WITSEC

Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

The next day, after school, I went shopping with Isabelle. I wanted to give the guys some time alone. Last night before bed, Colt had announced that he wanted to have a talk with his brothers. Without hesitation, they had agreed. Keelan had suggested that they go out and do something. Creed had come up with some ideas, like paintballing and going to dinner. Knox had rescheduled things workwise, so that he only had to work a half-day and would be present by the time the twins got out of school. I loved how they prioritized being there for Colt, and I hoped he saw that and it made talking to them a lot easier for him.

“How’d the interview go yesterday?” I asked Isabelle as we walked through a costume shop.

Isabelle frowned. “I don’t know. Knox is a hard person to read.”

I huffed a laugh as I flipped through the rack of clown costumes. “I’m sure it went great.”

“Is he always so intense?” she asked as she looked through mermaid and siren costumes. She was making her own costume for the party, but she had told me it was missing something, an element, and wanted to look around for inspiration.

“He’s like that with everyone. The more you get to know him, though, you learn to see past it.”

Isabelle glanced over at me, and I saw the questions written all over her face.

Smiling, I focused back on my search. “Just ask.”

“Are you—I know you’re with Colt and Creed, and no way am I judging you—” she rambled and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “But I saw how you were at Keelan’s birthday party with Knox and at the mud run with Keelan. Are you dating them, too?”

“Yes.”

“Wow,” was all she said for a moment. Then she blurted, “I bet you have amazing sex.”

Instantly, my cheeks burned.

Isabelle laughed. “Sorry. I’m kind of jealous, but at the same time, I know I’d be overwhelmed with so many penises in the bedroom.”

“Isabelle!” I gaped.

She giggled. “If our roles were reversed, you mean to tell me you wouldn’t be curious?”

She had a point.

“Soooo,” she drawled with a grin. “Are you going to give me some spicy tidbits? I’ll share some I’ve had with Ethan.”

“You want to talk about our sex lives?”

“That’s what friends do. We share details.” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

Trying not to smile, I said, “You and Ethan really are perfect for each other.”

She sighed. “That man is my match, especially when we’re naked.”

I glanced around, hoping no one could hear us.

“You’re blushing like you’ve never gotten naked with your guys,” she said as she eyed me.

“I have,” I whispered. “Well, not with all of them.”

Her brows rose with intrigue. “Oh really? Who’s the one holding out?”

“Knox,” I blurted and winced. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. Was it a betrayal to Knox to vent my frustration to someone else? Or would it be a good idea to get an outside perspective?

“Why do you think that is?” she asked, moving closer.

“I’m not exactly sure. I know he wants me as much as I want him, but something is clearly bothering him. I have a feeling that when he looks at me, he sees a broken, fragile girl. Maybe I am or was. I lost my family and up until recently, I wasn’t handling it the right way. But I am now. I’m working as hard as I can and what I need from them is to treat me normally—like I’m not broken and fragile, because if they can’t see me like that, then how will I?”

With sad eyes, she put her hand on my upper arm. “Do they all treat you like that? Have you tried talking to them?”

I nodded. “The other three have gotten better. Knox, though, I don’t know. He won’t talk to me. I’ve asked him if he wanted to take things slow and he said no, but the last couple of times we’ve kissed, things got heated and he got me so worked up, I just…I wanted…”

“You wished he’d bend you over and fuck you until you don’t know your own name?” Isabelle offered.

“Yes! And each time he pulls away, I’m left feeling like a sex-crazed teenager.”

“You have plenty of other guys to curb the horny hormones, so don’t let his rejection make you feel insecure,” she said. “And if he’s not ready to be intimate with you, then he shouldn’t lead you on like that.”

“When we’re in the moment, it’s as if he can’t help it. Like he so badly wants to forget what’s holding him back. He manages to until something jars his focus from me and he’s reminded.”

“Hmm,” she hummed as she appeared to ponder. “There are two ways you can handle this. You can continue to try and talk it out and hope you get through to him. Or, if you’re brave enough, seduce the stubborn bastard. Show him you can handle everything he’s got, because, Shi, you don’t need him or any of your guys to think you’re unbroken and strong to be that way. As long as you know it, that’s all that matters. And maybe if you believe it, then he will, too.”

I was a little taken aback as her words sank in. She was right. I shouldn’t need the guys to treat me normally to feel normal. It sure helped. But I shouldn’t have to look to them to gauge what I felt. I had to do it on my own.

“How would I seduce him?” I asked.

A big grin spread across her face. “What’s his favorite color?”

Before I could answer, my phone started ringing. “One sec,” I said to her, and she went back to sifting through the racks of costumes. I pulled my phone from my purse. The screen read Unknown . I still answered, thinking it might be Logan or Ian. “Hello?”

The line was quiet.

“Hello?” I said again, and when there still wasn’t an answer, I hung up.

Before I could put my phone back in my purse, it rang again.

“Hello?” I answered. When all I got back was silence, I hung up, put my phone on vibrate, and tossed it back in my purse.

Trying not to feel unnerved, I continued to go through the clown costumes. When I finally found Pennywise, I noticed they had multiple variations. Picking the two I liked best, I held them up for Isabelle to see. “Which one?”

She eyed the costumes. “Colt picked Pennywise as your costume?”

“ IT was my favorite scary movie once upon a time.”

“Not anymore?”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.” It was the best thing I could come up with without lying.

“You should watch it again. Oh! We can have a horror movie night. You can sleep over at my house or I can stay at yours. I’m free this Friday.”

The more she talked, the more excited she got, and I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. My throat became tight. “We can do it at my house.”

She clapped her hands excitedly. “Yay for girls’ night!”

It would be all right. The only way to get back things I’d lost was to take them back. Or was I being stupid? Had I just set us both up to be traumatized on Friday? I didn’t want to do that to Isabelle. Maybe my doubt was my fear talking? Would I feel like this the day of the party? Was I all talk and no action when it came to taking back my life?

I could do it.

I had to try.

I couldn’t let my determination be overpowered by fear.

If I flashed back to that night because of what I saw, then so be it. I had to face it. I had to face what had happened that night. I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

My eyes moved to the scars on my wrists and my memories tried to rise to the surface. I pushed them back down. You don’t have to face them right now, I scolded myself.

I found that since I’d stopped running until I dropped, it was harder to keep my memories from slipping to the forefront of my mind. And even though I was able to push back the memories, the feelings associated with them still rocked me to my core.

“I’m going to go try these on,” I said tightly and headed for the dressing room. As soon as I shut the door to the tiny room behind me, I released a heavy sigh. I hung up the costumes on a hook and stared at myself in the full-length mirror.

Just for a minute, I told myself as I touched the scars around my wrists. The skin was bumpy and discolored. The memories of waking up to rope tied around them flashed behind my eyes, along with the feelings of terror and desperation. I rubbed my hands down my face as I remembered the urgency and need to get free—all of it had pushed me to tear away my skin. There hadn’t been any pain. Being terrified of Mr. X returning had blocked it out. Too bad the terror hadn’t blocked out the pain of my broken heart every time my eyes had been drawn to the tips of Shayla’s shoes in the hall. It had been the only part of her body I’d been able to see from where Mr. X had tied me to my bed.

Enough.

Gritting my teeth, I pushed back the memories to where I kept them locked up. My whole body was shaking, and my eyes welled up.

“You’re all right,” I whispered to myself in the mirror. With trembling hands, I began changing.

I distracted myself with modeling the IT costumes for Isabelle.

“I’d go with the dress instead of the bulky bodysuit,” Isabelle said. “You’ll still look terrifying, but if we get you some white, lacy thigh-highs and some heels, you’ll give your guys some twisted sexual fantasies.”

I laughed and returned to the dressing room to get dressed.

Isabelle and I had gone to a handful of stores to get everything we would need for the party, as well as a few other things, like my secret weapon to seduce Knox, as Isabelle called it. As we headed for the exit of a store, I pulled out my phone to check if I had any messages from the guys. I had a couple of texts from them, but I also had six missed calls from that unknown number.

Again, I did my best to not let it unnerve me, because it could be a scammer for all I knew. As I read through the messages from the guys, Isabelle held the door open for me to exit. Once outside, I glanced up just in time to see Cassy and Amber a few feet away.

“There goes our nice afternoon,” Isabelle grumbled.

Cassy gave me an evil smile as she approached. “It’s a surprise that you have time for shopping.”

When I refused to acknowledge her and her comment, Amber urged her on. “And why is that?”

“Well, I assumed sucking four cocks daily could be quite time-consuming,” Cassy said.

Still refusing to engage, I went to walk around them. I guessed I didn’t put enough distance between us, because Amber still rammed her shoulder into mine. My purse fell to the ground and some of its contents spilled out. Among them was my nightmare medication Dr. Bolton prescribed and my birth control.

Isabelle and I knelt at the same time, and she quickly helped me pick it all up as Cassy and Amber snickered.

“At least the whore is practicing safe sex,” Cassy said.

“The pill is just to prevent babies. The medicine in the bottle is probably for gonorrhea,” Amber said as they both walked into the store.

I grabbed my birth control at the same time Isabelle grabbed my nightmare meds. She didn’t even attempt to read the label as she handed them to me, but I still found myself babbling, “I get really bad nightmares and my doctor prescribed these to help me sleep. The only reason they and my birth control are in my purse is I never know if I’m staying at the guys’ or my place and I don’t want to forget to take them.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Shi,” she assured me. “I take birth control, too. For the most part, I keep it at home, but the few times I’ve been able to spend the night at Ethan’s, I’ve taken it with me.” Isabelle glared back at the store. “Is it wrong that I wish the worst upon them?”

“Nope. I’m waiting for karma to rain down on them.”