50. Lola
LOLA
Daylight is cruel. It pours through the front window, flooding the living room with so much brightness that it feels wrong, almost hostile, like the sun itself wants to expose every bruise inside me and in this house.
Sophie is curled up at one end of my couch, knees tucked to her chest, arms wrapped tight. Her eyes are swollen and red.
She stares at the TV, even though the sound is off and the screen is nothing but a muted parade of Richard’s mugshot, police tape, and scrolling headlines, over and over again.
I don’t know what to do with my hands. I keep smoothing the blanket over Sophie’s legs, tucking it tighter, until she finally flinches and says, “Please stop.” Her voice is shredded, barely there.
I nod and back away, heart twisting in my chest.
I want to cry and I want to scream, but mostly I just want to disappear. All I can hear are echoes. Richard’s voice, Marcus’s laughter, Sophie’s sobs, Brody’s heavy footsteps pacing just out of sight in the hallway.
None of us know what to say. None of us know how to be people in this new, shattered world.
Sophie draws in a breath so shaky it makes my own lungs ache. “He was my dad,” she whispers. “He was supposed to love us. He was supposed to keep us safe.”
I force myself to sit on the edge of the coffee table, ignoring how my body hurts in too many places. “You didn’t know, Sophie. Nobody did.”
Her hands tremble around the mug in her lap. “You knew. Brody knew. Everybody but me.”
“I didn’t know everything,” I say, but it’s weak, and she knows it.
The silence returns, thicker than before. I can feel panic rising in my throat. I glance over my shoulder, desperate for a way out, and see Brody standing in the doorway, eyes shadowed.
He looks at me, then at Sophie, and back. “Should I call Lucas?” I mouth the words, not trusting my voice.
Sophie picks up her phone, stares at it, and then nods with the tiniest motion. “Will you?”
I text him. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely type.
Sophie needs you. My house. Now.
He’s here so quickly it’s like he’s been waiting outside for this moment. He comes in quietly, not saying anything, just kneeling beside the couch.
Sophie doesn’t even try to pretend she doesn’t need him. She falls into his arms and sobs, and all I can do is watch as Lucas holds her, arms around her shoulders, her face tucked against his neck. He doesn’t try to fix it. He just lets her cry.
I slip out with Brody, my chest tight. I hear them walk out the back door to the patio. I want to believe they’ll be okay. I want to believe we all will.
In my room, I sit on the edge of my bed, fingers twisting in the blanket. My skin is still cold from the night before. I can’t stop replaying it.
Marcus’s face as he died, the taste of blood, the sound of my own heart beating like I might never hear it again. He’s really gone. I say it in my head, over and over. Marcus is dead. I am free.
But my body doesn’t believe it yet. Every noise makes me jump. Every footstep in the hall feels like a threat. My wrists ache from old bruises, my ribs are sore.
I keep remembering things I wish I could forget. His hands, his voice, the way he said my name like it belonged to him. Even now, in daylight with the door locked, I feel him watching.
Brody sits across from me, his face closed off and unreadable.
I can’t hold it in any longer. “Why did you take me, Brody?” My voice comes out cold. “Was it really to save me, or were you doing Richard’s work? Did you want to protect me or just keep me for yourself?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He rubs a hand over his jaw, eyes haunted. “Both,” he says, finally. “I wanted you out of everybody’s reach. I couldn’t let him or my father touch you again. But I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know what to believe. I just knew I needed you with me.”
The anger arrives like a wild hurricane.
I spent so long pushing it down because there’s that scared voice in my head telling that I need to stay compliant and quiet to avoid punishment.
I cannot let my anger show, I need to be good.
I’m done being good. “You think I was safe? You think I felt saved? You pulled me out of one prison and shoved me into another. You didn’t ask me.
You didn’t give me a choice. You were just as obsessed with control as they were. ”
He flinches, but his own voice gets hard.
“You don’t get it, Lola. You weren’t the only one breaking.
I watched you get hurt again and again. I watched you choose to go back to him because you thought it was safer than fighting.
I lost my mind. I lost everything. I did what I had to do.
Maybe it wasn’t right. But it’s done now. ”
I stand, hands clenched, voice rising. “You don’t get to decide what I needed. You don’t get to claim me just because you were hurting. I’m not a fucking prize, Brody. I’m not your atonement.”
He matches me, toe to toe, eyes blazing. “I never claimed to be your hero. I can’t fix what’s broken in you or me, but I won’t apologize for wanting you alive. Those men that Richard sent, they would’ve done so much worse.”
I snarl, louder than I mean. “You didn’t have the right. Nobody gets to decide what I need. What I want. I wasn’t yours to take. Not yours to save, either. Do you even hear how fucked that is? You just put me in a new cage—your fucking cage, Brody! You tortured me!”
He jerks, jaw flexing. I see the anger light up in his eyes.
“I did what I thought was right!” His voice shakes.
“I was so angry, and so confused, Richard put all these fucking theories into my head. I couldn’t—” he cuts himself off, breath harsh.
“I was losing my fucking mind, Lola. Watching you suffer and pretending not to care. But also thinking that you were on his side, the man who killed my mother. I needed you with me. But I needed you ruined. Maybe I’m sick, maybe I’m selfish, but I won’t pretend it was about being a hero. ”
I shove at his shoulder. “I hate you for it, sometimes. I hate that you’re the only thing that makes it stop hurting.”
He grabs my wrist, holding me in place. “You don’t hate me. You hate what’s been done to you. I’d burn the world down before I let anyone do it again.”
It’s screaming, not talking now. Pain ricochets off the drywall.
“Everyone acts like they fucking know me,” I spit. “Like I’m some object to be kept safe, like I’m a trophy, not a person. How can anybody love something they don’t even trust?”
He’s close now. His grip tightens. “You want the truth? I don’t know if what I feel is even love.
It’s obsession, Lola. It’s hunger. You’ve been under my skin since the first time I saw you.
Nothing else comes close. I tried to walk away—I can’t.
I want you. All of you. Even the fucked up, broken pieces. Especially those.”
A sob punches out of my chest. My fist slams against his chest, once, twice, again. “You’re not supposed to want the broken, Brody. You’re supposed to help fix it.”
He catches my fists, pins them against his shirt. “No one can fix it. Not even you. All we can do is survive it.”
He’s right. It pisses me off.
The fight goes out of me. I collapse against him, gasping. Tears wet his collarbone. My body is electric with hurt and wanting. His arms crush me to him, blocking out everything but his heartbeat and the smell of him.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into the skin of his neck. “For everything. For not being strong enough.”
He shudders, his lips finding the top of my head. “Don’t apologize. You’re the strongest person I know. You’re just tired.”
I sob, and then suddenly, all the fight goes out of me. My knees buckle and I fall against his chest, shaking so hard I can barely breathe.
He catches me. He always does.
“Shh,” he murmurs, his lips against my hair. “I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.”
The apology cracks me open all over again. I kiss him, desperate and messy. He pulls me onto the bed with him, hands rough and gentle at once, tearing at my clothes, burying his face against my skin like he can’t get close enough.
Our bodies come together hard, wild. There’s no gentleness at first, just need, just the two of us trying to burn away the past, to make something clean out of all this pain.
There’s nothing sweet left in either of us.
I want him to hurt me, to worship me, to fuck every bruise and ghost out of my body.
I want to be ruined until I belong to nothing but this moment, until my skin is raw from his hands, my throat hoarse from begging, until there’s no room left for Marcus or Richard or any other monster in this house but the one I choose.
His mouth crashes onto mine. It’s a kiss that tastes like blood and grief, like everything we’ve done to each other, everything we can’t take back.
“Take it off,” he growls against my mouth, fists already yanking at my shirt, my bra. The fabric tears, he doesn’t care, neither do I.
I want to be naked, stripped down, exposed. I want the daylight to see every scar, every secret. Let it watch. Let it judge. I don’t fucking care anymore.
His hands are everywhere. Bruising, greedy, possessive. He squeezes my tits, pinches my nipples until I whimper, then soothes the sting with his mouth. Biting, sucking, leaving marks I’ll feel for days.
He drags his tongue down my sternum, teeth scraping my skin, leaving welts that are more proof I’m alive.
I arch under him, shameless, desperate. “More,” I hiss. “Don’t be careful. I don’t want careful.”
A savage grin cuts across his face. “Good. That’s all I know how to be.”
His fingers hook under the waistband of my leggings, yank them down. I kick them off, panties already soaked.
He doesn’t hesitate. He slides two fingers between my legs, rough, shoving them inside me hard enough to make me cry out. I’m soaking wet, aching, clenching around him, grinding my hips against his palm.
He growls low in his throat, watching the way I writhe, the way I cling to his wrist like I’ll die if he stops.