Chapter Six #2
She lifts the book, showing me the cover of Alice in Wonderland . “Hannah gave it to me,” she says sheepishly. “She thought I might like to read it.”
With the fictional girl having long, blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and even the same name, I can see why my niece chose it. Even the tale is rather fitting considering the fucked up wonderland she has found herself in.
“Are you enjoying it?” I ask.
“Very much. It’s exactly what I needed tonight.”
“My niece is smart like that. She gets it from me,” I say, cracking a smile.
A soft giggle spills from her lips, the incredible sound infiltrating my chest. “She is and she’s very kind. Your entire family is.”
“Meh, they’re all right,” I joke.
Her sparkling blue irises hold mine in the shadows as she rests her head back on the rocking chair. “What’s your story, Braxten Creed?”
My cock stands to attention at the way my whole name falls past her lips.
Soft and smooth, innocent and breathless, like how she would sound if I was pleasuring her in ways I know she’s never felt.
Something I really shouldn’t be thinking or feeling when it comes to her, especially right now, but I can’t seem to help myself.
“What do you want to know?”
She shrugs, but the careless action doesn’t match the questions burning in her eyes. “What kind of life have you led that’s made you the man you are today? What brought you and your family together?” She pauses before continuing cautiously. “I noticed you all don’t look much alike.”
I smirk. “You noticed that, huh?”
She nods. “You’d never know it though. You all are so close, especially you and your brothers.”
There is something in the way she says that last part, something that I sensed from the moment I picked her up.
Something changed today at that hospital. She was more uncertain of me than she has been, more leery to leave with me, and the fear in her eyes when she heard Knox sleeps across the hall was real. I didn’t like it and I have no doubt that fucking nurse is to blame.
I relax further back into my chair, settling in to answer her questions, at least some of them. “My brothers and I have been through a lot together. We met in a group home when we were nothing more than kids.”
A frown adopts her expression. “A group home?”
“It’s a place where kids get dumped when no one else wants them. It’s hell on earth. At least this one was.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the bastards running it enjoyed inflicting pain on the people who were forced there by the state.”
Pain fills her expression. “What about your birth parents? Where were they?”
“My mother was a strung out junkie who left me in a dumpster to rot with the rest of the garbage when I was only a few months old. I have no idea who my father is.” I’m impressed with how even my voice is as I reveal the very thing I don’t like to talk about.
“I’m sorry,” she says regretfully.
“Don’t be. As much as life sucked for a long time, I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because then I wouldn’t have my brothers and life wouldn’t make sense without them.”
The last of my words have a smile claiming her lips. “So, you all met in the group home, then what?”
“We ran away.” I forgo telling her why, though I’m sure she can figure it out. “We lived on the streets for a while. Got into a lot of shit and did things we probably shouldn’t have done, but it was all in order to survive.”
Concern masks her pretty face. “Where did you sleep?”
“Anywhere we could. Usually in the woods. Hidden where no one would find us. Until one night it poured like a motherfucker and we had no choice but to find shelter. That’s when we ended up here.
We hid in the barn right over there.” I point at the red building that shelters the horses the way it sheltered us that night so long ago.
“So that’s how you met your father?”
“Yep. Thatcher thought we were stealing and charged in there with his shotgun locked and loaded.” I chuckle at the memory, remembering how we almost pissed ourselves while we were staring down the barrel of that gun.
“Thankfully, he didn’t shoot us. Instead he took us in, fed us, and gave us a place to sleep for the night.
But one night turned into two, days turned into weeks, and months turned into the best family I could ever have. ”
“Wow,” she murmurs, an almost wonderment filling her voice. “That’s tragic yet beautiful. Your father is a wonderful man.”
“We owe him everything. I don’t want to think where we would be if not for him. Which is exactly why I brought you here, Alice.”
She gazes back at me, her wide, hopeful eyes anchoring the moment.
“We’re going to take care of you like my father did us because we know what it’s like to be where you are. Despite what you’ve heard about my family, we aren’t the bad guys.”
Her chair stops its soft rocking, the flash in her gaze solidifying what I already knew. “I don’t know what you mean,” she feigns ignorance.
I prop a booted foot on my knee, and link my hands behind my head, giving her a smirk. “You’re a terrible liar, Wonderland.”
She lifts a brow. “Wonderland?”
I point to the book she holds. “It’s fitting, isn’t it?”
Her smile softens into a shy one before it vanishes altogether and she looks away from my prying eyes.
“What did she say to you?”
“Who?” she whispers, continuing to avoid eye contact.
“The nurse. I know she told you something.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because whatever she told you made you afraid of me and I don’t fucking like it.”
Her gaze finally pulls to mine, questions raging within. I know exactly what’s on her mind, the rumor she was told, the very one that plagues my brothers and me wherever we go. But the question she asks isn’t the one I’m expecting.
“She said that you’ve killed people before. Is that true?”
“Yes,” I answer without hesitation.
The admission seems to surprise her and that sliver of fear I witnessed earlier returns.
“It was my job, Alice. I never killed innocent people. I killed the enemy.”
“Was?” she asks.
I nod. “We don’t take missions anymore.”
It’s a recent decision that was made, but I don’t bother telling her that.
She licks her lips nervously before asking the next question. “Did you kill the prior sheriff and mayor?”
This time I do hesitate. Despite the fact that everyone pretty much suspects it, there is no evidence and I want it kept that way.
“Sometimes the enemies are disguised as the good guys,” I say instead.
“What does that mean?”
“It means the mayor was a corrupt son of a bitch who preyed on innocent women. One of them was Ryanne.”
She tenses at the information.
“He tried to take what didn’t belong to him and my brother made sure he payed for it.”
“And the sheriff?” she asks on a quiver, almost sounding scared to hear the answer.
Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees, never breaking eye contact with her. “Forty years ago, that bastard held my father down in a corn field and burnt the flesh from his bones.”
A subtle gasp leaves her as horror enters her eyes.
“He dismembered parts of his body and beat him until he was unrecognizable.”
“Why?” the question is choked out. “Why on earth would he hurt him like that?”
“Because he loved a white woman.”
She flinches as if she’s been struck, knowledge quickly taking over. “Gwen,” the name leaves her on a whisper.
I don’t bother confirming or denying since she already knows the answer.
The tears she was holding in begin to tumble down her cheeks, the pain as raw and real as the day I found her.
I push out of my chair and walk over to where she sits, kneeling down before her. My hands rest on her slender thighs, unable to squelch this need to touch her, even if it’s something as simple as this.
“They were the enemy, Alice. They made people hurt and suffer. They made the world unsafe and they both paid the price. Just like whoever did this to you. Whoever hurt you will pay the same price. They will regret ever laying a hand on you.”
Those devastating blue eyes hang on every word until the softest sob barrels past her lips and she throws her arms around my neck. “Thank you,” she cries. “Thank you for not leaving me, for keeping me safe.”
The tears dripping down my neck burn my skin like acid. My arms come around her gently, pulling her in close. “For as long as I’m still breathing, you’ll always be safe.”