I’d been so scared for so long, waking up at every little noise, every strange car, every skipped breath in the dead of night. If I wasn’t the only one listening for danger, maybe I could get some actual rest.
“I’ll be down in three minutes,” I said quietly.
“Good. I’m waiting out front.”
Five minutes later I was on my way to spend the night at the infamous Seymore house.
I shot furtive glances at him a few times, working up the nerve to ask the questions which were spinning around in my head. He caught my eye once, and smiled—it looked grim.
“You want to know what happened back there?” he asked.
I made a noise that was only vaguely affirmative.
He shook his head. “Didn’t see who did it. There was a little green Geo Metro sitting outside your house. I went up over the back fence and the two people who were back there bolted. The lights were out so I couldn’t see what they were trying to do, but the back door is still whole.”
My heart pounded so hard I thought I was going to start hyperventilating again. Someone was in my yard.
“You didn’t see who it was?”
He shook his head again. “They had flashlights, but they kept them pointed away from themselves. They were pretty fast, though. Went out the gate and were in the car before I could get across your yard.”
Even worse. Rudy was the fastest person I knew, the only person in school faster than me. Well—the only one I knew of, anyway. I suppose it was possible that someone was faster than him who just never tried out for the track team.
I hugged myself tight and shivered. We were only a block away from Rudy’s house now and I couldn’t wait to get inside some nice, solid walls.
“Is your dad going to be upset with you for bringing a girl home?” I asked.
He grinned. “Jason’s the original white knight, chica. Even if he did mind, all you’d have to do is tell him you’re scared to sleep at home alone and he’d make up a bed for you. Rescuing people is what he does.”
“Rescuing kids,” I pointed out. “Not legal adults.”
Rudy snorted. “Jason doesn’t think anyone’s an adult until they’ve died at least once and buried a few friends. Don’t worry about it. He’ll take care of you.”
Maybe he would. I’d like to think so.
In spite of the rumors, Jason Seymore had a solid track record of fostering troubled kids and making them better. Hell, he adopted seven of them.
But even if Jason was the white knight, that didn’t mean that the other people living in the Seymore house would accept me with open arms.
“What about your brothers?” I asked.
He shrugged. “They’re mostly in bed already. Chris might still be down in the basement with his reptiles, but he won’t be up for long. They might be confused in the morning, but they know the deal. Newcomers to Jason’s house are protected for as long as they need to be—even if they happen to be women.”
“Family creed?” I asked teasingly.
“You’re damn right it is.”
The conviction in his voice melted some of the stress from my body. Maybe it would all turn out okay after all.
Chapter Thirteen
RUDY
I’d been right about my brothers. They were all in their rooms when I got Kennedy back to the house, even Chris. Jason was still up, but I figured it was only because I’d left without telling anybody why. He looked exhausted.
The two new kids he’d brought home last week were double handfuls of trouble, smart and angry and hurt and bored all at once. They’d been putting him through the wringer.
The guys and I helped as much as we could, like we always did, but some kids just take longer than others—and some kids are particularly suspicious of teenagers. The foster system is a jungle and it houses all kinds of different beasts.
I’d gotten Kennedy to sleep on the couch in the downstairs game room. It was the safest room in the house—one door which only led to the stairs which led to the kitchen, and only two narrow windows up at the top of the wall, just above ground level. She’d barely made it through introductions to Jason before she passed out.
Once she was snoring steadily, I went back upstairs. Jason was leaning against the kitchen island, drinking a cup of tea and frowning pensively at nothing in particular.
The grey streaks in his beard seemed more pronounced than usual, and his red hair stuck up in a bunch of different directions, the way it did when he was worrying about something.
He nodded at the door to the game room.
“What’s the story?” he asked.
I hesitated.
I didn’t want to go around telling all her secrets—but she was staying under Jason’s roof. I figured that gave him the right to know at least some of it.
I rubbed a hand over my face and watched him out of the corner of my eye. He was eternally patient as always, just analyzing my expressions as he sipped his tea.
A dozen different openings rippled through my mind and I rejected every one of them.
Finally, I sat down at one of the bar stools around the island, leaned my elbows on the cool marble, and held my head in my hands.
I focused on one irregular spot on the stone surface. It was easier than looking at Jason’s face while I spoke.
“I got her into some trouble,” I told him.
He went perfectly still for a few beats, then sipped his tea.
“Pregnant?” he asked.
I sat up straight, startled and staring. “What? No! God no. We’ve been carefu—I, I mean, that’s not what I meant.”
A tiny smile played around the corners of his mouth, but otherwise his patient expression didn’t change.
“What kind of trouble?”
I sighed. “There’s a group of rich kids at school who have a problem with me for whatever reason. Kennedy was friends with them for a couple years. Then she and I started, you know—”
“Hanging out,” Jason supplied helpfully.
“Yeah,” I said, relieved. “That. And, well, I guess they found out and decided to take it out on her in a big way.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “How big?”
I didn’t want to say “kidnapping” because then Jason would be jumping for the phone to call the cops, who already proved they weren’t interested in being particularly helpful. I groped around for gentler words for several seconds.
“Uh—like hazing. Terror pranks. When she called tonight, someone was in her backyard making a bunch of noise in the dark just to screw with her. She’s tried to get help, but people aren’t taking it seriously, like she’s overreacting or something.”
“Hm,” Jason said.
I waited for him to follow that up with something, but he didn’t.
“So I brought her here. I don’t think they’d actually break into her house or whatever, but—heck, Jason, you saw her face. She needs sleep.”
He nodded slowly. “You’re a dragon slayer, not a covert hero. What’s your plan to deal with this?”
His tone softened if anything, but I could hear the warning in it.
Jason was the only reason I wasn’t serving twenty years in Arizona right now for beating the shit out of a man who was hurting his daughter, who happened to be my friend. The man was in traction for a month. I still wish I’d killed him.
But Jason was well-known with judges all over the southwest. He swore he could help me. The judge told him she’d let him try—as long as he adopted me flat-out and took me out of Arizona for good. It was the fastest decision of my life. I still couldn’t believe he’d gone that far out on a limb for me.
But the point was, he knew how I reacted to situations like these. He knew I’d do something exactly like what I’d done to Thomas.
Honestly the fact that the cops hadn’t shown up looking for me yet was some kind of miracle—or maybe I really had put the fear of God into Thomas and he was keeping his mouth shut because I told him to.
I still wa
nted to go back and finish the job. I’d add whoever was crashing around in Kennedy’s garden to the list, too. Take them down one by one and finish them off until nobody dared screw with her ever again. Wash her fears away in their blood.
“Rudy,” Jason said. It wasn’t a snap. It wasn’t even rough, or any louder than any of his other words had been. But there was a power to his voice that caught my attention, yanking me out of my bloody fantasies. He met my gaze blandly. “The plan?”
I shook my head. “I don’t have one.”
He kept looking at me steadily. I hated it when he did that. It wasn’t like he was pressuring me to tell him something—if he was doing that, I could throw my own pressure back at him and never flinch. But the way he just sort of held the door open for whatever words I wanted to put out there was almost irresistible. It was like he was casting a spell or something or inviting me to come in out of the rain.
I scowled at him and instantly felt childish and petulant. I reversed my scowl and sighed.
“Okay. Okay. I had a plan, all right? But I know better now. I do. Can’t go around delivering vigilante justice no matter how much the bastard deserves it. I know that.”
Jason sipped his tea and watched me with a contemplative expression. I couldn’t tell whether or not he believed me. Hell, I didn’t know whether or not I believed myself.
I could make a big show out of playing it cool when my brothers were involved, but if I found myself alone in a room with Thomas and Julianne ever again—well. I’d already crossed the line once, what was one more time? The end of my freedom, that’s what. And maybe my life.
My body was too tense to keep still. I walked—stalked—back and forth across the kitchen, thinking. They deserved the worst I had to offer, but it wouldn’t matter. They looked sympathetic. They were well-off kids with family connections and their entire futures in front of them. Going head to head with them would only make the rest of the town like them more and me less.
I couldn’t afford that. I was already one of Starline’s most suspicious characters. Then again, what did I have to lose? I stopped cold.
I’d said that before and hadn’t let myself answer it. I’d been too angry. I was used to being the guy with nothing to lose, I was comfortable in that role. But I hadn’t really thought through the answer, not lately. My life—whatever. Didn’t bother me. I’d made peace with my own mortality a long time ago. Watching young people die around you has a way of slapping you in the face with existential terror.
I glanced over at Jason. I would lose his respect.
I thought about Kennedy downstairs. I had this idea in my head that if I could eliminate her tormenters and give them a taste of their own medicine that Kennedy would love me for it. But what if she didn’t? What if, in spite of all her objections, she really was a better person than I was?
I could lose her affection.
My brothers—Bradley, the pacifist. I mean, he’d throw down if he needed to, but he didn’t like it. Julianne taught him a long time ago that she couldn’t be talked to or reasoned with, so he ignored her whenever he could.
Chris—fuck. If I went down for taking revenge on Kennedy’s kidnappers, Chris would lose his shit. He had so much violent rage locked up inside of him that he’d worked so hard to control. He could be the next school shooter if he was shoved hard enough in the wrong direction.
Gary—it was hard to tell with Gary. He was in a weird sort of transitional stage—he hadn’t yet decided who to look up to, though he’d decided that the Nazi heroes his dad had thrust on him weren’t the kinds of people he wanted to emulate. But he hadn’t decided who he did want to be like.
If I did something violent and the consequences fucked me up, which way would he go? Would it be enough to solidify him on any particular path?
I shook my head hard enough to feel something rattle. A small, dark voice in the back of my head told me I was giving myself too much credit. None of them cared enough about me to let my actions affect the course of their lives. They were going to do whatever they were going to do regardless of anything I did. It wasn’t like any of them expected much from me anyway.
“Well what am I supposed to do?” I exploded, throwing my hands in the air. “Just let the assholes get away with torturing her forever?”
Jason took his cup to the sink and rinsed it out.
“Stopping bad behavior has nothing to do with overpowering the other party,” he said with his back to me. “A toddler will kick and slap and bite—but if you retaliate in the same manner, you become the criminal. You’re bigger, stronger, ostensibly more developed—in other words, you know better and the damage you could potentially cause is far greater than any the toddler would be capable of.”
“These aren’t toddlers,” I said, my fists clenching and unclenching by my sides. “They’re grown. Dangerous. Bigger than Kennedy.”
He nodded slowly and began drying the cup. “But they haven’t yet done anything criminal. If you retaliate to a criminal degree, you are automatically in the wrong.”
I hissed through my teeth. Telling him about the kidnapping was on the tip of my damn tongue. But…fuck… it wasn’t my story to tell.
“Well what then?” I said instead.
Jason set the cup in the rack and turned around, giving me a small, soft smile.
“The showing is always worth more than the telling,” he said quietly. “Let them show the world who they are, and you won’t have to do anything at all.”
He clapped me on the shoulder and squeezed once. “Trust me,” he said. “The world might be run by bullies—but it’s the subtle players who win in the end.”
Chapter Fourteen
KENNEDY
The ride to school the next morning was tense and quiet.
I sat in the back beside Gary—he and Chris were the only ones small enough to fit back there. I don’t think they appreciated my invasion into their space much, but it wasn’t like I had a whole lot of options. My car was still at school.
But that wasn’t why I was tense, even though Chris kept shooting me narrow glances. I was about to roll up to the school, after being gone for most of the week, in a car full of Seymores. People would stare. Then they would talk.
If Julianne didn’t see it firsthand, she’d sure hear about it. She’d have an entire passive-aggressive interrogation ready for me before second period.
I intended to avoid her and ignore her. If I could just get through one day without my world ending, maybe I’d be okay. Maybe.
My head was a jumble. I wanted to confront her, but thinking past the words I would use if I were witty and quick on my feet and visualizing the circumstances in which I would have to be saying them filled my gut with ice. I wanted to go back home and crawl into bed for the rest of my life, but that would mean she won.
What I didn’t want to do was spend the whole day batting acidic little zingers back at her while she killed me by inches.
I shouldn’t have been worried about making a scene. Gary had taken a little while to get ready that morning, apparently thrown by my unexpected presence, and we pulled into the parking lot just as the first bell rang.
Anyone left outside was focused on hurrying inside before the second bell, and I didn’t get more than a vaguely curious glance.
Bradley and Rudy flanked me on the way to homeroom, a few steps behind, like bodyguards. I felt a little silly about it—but I also felt relieved.
They had my back. Nobody would do anything to me with the two towers hovering over my shoulders. At least that was what I hoped.
I didn’t even look at Julianne when I stepped into the room. My usual seat beside Joan held her backpack, like she’d been holding it for me. I didn’t bother going over there.
Instead, I made for the back corner of the room, where there were a few extra seats, right behind the desks where Rudy and Bradley usually sat.
It was a declaration. I didn’t know if it was a declaration of independence or war, but I knew Julianne
would see it as one or the other.
I heard her scoff a little as I took my seat, then the row where she and Macy and Joan sat exploded in little whispers and snorts of quiet laughter.
Fuck ‘em.
Bradley and Rudy were tall. Very tall. When they took their seats in front of me it was like they’d erected a wall in front of me, blocking me off from the rest of the room.
They didn’t turn around to look at me, though. Protection without calling me out in front of our entire class. Subtle. I smiled to myself and tuned in to the teacher.
I managed to avoid Julianne and stay within reach of Bradley or Rudy until lunch. She didn’t call after me in the halls or chase me down or anything—she would never let herself look that weak, like she was begging for attention or friendship.
Julianne didn’t beg. She connived. She commanded. But she never, ever begged.
But lunch was a problem. Sure, I’d slept on their couch last night—but there hadn’t exactly been a vote, and my being there had clearly upset the younger Seymore boys.
Sitting at their table felt like a massive invasion. I couldn’t sit at my old table, either—not unless I wanted to confront Julianne outright.
So I sat at the table by the trash can instead, the one with the wobble and etched graffiti, which everyone avoided. It wasn’t pleasant, but I would rather deal with the smell and the foot traffic than inevitable social sparring in the middle of the damn lunchroom.
Apparently it was one act of open defiance too many. I hadn’t been sitting for five minutes before the sharp click of Julianne’s designer heels cut through the shuffling rumble of lunchroom noises.
I didn’t look up as she approached, but my stomach clenched and it took everything I had to keep the trembles out of my fingers.
She snapped her fingers like she was trying to get a dog’s attention.
“Excuse me, little miss disappears for a week without talking to anybody,” she said with a solid wedge of irony forced into her voice.
Something Wicked: An Enemies to Lovers Bully Romance (The Seymore Brothers Book 2) Page 7
