Chapter 46 Dex - Past
forty-six
Dex - Past
THE DEVIL’S HOME.
Jonah stirred but didn’t wake as my phone vibrated on the nightstand.
I pulled away from him gently, already missing the heat and warmth of his body as I grabbed the device and shuffled out of bed.
I’d meant what I told him—he was all that mattered.
As soon as I knew the Strays would be okay without me, I was out.
Raven was my choice to replace Archer, but I knew not everyone would feel the same, and I had concerns about what the others would think when I tried to leave. My biggest concern being Reaper. I was one thing—he had little ground to stand on by challenging me—but Raven was another.
Closing the door quietly behind me, I glanced at the screen before answering.
“Snake,” I answered, murmuring as I made my way downstairs.
“I got what you wanted,” Harper responded, as blunt and cold as usual, his emotions shielded again, unlike the last call I’d received from him. He hadn’t made it to the group meeting, neither had Bull.
“Good. I’ll come get it later today.”
“Fine. We’re even now.”
I laughed. “Not even close.”
“This is an expensive piece of tech, Coyote. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to—”
“You still owe me,” I interrupted. Expensive tech for someone like me probably, but it was nothing to a billionaire. I liked Harper, but I wasn’t letting him get out of debt to me that easily. He was a powerful person to have a favor owed from, and I intended to use it wisely.
There was silence for a long moment before he conceded with a sigh. “I can pay you.”
“This isn’t blackmail, Snake. I helped you, and someday you’ll help me. I don’t want your money.”
“I don’t like owing people.”
“Well, you should have thought of that before you asked me for help.”
Silence, and then another long sigh. “Whatever. Don’t take too long, I am very busy, you know.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“Hmm.”
The line went dead as he hung up on me. I rolled my eyes, returning to the bedroom to put on pants before heading to the kitchen to make Jonah breakfast.
Soon I’d be out. I’d take my Rabbit, and we’d get the fuck out of this place. We’d go somewhere no one knew us and exist only for each other.
The thought put an extra bounce in my step as I busied myself around the kitchen, feeling none of the unease that usually came with being in this room.
Jonah had filled it and all the others with a new sense of home.
Since the first night he’d stayed here with me, he hadn’t left.
There hadn’t been a night we’d slept apart, and I wanted to make sure there never would be.
Bang bang bang bang
The echo of fists on the front door had my good mood evaporating, as I looked to the ceiling and prayed to a god that had never heard me before for patience.
I’d expected that now most of the Strays knew where I lived they might drop in unannounced, especially with the agreement that we’d be staying away from the Strays’ house.
I just didn’t expect it would happen so quickly.
I left the bacon cooking as I made my way to the door, expecting Matteo again, or Raven.
So when I unlocked it and pulled it open, I was entirely unprepared for the way my heart plummeted like an anvil to my gut—lower, like the weight of it could send me crashing through the floor and down into hell itself.
I wished it had. I wished for anything else other than to have opened the door to the person standing in front of me.
“You just gonna stand there and look at me like you’re stupid? Move!”
A pointed fingernail stabbed at my shoulder, but I didn’t budge even though it stung. Because hell was real, and it was here, but I wasn’t its devil, my mother was. And the devil was home.
“Move, Dexter. This bag is fucking heavy.”
Jonah. All I could think about was Jonah. I stood my ground despite the years of instinct that told me to back down, to keep her happy or suffer the consequences. My bones seemed to shrink in her presence, her shadow distorting and looming until she felt so much bigger than I was, so much stronger.
“Move out of my way!”
“No,” I told her, my voice barely above a whisper. All other words evaded me.
I couldn’t protect myself from her—not now and not ever—but I could protect my rabbit. I could keep her out for his sake. I wouldn’t let her get to him.
As if my thoughts summoned him, I heard the creak of my bedroom door. Eyes as pale and pointed as blades flickered from me to beyond me, to the house that Jonah had transformed from a cage to a home again. “Go away,” I told her.
Her gaze cut into me again, the monster beneath her skin twisted in fury. She looked older, more withered than the last time I’d seen her, but that beast still lurked there, just as bloodthirsty. I’d be its willing target if it protected my rabbit.
“This is my fucking house!” she roared, each word doubling in volume.
A heavy bag thudded to the floor, and then she attacked, sinking her claws into my arms as she tried to pull me aside, but I still didn’t budge—still didn’t let her past me—so she went for my face.
She always liked going for my face. It was how I’d lost the eyebrow piercing Jonah had asked about.
Ripped from my skin for reasons I couldn’t even remember.
I grabbed for her wrists to stop her, but lingering fear made me slower than I needed to be, her nails sinking into skin as she swiped, a sharp sting from my eyebrow to my cheek. Still, I wouldn’t move out of her way.
“Dex?” Jonah’s heavy footfalls pounded down the stairs behind me.
“Go back upstairs, Rabbit,” I told him without turning to face him.
“Let go of me!” my mother shrieked, as if she hadn’t been the one to attack first. No, she was the victim. Always the victim.
Holding on to her meant I couldn’t hold the door closed, and she kicked at it, the force slamming it open only for it to ricochet off the wall with a bang and slam back into my side. I grunted, but I didn’t let it sway me. Not with Jonah at my back.
“Go back upstairs, Jonah!” I raised my voice, but he didn’t listen, of course he didn’t.
His toned body slipped between me and the door frame, and then she was ripped away from me, her wrists leaving my hold as Jonah threw her backward, off the porch and into a pile of junk she kept on the front lawn.
Jonah stood tall between us. My rabbit protecting me when I should have been protecting him. “Who the fuck is this bitch?” he snarled.
“My mom,” I admitted, and he turned to face me, honey eyes wide with shock before he saw what she’d done, the red of my blood as it dripped from the fresh cut on my face igniting something red in him. Something big and destructive. Fire ten times larger than any I’d seen burn inside him before.
“Jonah!” I grabbed at his arm as he tried to march forward, tried to follow the woman he’d thrown off the porch before he’d even fully grasped the situation. I didn’t know what he’d do to her, and I didn’t care about her, but I wouldn’t let him taint his perfect hands on my behalf.
Then she started screaming. “How fucking dare you! You fucking bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are throwing me out of my own fucking home? I’ll call the fucking cops!”
Jonah tensed in my hold, and I used his pause to pull him to my side, desperate to get him behind me. He wouldn’t let me, fighting to do the same thing to me, both of us trying to put ourselves between her and each other.
“Get out!” she screeched. “I’ll call the cops for real. I’ll tell them you’re assaulting me in my own fucking home! I’ll tell them what you did to Pierce, Dexter.”
Ice in my veins, and I was suddenly sixteen again, staring at a mangled corpse in the kitchen. “Y-you did that.”
“You think they’ll believe you over me? You’re the one who knows where he is, not me.
You’re the one mixed up in all sorts of shit.
” She waved her hands, gesturing vaguely at everything, because she didn’t know the first thing about me or what I was mixed up in.
But if she called the police, it wouldn’t take them long to find out.
If she told them I was the one to kill Pierce, especially with the recent murders already connected to the gang, they wouldn’t believe me over her.
I’d be charged over the murder of my abuser without any of the satisfaction that would have come with actually committing the crime.
“You disgusting fucking maggot of a fucking—” Jonah tried to go for her again but I pulled him back, because I didn’t doubt she’d follow through with her threats.
“Let’s just go, Rabbit.”
He halted, turning to look at me. “What do you mean? Go where?”
“Somewhere. Anywhere. Away from here.”
“This is your home.”
“No, you’re my home. Let’s go.” I turned to my mother, to the person who should have been a safe space for me but never had been. “We’ll go.”
“Damn right you’ll fucking go,” she sneered, happy in her victory. “’Cause you’re a fucking coward, aren’t you? Just like your dad was a fucking coward.”
Her words cut deeper than her nails ever had, than anything else she’d ever thrown at me, and Jonah fought to get free from my grasp to go for her again.
“Just… I’ll get my stuff.”
“You’ve got five fucking minutes before I’m calling the cops.” She held her phone up in her hand, waving it at us to emphasize her point.
I pulled Jonah along with me back into the house, because I wasn’t ever leaving him alone with her.
He fought me each step of the way. I had to put my hands on his shoulders, physically turn him around, and march him forward in front of me.
She followed right behind us, not letting the front door close with her outside again.
“Dex—” Jonah tried to talk to me once I’d pushed him into the bedroom, but I cut him off.
“Not now, baby, please,” I pleaded with him. “Let’s just get our stuff and go. Nothing else matters if we have each other. Please.”
His brow furrowed as if he were in pain, but he nodded, grabbing his things and shoving them in a bag beside mine.
We had what we needed and then we were making our way down the stairs, my mind already racing about what this meant, about where we would go.
She was still standing by the door. Apparently we were taking too long, and it had just riled her up more. Because throwing me out wasn’t enough anymore, she had found her weapon in threatening to get the police involved, but why not twist the knife further?
“Should have kicked you out years ago.” Verbal vitriol. “You’re what made him do it, you know. He killed himself cause he didn’t want to put up with you anymore.”
I only just managed to catch Jonah as he launched himself at her again, my vision blurring with tears that I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing.
“You or your bitch girlfriend ever come back here and there’ll be more fucking bodies to hide. You hear me, Dexter? Don’t you ever fucking come back.”
I expected the threat to spur Jonah on further, instead he stilled.
With my arm around his waist, I couldn’t see the expression he was giving her, but I saw something in her eyes I hadn’t seen in a long fucking time.
Fear. Just for a moment, then she was holding up her phone again.
“Get out. I’m calling the fucking cops. Out fucking now! ”
Jonah’s hand grabbed my wrist, and he pulled it off him, standing tall and giving her another long glare before he turned and walked out the door ahead of me.