CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
MIRA
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The keys rattle with my futile attempts to get them into the ignition. My hands are shaking too hard. It takes several attempts but I slide them in place.
I don’t turn the truck on, but sit with my hands on the wheel, torn between ramming the truck into the store and getting help. The latter already feeling hopeless; the sheriff wouldn’t help. He’d let those monsters hurt Christian and Daniel. Or worse.
Ramming seems like the only choice I have left. Fuck getting charged. I will run those motherfuckers over if they put one finger on my boys. I will smear the fucking road with their flesh and guts. I will get out, get their wallets, find their homes and kill everyone they love. They are not going to take Daniel from me, or Christian.
My fingers tighten around the wheel. A new feeling taking root in the pit of my stomach. A vengeful and bloodthirsty demon starving to devour its enemies. I stare with absolute focus at the doors, scan the windows. Searching for a hint of anything unusual.
I see them a moment later, both boys, unharmed, leaving the front door with wide, purposeful strides in my direction. My heart jumps in my chest and I’m about to relax my hold when I see the door fly open a second later and the three men from before storm out.
“Oh, hell fucking no,” I growl under my breath, fingers fumbling for the keys.
I don’t flip the engine, but I’m ready to. I’m holding my breath and watching for even a hint that Daniel and Christian are in danger. I wait for those motherfuckers to take even a step towards them.
But they stay by the shop, watching my boys walk away. Not one makes a move in their direction and some of my homicidal tendencies abate by a fraction.
Still, I hold my breath until Christian is next to his bike with Daniel. The pair exchange a few words that end with Christian giving a reluctant nod. Daniel pivots and stalks to the back seat of the truck and tosses three bags down on the floor behind the passenger’s side seat. He doesn’t say anything to me but slams the door and turns back to his brother.
I watch baffled as the pair roll Christian’s bike towards the back of the truck and load it into the bed. It’s strapped down with thick, black bands.
All the while, the trio motherfuckers are still standing in place, watching us and I have to resist the urge to flip them off.
Bike secure, Christian and Daniel move to my side of the truck. I hastily unlock the doors and climb across the console into my seat just as the boys get in. Daniel behind the wheel and Christian in the back behind him.
No one says a word as Daniel turns the key and gets us the hell out of here.
I reach for Daniel’s hand. I pull it into my lap and hold it tight. He doesn’t speak but gives my fingers a gentle squeeze I feel fist around my gut.
I glance back to Christian. His attention is out the window, expression a violent storm cloud of emotions. I opt on instinct and twist my free arm back and over Daniel’s seat to gently skim his knee with my fingertips. He jerks in surprise. Head pivoting in my direction. His gaze drops to my extended fingers. There’s a flicker of surprise before he captures them. Threads his through mine and holds tight.
“Hungry, baby?” Daniel says after a very long, very silent drive that’s gone much longer than it would have taken to get back to the cabin.
I am. I never got to finish my breakfast thanks to that bitch Mabel.
“Yes,” I whisper. “But I don’t think I can go back to the diner.”
Daniel hesitates just long enough to make me glance at him. “We’re kind of not allowed back.”
I blink. “Gunner banned us?”
He grimaces. “Not exactly. Gunner’s a good man. Unfortunately, it’s also his business and unlike us, he doesn’t get to leave in a few days. He can’t take sides or look like he’s supporting ... us. I’m making the call. In fact,” his chest and shoulders lift with his sturdy inhale, “I think we need to avoid Jefferson for the rest of our time here. Mayfield is a few hours away, but it’s safer.”
“How many hours?” I gasp.
Daniel shifts and clears his throat. “Four.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to exclaim in outrage, but he’s right. I sure as shit don’t ever want to step foot in Jefferson again. Now more than ever. If we have to drive a few hours to avoid these people, I’m all for it.
But that gives us four hours of uninterrupted conversation time that they can’t avoid.
“Who’s Lucy?”
Both men snap their heads in my direction so fast, I expect the truck to swerve. But Daniel’s eyes immediately jump back to the road.
“Who told you about...?” he doesn’t finish. I guess realizing.
It’s Christian who answers, “A fucking mistake.”
I release both their hands and twist slightly in my seat with my leg bent under me to face them.
“Those ... men said you took advantage of her.”
I’m not about to mince words. It’s been days of getting side eyed, disrespected and whispered about. I’m done guessing.
“Do you believe them?” Christian murmurs so softly, I almost don’t hear it over the roar of the engine.
I don’t falter. I don’t even blink when I look him straight in the eye and reply sharply, “No.” I glance at Daniel’s side profile, linger on the hard slash of his lips and the white peaks of his knuckles fisted around the wheel. “I think either they’re full of shit or there’s a mistake, but I need to hear it from you.”
Neither one makes any move to speak. Several minutes pass as we follow an almost empty highway towards another whole town.
I don’t press. I know I can. I could hammer and badger, but I’m not stupid. This whole trip has been a cause of pain and tension for Daniel. He’d been restless for days leading up to it. He’d been scattered and absentminded. At night, I’d wake up to find him already awake, staring up at the ceiling like he’d been plagued by his own demons.
I can’t imagine how it had been for Christian on his own. Whatever happened in Jefferson won’t be a light, fluffy story about misunderstandings. It’ll be crushing and horrible, and if they needed time to gather themselves, I’d wait.
“It was my fault,” Christian whispers at last.
I turn my head to him, waiting for him to continue.
His long fingers drum on the armrest, an anxious fidgeting I notice he does a lot when he’s restless.
“I let her into our lives. I fell for her shit just like everyone else and ... it’s my fault.”
I wait for Daniel to interject, to assure his brother that isn’t true, but Daniel is silent and rigid. A block of unwavering stone behind the wheel.
“Who was she?” I ask softly.
Christian draws in a lungful of air and lets his head drop back against the seat. His dark eyes trace the felt roof while his fingers tap on his thigh.
“Lucy was the prettiest girl in town. Hands down. One of those girls everyone loves because they’re just perfect. She was the head of every committee, every team, every ... everything. She read to the elderly, taught Sunday school, raised money for the school and whatever else. She was perfect.”
I try very hard not to grind my teeth at the raw reverence in the quiet murmur of his story, the way he’s staring out the window like he can still see that perfect girl.
“She was the reverend’s daughter. Untouchable. Delicate. Pure.” He scoffs loudly at the last word and scrubs at his face. “I knew she had a thing for Daniel. Most of the girls did. Danny was the golden boy, captain of every fucking sport.”
Daniel snorts slightly but doesn’t interrupt.
“Lucy tried to get him. On paper, they made the most sense, honestly. Cheerleader captain and captain of the football team, it basically writes itself. I was the emo delinquent who cut classes to get baked behind the bleachers. When she started talking to me out of the blue, I thought, shit! Maybe I stood a chance. She gave me my first blow job right under those damn stands. Dropped down in her pretty cheerleader outfit and ... well, anyway. We fucked around a lot. Never told a soul. Couldn’t. She was Lucy Carr and I was the reject from across town.”
“Seriously?” Daniel grumbles. “You know we were from the same place, right?”
“You know what I mean.” Christian mutters. “Lucy taught me everything I knew. She was my first everything and I was in fucking heaven because the things she liked to do ... no one our age should have had any knowledge of, but I loved every minute of it.”
“You were miserable,” Daniel cuts in, not unkindly. “She made you miserable and scared. She was fucking every guy in school, but the minute another girl looked at you, she’d fly off the handle. He’d come home with bruises and scratches. Once, he even had a black eye. There’d be blood on his clothes, or she’d set his backpack on fire while he was still wearing it.”
“Oh my God, what the fuck?” I cry, no longer able to contain my tongue.
“She wasn’t stable, Chris. Stop making it sound like you guys had a tragic romance,” Daniel says to his brother, eyes fixed on him through the rear-view mirror. “She’d scream and accuse Chris of fucking around, punch, kick, and scratch the shit out of him, then come crawling into his bedroom window at night to fuck him. She’d get other guys to beat Chris up when she got pissed off at him. She was a toxic, psychotic bitch.”
“She definitely sounds like it,” I try to assure Christian when he slowly shakes his head.
“She was,” he agrees. “She was worse. I was just so ... caught up in her...” he huffs out a breath like the words are caught in his chest and need to get freed, “I would have done anything for her. Anything.”
Both men fall silent.
“What happened?” I coax, needing him to finish the nightmare unfurling through the air around us.
Christian takes in a sharp gulp of air and scrubs his palms up both thighs. “She wanted to fuck Daniel. It’s all she ever wanted. All she talked about all the time. She’d be on my dick and ask if his dick was the same. She started hounding me to get him to join us. She wanted it so bad that—”
“She nearly castrated him,” Daniel growls.
“What?” I snarl, head whipping back to Christian.
“It was a game!” the other man exclaims. “It was supposed to be safe. Little knicks. Blood play. Knife play. We’d done it before. But she tied my hands down this time so I couldn’t stop her.”
“Oh my God!” My hands fly up to my mouth as the horror of that scene rushes through me.
“She said if I ever wanted to fuck her or anyone again, I had to convince Daniel to fuck her.” Christian snarls deep in his throat and scrubs his hands over his face hard enough to make me wince. “I was so fucking stupid.”
“You were a horny teenage boy,” Daniel corrects. “And she was manipulating you. I had no fucking idea that was the case when I finally agreed.”
“Daniel!” I gasp, both disappointed and crushed by his confession.
“He didn’t tell me any of this at the time,” Daniel snaps, casting me a murderous quick side eye. “Every time he came home with a mark on him, he’d say some shit about walking into something. When his bag caught fire, he told me a lighter exploded in the pocket. He lied to me the entire time until it was too damn late.”
Guilt worms through me for ever thinking Daniel would simply allow anyone to abuse his brother freely.
“Daniel, I’m sorry...”
His features soften. His hand moves off the wheel and lightly rests on my thigh. I quickly put mine over top.
“I agreed because he wouldn’t stop pushing,” Daniel explains. “I didn’t understand it. I didn’t get why it was so important, but it seemed like it was all Chris wanted so I relented.”
“You fucked her?”
Just the thought of my Daniel with this stupid bitch makes my blood hot. Makes me want to twist my hand in her hair and slam her face off a wall. But I sit and listen quietly, grinding my jaw.
“ We fucked her,” Daniel corrects. “It was some party and we were all drinking. She came over and dragged me upstairs to one of the bedrooms.”
I’m glad when he stops talking. I do not want the image of them doing to her what I want them doing to me. I don’t want to think of them pleasuring that crazy viper while she was hurting Christian.
“I liked it.”
Those three little words grow serrated blades and sink into my heart. They burn my throat with rage and pain. It hurts so much, I can’t even look at Daniel as he continues quietly.
“Lucy got both of us and we did things—”
“I don’t want to know,” I choke out, staring at the blurry outline of his hand on my leg behind the hot tears.
“We did things I am not proud of, Mira,” he finishes softly. “But it went on for several months until she started thinking she could manipulate me into cutting Chris out. The only reason I was there was because of Chris. Lucy knew that. I never wanted her. If Chris was out. I was out.” His hand slides out from under mine and gently nudges my chin up, so I have no choice but to look into his beautiful face. “It was a mistake, baby. I told her it was over. I wanted her out of my and Chris’s life. She agreed. She apologized. Begged for one last time for old time’s sake and she’d never ask again.”
His fingers slip away, leaving my skin cold despite the heat of the sun blazing through the windshield.
“One more time,” Christian grumbles with a wrenching exhale.
“It was a trap. She made it so her father caught us—”
“The Reverend,” Christian pipes in.
“Shit...” I hiss through my teeth.
“He stormed into the house with her brothers and caught us in a not-so-great position.” Daniel pauses a heartbeat before continuing. “After that, Lucy told everyone we forced her. Not rape. She never said those words. She told her father that we coerced her with booze and drugs and forced her into those acts. Lucy being beloved and us being the sons of the woman who killed herself, it didn’t take a lot of convincing for the town to conclude that Mom’s death sent us down a filthy and blasphemous path, and we had now corrupted their angel.”
“Fuck that bitch!” I snarl. Spit out with every bitter, vile hatred in my chest.
“Gets worse,” Christian mutters.
I don’t know if I want to hear anymore. I can already feel myself wanting to find this crazy nutjob and beat the shit out of her.
“Lucy got a lot of attention. She had people checking up on her, bringing her gifts, praying for her, basically treating her like she’d just returned from war. And if there was anything Lucy loved more than Lucy...”
“It was other people loving her,” Christian finishes miserably.
“Her stories started escalating, getting elaborate and dark. Before long, we were the brothers who bullied and forced her to commit indecent acts. We hurt her and tortured her and made her watch while we did vile things to each other.” Daniel broke off with a shake of his head. “She painted us to be sex starved monsters that shouldn’t be trusted around anyone.”
“She told people you raped her?” I breathe.
“Never in those words,” Christian says. “It was only ever implied.”
“I think that’s the only reason we didn’t have a mob burn the house down,” Daniel mutters. “She was always very careful to word it like she was a participant, but only because we gave her no choice.”
There’s so much to unpack. So much trauma to sift through. Maybe I really have been sheltered because this whole thing sounds more like some crazy horror movie than real life.
“What happened?” I ask once I’m sure I can handle the rest.
“Things got really bad. We couldn’t leave the house. Couldn’t go into town. Kids would throw eggs and vegetables at the house. Once, someone burned a shitty diaper on the porch. We were trapped in that house with Dad and that was a whole other set of nightmares.”
I don’t press that story. I can only handle one terror at a time.
“Then her brothers got it in their head that justice needed to be served to honor their sister,” Christian picks up where Daniel stalls. “Four fully grown men with bats waiting in the dark for two teenage boys.”
“Stop. Please. I don’t—”
Daniel pulls my stiff fingers to his lips and gently kisses each one. His eyes fixed on the road.
“You need to hear it all, baby girl. You need to know so you understand.”
But I did understand. I understood that this town was the very seed of all evil and it created, bred, and grew evil.
“Wyatt was killed,” Christian says gently. “I don’t remember how. I don’t know...”
“It was dark,” Daniel picks up the story when his brother fumbles. “They had the weapons. Christian was hurt badly and he ... I was on top of him, trying to stop...”
“Daniel...” I drag his hand over and press the back to my damp cheek.
“At some point, they stopped hitting us, but they were hitting something. I grabbed Chris and pulled us into the bushes. I couldn’t hear them or see them. I kept going in and out of consciousness. I just remember thinking I needed to protect Chris. I think I heard screaming, and I think maybe they realized they’d beat Wyatt to death.”
“Good,” I blurt without thinking. “It could have been you or Christian. They were clearly aiming to kill you, and karma got them instead.”
“Didn’t do a damn bit of good at that point. The damage was beyond repair. Plus, no one corrected Jameson when he told everyone we killed his brother. The only thing that saved me and Chris from seeing a prison cell was the lack of weapons. Nothing with our prints on them. No way to prove a damn thing when we were admitted into the hospital, and they didn’t have a scratch on them. Mayfield police did a whole investigation and made the mistake of handing it over to Brewer because it happened in his town. The whole case mysteriously vanished. No charges. Chris and I were in the hospital for several months. Once we could leave, I never returned.”
“They did it!” I cry, outraged. “They killed him.”
Daniel shrugs. “That’s not how they see it. It’s our fault any of this happened.”
“It was Lucy’s fault,” I argue, knowing they already know that, but feeling the need to point it out anyway. “She’s the problem. This is all her fault.” I spin in my seat slightly and stab a finger at Christian. “Her fault. Not yours.”
He avoids my eyes, and I know he doesn’t believe me.