Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Dad called just as Dom’s train was pulling into the station, saying that they were taking Roxy home, so he didn’t have to meet them at the hospital.
The tiny fraction of relief that gave Dom didn’t do much to quiet the rest of the storm.
He’d been running on red alert ever since the first call about Roxy.
Lincoln had helped a little, but until he’d seen Trey’s name light up on his phone, Dom hadn’t realized that Trey’s voice was what he’d needed.
He had no idea how to thank Trey for their hour-long conversation. It had kept Dom from freaking out too badly, or from inventing too many scenarios in which he inflicted bodily harm on his sister’s attacker. Roxy might be physically okay, but mentally she had a challenge ahead of her.
Dom would help her in any way that he could. He owed her that much, at least, since she’d saved his life six years ago.
It seemed like a taxi took forever to show up, and then the ride home was endless.
Dom couldn’t stop tapping his fingers against his leg, plucking music on strings that didn’t exist. The taxi finally pulled up in front of the Bounds house.
Dom paid the driver and probably overtipped.
He didn’t have any luggage, because he kept clean clothes and things at his parents’ house, so he charged up the stone path to the front porch.
Dad met him at the door, and Dom went in for a tight, full-bodied hug. He clung to his dad, who had always been his hero. His rock in the worst of times.
“She’s doing okay,” he said when they parted. “She’s actually whining about how much your mom is smothering her.”
Dom choked out a short bark of laughter. “Sounds like them. But Roxy’s really okay?”
“Our girl’s a fighter. Percell taught her well.”
Percell had always had a thing for fitness and self-defense, and he’d taught all of his sisters how to defend themselves. He’d even shown Dom a few maneuvers after he came out—just in case the bigots got it in their heads to try anything physical.
“Do they know?” Dom asked. “Percell and Taisha?”
“Called them both. Taisha will be here tomorrow. She’s taking a sick day. Percell promised to call Roxy in the morning.”
“Okay.” He hadn’t seen Taisha in a few months. It would be nice having her home for a while—even though the circumstances sucked. “How’s Starr taking all of this?”
“She had a minor episode at the hospital. Mostly she didn’t like that so many strangers were touching Roxy, but your mom made her understand. She installed her chair in Roxy’s room, and she declared she’s sitting until bedtime.”
Starr had a blue rocking chair that was her safe place—a spot she could sit in, rock, and allow her emotions to flow. Dominic didn’t understand the psychology behind it, but it helped center Starr.
“Want anything to drink?” Dad asked. “Traveling makes me thirsty.”
“I want to see Roxy.”
Dad waved his hand in the direction of the staircase, and Dom flew up them, two at a time.
Roxy’s room was at the end of the hall, the door wide open.
He could see Mom sitting on the edge of the bed, facing into the room.
The steady creak of Starr’s rocker met his ears before he stepped inside and spotted her in the far left corner.
“What are you doing here?” Roxy gaped at him from her bed, propped up on pillows and tucked beneath the covers. Shadows stood out beneath her eyes, and the faintest ringlet of a bruise darkened her left wrist.
The sight of that bruise unleashed something furious deep in his chest. Hearing she was hurt was one thing. Seeing the physical evidence made him want blood.
“I came to see you, dork.” Dom circled the bed and sat on her other side. “Give me a hug?”
Her eyes watered, probably because he knew enough to ask permission first. She flung herself into his arms, holding tight around his middle.
Dom circled her thin shoulders and squeezed, so thankful she hadn’t been hurt worse, but still hating that she’d been hurt at all.
She didn’t cry, though, and that helped to keep Dom from falling apart.
He met his mom’s gaze over Roxy’s trembling shoulders. Her eyes were red and puffy but they also burned with love and determination.
“Dom shouldn’t be here,” Starr said. Her steady rocking never faltered. “He has a music gig. Four days long. He shouldn’t be here.”
“I took a special break to come see you guys,” Dom said. She didn’t look at him, but Starr rarely ever made eye contact. “I already got to play for the audience, so it’s okay for me to leave for a little while.”
“You didn’t tell me it was okay to leave.”
“I’m sorry, sis. I forgot. Forgive me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Forgetting to explain something fully to Starr could end as simply as it just had, as long as a quick apology was offered, or in a more dramatic fashion if the forgetter tried to make it no big deal. Starr dealt in absolutes, not maybes.
Roxy kept clinging to him, and Dom caught his mom’s gaze. Rolled his eyes at Starr, then glanced down at Roxy.
Mom got it. “Starr, baby, let’s you and me go downstairs and have ice cream with Dad. Special treat.”
Starr stopped rocking. “What about Roxy and Dom?”
“We’re okay here for a while,” Dom said. “I promise. You go enjoy that ice cream.”
Her head tilted in his general direction. She smiled. “Okay. Only strawberry. The chocolate can’t touch it.”
“Only strawberry,” Mom said.
Once the pair left, Mom unsubtly closing the door three-quarters of the way, Roxy pulled back.
Anger and pain chased each other around in her dark eyes.
She scooted so he could sit next to her, back against the headboard, one arm across her shoulders.
She leaned into him and threw an arm around his waist.
After a few minutes of silence, he asked, “Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“I keep debating on giving you his name so you can go beat him up for me.”
Dom smiled. “I’m not opposed to that.”
“Except he’d probably press charges, or something, and I don’t want you to get into trouble for me. You’ve been through enough.”
A cold tremor tripped down his spine. “You’re my sister. Anyone messes with you, they mess with me. Tell me who to punch, sis.”
“Can I tell you about it, instead?”
The quiet, whispered way she asked that made Dom’s shoulders tighten. “Mom and Dad don’t know?”
“They know the overview. I didn’t let them stay when I talked to the police officers. I’m eighteen, I didn’t have to.”
“Tell me, Rox.”
She exhaled long and hard, leaning into him a little harder.
Dom stared at the Taylor Swift posters on the far wall, while Roxy kept her head down, angled toward the bedspread.
“Dahlia invited me over to this guy’s house to hang with her and Lynn.
” Roxy’s two best girlfriends. “He had two friends of his there, and I guess it was kind of like a triple date because Lynn was interested in one of the guys, only it wasn’t.
Not really. But we all kind of paired off anyway, and I went into the den with Ja—um, my guy.
“We talked, and he was cute, so we ended up making out. It was fun for a while, and he was a good kisser. Then he pushed me down onto my back, and I said I didn’t want to have sex, and I thought he heard me because he just kissed me for a while like that.
Felt so good I even let him touch my boobs over my shirt. ”
Dom winced at the idea of some guy touching his sister’s breasts, permission from her or not. He didn’t need that mental image, and part of him didn’t want all of the gory details she hadn’t wanted their parents to know—but Roxy needed to tell someone, and she knew Dom would understand.
She made a sound that was both a cough and a sob.
He tucked her head under his chin and held tight.
“When he started unbuttoning my shorts, I struggled. I hit him on the back and said I didn’t want to, but he said I’d love it and kept at it, and he touched me Dom. I told him no and he still did it.”
Fury blazed through Dom’s chest, flaming in his face and stinging both of his eyes. His stomach rolled. He swallowed hard against the sudden nausea.
“He wouldn’t stop, so I pressed my thumbs into his eyes like Percell showed me.
Asshole grabbed my wrists and squeezed really hard, so I head-butted him.
Hurt like a motherfucker, but it got him off me.
I tried to get past him, but he grabbed my ankle and tripped me.
He was cussing at me, calling me a tease and a whore and all kinds of nasty things, and he was pulling at my clothes again when I yelled ‘Fire!’ at the top of my lungs. ”
It sucked donkey’s balls that girls couldn’t yell “Rape” and get someone’s attention.
No one cared about that, but anyone would rubberneck for a fire or a car accident, and Dom hated that Roxy had gone through it.
No, he more than hated it. He wanted to find the nameless asshole and break his spine.
“Dahlia found us first. I was still struggling. She wrapped her arms around his neck and yanked him off me.”
Dom tried to imagine five-foot-one, ninety-pound Dahlia taking on a guy who was probably twice her weight. He could see it. Roxy’s friends were the same kind of spirited firecracker that she was.
“His friends came into the den in time to see him knock Dahlia down and then backhand me. They actually kept him down until the police showed up.”
“Is Dahlia okay?” Dom asked, speaking for the first time since her story began. Not interrupting during a painful topic made it easier for the victim to get it out.
“Mostly scared, but she’s fine. She stayed with me until Mom and Dad showed up.”
“How about you?”
She shrugged. “Mostly I’m sore and tired. But I’m so sick and tired of guys like that getting away with hurting girls, doing whatever the hell they want with no consequences. It’s why I reported it to the police, even though I knew he’d deny it and try to rake me through the mud.”