulders shaking.

  After a minute, I pulled her back but still held on. I stared at her injuries, the fingerprints, the blood. “Oh, honey. What did he do to you?”

  “I’m okay, Jace. C’mon. Let’s go.”

  I made a sound, dropping my hands. Before she could step away, I lifted the hem of my shirt and yanked it up so I could wipe of some of the blood smeared on her face. It only seemed to make the stain worse.

  The idiot on the floor laughed. Maybe he was delirious. No one could be that fucking stupid.

  “Hit me again,” he spat, blood spurting from between his lips. “When I stumble out of here, everyone will feel sorry for me. I bet the media is still swarming outside.”

  He was right about that. The word of Josie being disqualified spread like wildfire. There was even more press than before.

  “You’re not getting away with shit,” I growled and picked him up by the back of his neck. I moved swiftly, practically dragging him along with me because his feet kept slipping against the floor.

  I banged out of the locker room door and stepped into a crowd. People gasped and started talking. I ignored them and dragged his bleeding ass forward.

  A camera crew rushed over. A man with a mic glued to his mouth was practically frothing at the mouth. I stopped and pulled the asshole upright, making sure everyone got a good look at his battered face.

  “Dean Cannon?” the reporter gasped. “What’s happened?” The man turned to the camera. “I’m live with Channel Twelve, and what I have here at the scene at the raceway in Charlotte today is not only a disqualification, but heartthrob driver Dean Cannon appears to have been beaten.”

  “I have something to say.” I interrupted.

  Everyone turned to me, including the man with the mic.

  “Dean Cannon is a fraud and a liar. He’s the one who had Joey G.’s car tampered with. He wanted to get her disqualified.”

  “Why would he want to do that?” the anchor asked, clearly disbelieving.

  “Because he can’t stand that a woman drives better. And because it was just one more way to harass her, which he’s been doing for years.”

  I heard Josie gasp from behind, but I made no move to shift so she would be in sight.

  “I heard him admit it right after he punched her in the face.” I finished. “He also choked her.”

  A ripple of noise moved through the crowd. Drew and Trent shoved through, appearing nearby, and my brother materialized with them. I knew just by the look on his face what he was thinking. What he was reminded of. I felt bad for it, for everything. But this was something I had to do. She needed this.

  I stepped aside and reached a gentle hand out to Josie, pulling her forward in front of the cameras.

  “Look at her face,�
�� I said tight. Sickness welled inside me. “See the bruise on her face? The blood? The swollen lip. How about the fingerprints on her neck? Dean Cannon followed her into that locker room to taunt and beat her. And it’s not the first time.”

  Dean started struggling. “All lies! He did this to me. I’m suing for assault.”

  I punched him again. Everyone around gasped and moved closer. Cannon fell unconscious, and I dropped him on the ground in front of everyone.

  Silence abounded for long moments.

  “Joey G.!” the reporter yelled. “Do you have a comment? Did Dean Cannon really hit you?”

  I looked over. Josie was at my side, looking strong and beautiful even with blood on her lip.

  “I didn’t punch myself in the face,” she said. “And yes, I’d like to go on record and make it clear to everyone that I did not modify my car during a pit stop. One of my crew was paid by Cannon to modify the car without my knowledge. I have been continually hazed and harassed by my fellow pro drivers and today, it seems, everything has come to a head. This is why I wanted to cross over. I was trying to get away from the abuse but still stay in the sport I love.”

  Everyone converged on us like a swarm of ants on a cube of sugar. Josie, shrank into my side. I swept her into my chest, looking at Trent and Drew.

  They both wore grim looks and nodded. With one arm tightly wrapped around Josie, I guided her through the path Drew, Trent, and Arrow were clearing with their bodies until we made it out of the group.

  Chaos was everywhere, and I felt the weakness in her body. She was so incredibly drained from everything she could barely support herself.

  I didn’t have my car. We’d flown here. I glanced around at Trent. A set of keys flew at my head. I snatched them out of the air.

  “Take the rental. We’ll ride back with Hopper,” he told me.

  Hopper turned up the second his name was said. “Joey, what the hell is going on?” He worried and stepped up to her.

  I shoved him back, and I wasn’t gentle about it. “You had years to notice,” I spat. “Years to see what they were doing to her. You’re telling me you never noticed? Or did you just not care?”

  Hopper paled.

  “Jace, he didn’t know.” Josie spoke up. Her voice was deep but strong despite how I knew she felt deep down.