Chapter 15
Jesse
“Tell Isla I said hi,” I sang, flopping back onto the couch as Dylan walked away, putting his phone to his ear.
Swear to God, that girl called more than telemarketers.
I got it—she and Dylan had been together for years, and he couldn’t imagine being without her—but good grief, she was a lot.
She was always calling and texting and making herself known, no matter what we were doing.
It was like she had some kind of radar that alerted her to a moment when Dyl wasn’t thinking of her, and she had to nip that shit in the bud.
“This movie sucks,” Finn said, flinging himself onto his back. “Do we have to finish it?”
“Quitters never win, and winners never quit,” I replied, poking him with my toes.
“Dylan’s not even watching it.”
“That’s because Dylan’s p—” I snapped my mouth shut before I said something that I knew my mom would kill me for if Finn started repeating it. “Fine, what do you want to watch?”
“Marvel,” my little brother replied quickly. “Marathon.”
“That’ll take us days.”
“So? It’s summer, and you have no friends. What else are you going to do?”
“Hey,” I protested. “I have friends.”
“Only on the internet.”
“I have plenty of friends.”
Finn made a big show of sitting up and looking around the room. “Huh. Where are these friends you speak of?”
“You’re one to talk.”
“Hayden already sent me a letter,” Finn replied smugly. “And so did Micah.”
“Ooh, Mr. Popular.”
“Have any of your friends sent you letters?”
“My friends call me, turdbucket.”
“Your friends call you turdbucket?” Finn asked with a laugh. “Are you sure they’re your friends?”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” I replied. “I liked you better when you couldn’t talk.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“You’re right. I didn’t,” I conceded. “But you’re still a smartass.”
“Better than a dumbass,” he replied happily, making me laugh.
“Put on the movie you want to watch,” I ordered, getting up from the couch. “You want a soda or lemonade?”
“Lemonade, please,” he said, diving for the remote. “With ice.”
“Got it.”
When I got to the kitchen, Dylan was sitting at the table, his forehead resting on the palm of his hand.
“You know I miss you,” he murmured, shooting me a quick look before his eyes went back to the tabletop. “I was just there, Isla. My dad said I can’t come back for a few months.”
I made a big show of getting out glasses and filling them with ice and lemonade, when I was actually taking my sweet time so I could listen in on Dylan’s conversation.
His girlfriend was getting harder and harder to like.
At first, I thought that maybe if she realized how miserable he’d been that first couple of weeks after she left, she’d want him to go out and do some stuff to take his mind off it.
But the longer their relationship went on, the more I realized that she was kind of counting on him pining away for her.
She wanted him to be miserable without her and couldn’t stand it when he did anything fun that didn’t include her.
It was gross.
“Can you get chips too?” Finn called from the living room.
“Geez, you’re needy,” I called back, walking to the pantry to grab the chips.
“Yeah, they live here,” Dylan said, his voice even quieter than before. “We’re watchin’ Finn. I can’t just go up to my room.”
I rolled my eyes as I stuffed the bag of chips under my arm and reached for the lemonade glasses.
“Isla, you know it’s not—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered as I passed him. “I like tits, Isla!” I called, raising my voice so I knew she could hear me. “Love boobs. Love them so much!”
Dylan glared at me, baring his teeth as he shooed me away.
I laughed under my breath as I joined Finn again, handing over his snacks.
“I’m going to have a girlfriend just like Isla,” Finn announced as he opened the chips.
“No, you are not,” I replied firmly. “If your girlfriend is up your ass all the time, I’ll have her removed. Permanently.”
“You sound like a mobster.”
“She’ll be sleeping with the fishes,” I replied, lowering my voice.
“Isla’s pretty,” Finn said with a shrug.
“That’s about all she is.” I curled my legs up and tucked my feet into the spot between the couch cushions. “She’s not very nice to Dyl. You don’t want someone like that.”
“Yeah,” Finn said thoughtfully.
“When you get a girlfriend, many, many years from now, she’ll be her own kind of pretty, bud,” I assured him. “And she’ll think you’re awesome, and she’ll laugh at all your stupid jokes. She might even let you kiss her.”
He wiggled his eyebrows. “Not that many years.”
“Wait until you’ve got some game to try to get a girlfriend,” I advised him. “Now, turn on your movie.”
Fifteen minutes into the movie, Dylan came lumbering back into the room and fell back onto the couch.
“She actually let you off the phone?” I asked in surprise.
“She was goin’ to the mall with her friends.”
“Oh, so she can go do shit, but when you do—”
“Just drop it, would you?” Dylan snapped. “Fuck.”
“Fine.” I lifted my hands in surrender and turned back toward the TV.
“My mom says she’s just, like, insecure or whatever,” Dylan said after a few minutes. “That she’ll calm down if I just reassure her.”
“Your mom’s an idiot,” I grumbled.
“Fuck off.”
“It’s been months,” I said, throwing up my hands. “You really wanna do this same shit for the next year? How much reassurance does she fucking need?”
“Would you guys shut up?” Finn asked in exasperation. “I’m trying to watch a movie.”
“You’ve seen it like fifty times.”
“So?”
“You don’t know what it’s like,” Dylan said dismissively. “You didn’t leave anyone behind when you moved.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “How the hell would you know?”
“I…” Dylan’s eyes were wide as he backpedaled.
“Maybe I did, but she just doesn’t insist on talking to me every fucking minute,” I growled, getting to my feet. “Maybe she has her own fucking life and doesn’t feel the need to make things harder on me when I can’t fucking control where we live. You ever think of that?”
“Jess,” Dylan said, hopping up. “I didn’t—you never said—”
“Why the fuck would I tell you?” I snapped nastily.
If we hadn’t been arguing, maybe we would’ve heard the sliding glass door open, but we’d never really know.
I wasn’t sure why I looked to the side when I did, whether I’d noticed something in my periphery or if I’d heard their footsteps, but the moment I saw the two men in our house, I knew.
We’d lived under the shadow of his threats for as long as I could remember. David Granger. Finn’s grandfather. The monster in the dark.
The men were there for Finn.
A bone-deep instinct to protect my baby brother rose up inside of me, and it was the only thing that mattered. I didn’t care that the men were twice my size. The terror would come later.
Not then.
With a scream, I flung myself past the end of the couch and threw myself at them. Surprise was the only thing on my side as I barreled into the first one, knocking him to the side as I went for the next one. My nails raked down his face as he realized what was happening and shoved me to the floor.
Something was happening behind me. I could hear the noises, but all of my attention was on the man above me.
As he swung his leg back to kick me, I wrapped my own around his opposite leg and forced his knee to buckle, taking him down to the ground.
Something crashed in the living room as I scrambled on top of the man, going for his eyes.
I didn’t make it there.
With one swing of his meaty arm, I flew backward, my face exploding with pain. I wasn’t even sure where he’d hit me because my entire face felt like it had been crushed. Blinking, I tried to see past the darkness encroaching on my vision.
The man was rising, and I couldn’t let him. Moving blindly, I wrapped myself around one of his legs and tried to pull him down to the floor again. My muscles seemed too weak, like they wouldn’t move the way they’d been taught to.
I let out a whoosh of air as he kicked me in the side, but I didn’t let go.
Finn was in the living room. I couldn’t let the man get past me. It was my one job. I just had to make sure that he couldn’t get to Finn.
“Little bitch,” the man muttered.
I cried out as he wrapped a fist in my braids and yanked, wrenching my head back so far it felt like my neck was going to snap.
Then he hit me. Once. Twice. The third time, everything went black.
When I woke up, I didn’t know how long it had been, and I wasn’t sure I could move. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest, making it impossible to breathe, and my left eye wouldn’t open.
“Where’s the kid?” one of the men said, his voice low and vicious. It was coming from somewhere behind my head, but when I tried to look, black spots danced in my vision.
A wet noise followed his question, and then a moan so quiet that I nearly missed it.
“Let’s go. He’s not here,” another voice said.
“I fuckin’ saw him.”
“Well, he’s not here now. Come on. We get caught here, we’re fucked.”
“We come back without the kid, we’re equally as fucked.”
“He said no collateral damage, man.” There was a long pause. “We’re already fucked.”
It took every bit of willpower I had to close my one good eye as footsteps moved in my direction. My heartbeat thundered in my ears as they passed me, not even pausing as they let themselves back out the sliding glass door in the kitchen.
Once they were gone, I opened my eye again, blinking over and over to try to see past the haze of red that covered it.
When I tried to call for Finn or Dylan, I couldn’t get my mouth to open, and the sound came out like a garbled groan.
Trying to ignore the way my head spun, I rolled to my side and then onto my belly, forcing my arms and legs underneath me so I could crawl toward the living room, following a wet clicking sound to its source.
Where the coffee table had been before it was smashed to pieces, the plush tan carpet was stained red, and in the center of it, Dylan was lying on his back.
“Dyl,” I called, the word barely a whisper. I gagged on the blood that was running down my throat and crawled toward him, pain making him float in and out of focus.
When I reached his head, panic beat at the base of my throat.
His eyes were on mine, but his mouth was opening and closing as he wheezed and choked on the blood that was pooling in his mouth.
I lifted my head to look at the rest of him, and nearly fell when I realized that his hands were fisted in his shirt, pushing against some kind of wounds that were bleeding everywhere.
“Phone,” I mumbled, shaking as I looked around the floor.
There had to be one somewhere. Mine had been in my pocket, but it wasn’t there anymore. Dylan was always holding his. I searched frantically, gasping shallowly. With every breath, my chest felt like it was being ripped in half.
Finally, I found Dylan’s phone halfway under his side of the couch only because there was a notification that lit up the screen. I pulled it to me and tried to focus on the screen, but it was impossible.
When the dispatcher’s voice finally came through, my eye filled with tears.
“Help,” I said, the word coming out unrecognizable. “I need help.”
“Hello?” the dispatcher said. “Say that again, please.”
“I need help,” I moaned as I wrapped my hand around the phone and army crawled back to Dylan’s side. “Help me.”
“Tell me your address, please. I need to know where you are.”
“Help me,” I moaned as Dylan’s breathing seemed to slow.
“I can’t understand you,” the dispatcher said calmly. “Can you please speak up and tell me where you are?”
Tears of frustration ran down my face as I dropped the phone and reached for Dylan’s hand.
Then I did the only thing I could.
I screamed until the breath left my lungs, and the pain in my chest was so overwhelming that I started to lose consciousness again.
My last thought before the darkness took me under was that at least they hadn’t gotten Finn.