2. Briggs
2
brIGGS
T he symbol of everything fucked up in my life can try all she wants to escape, but it’s no use. She’s going to figure that out before long.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I ask once we’re out of the classroom. What, she thought she could get rid of me? She doesn’t know me very well. But she will.
The worst part is the way she pretends not to hear me. Just like she pretended not to care when I stared at her through class. I barely have the first fucking clue what Professor Morgan said, and frankly, I don’t give a shit. I couldn’t when she was sitting there, practically stinking up the room. She might as well be wearing a sign saying I don’t belong here.
“I’m talking to you.” I quicken my pace to catch up with her. Grabbing her wrist, I tug her back and spin her around. The sound of her dismayed little groan when I cage her against the cold, brick wall is like a drug. It lights up all the parts of me that are cold and dark, parts of me that might as well have died the day my mother decided to swallow a bottle of pills.
Because of the filthy, disgusting slut who birthed the trembling little nothing in front of me. Just the thought of what this girl’s bitch of a mother did to my family makes me see red. Blood rushes in my ears. My heart’s slamming against my ribs. I want to hurt her. Nothing else will satisfy me.
“What do you want?” She’s staring at my chest, gritting her teeth. Is she frustrated? Poor baby. She has no fucking right to be.
“You don’t leave until I say you can leave,” I growl, leaning down so my breath hits her face. “I call the shots around here. Got it?”
I’ve been through this so many times. Little Wren is not the first person who ever needed to be taught the rules.
But she is the first person who hasn’t shown me their fear. There’s no shaking, no trembling, no gasping for air or anything like that. The way it usually is whenever somebody crosses me. Most people know better by now, but there’s always somebody who thinks they can get away with shit. It happens. People forget, or they get lazy, or they think the rules don’t apply to them. It doesn’t usually take much to set them straight. Except for this tiny thing I could snap in half without breaking a sweat.
“Here’s how it’s going to be.” I press her body against the wall with mine, pinning her, almost squeezing the air out of her. “This project? You better know you’re doing all the work.”
“But—” Her jaw tightens when she cuts herself off.
“You’re doing the work,” I repeat, “and we’re getting an A. Do you hear me? Nothing less than an A, unless you feel like facing punishment.”
Her tiny shiver is like gasoline being poured on a fire. It heats me from head to toe, and I can’t help but touch her hair, just to remind her how powerless she is. Winding a soft strand around my finger, I savor the way she freezes and holds her breath. “I can give you a preview of what that will mean, if you want?”
Her nostrils flare when she tries to take a deep breath and fails. “Whatever. Can I go now?”
What the fuck is this? I can’t get a read on her. What’s it going to take to break her? I tug the strand around my finger until she grits her teeth. “I don’t like your attitude. Keep this shit up, and I’m going to have to punish you.”
That’s when she surprises me the most. She lifts her head and stares straight up at me. I can almost feel the heat burning in those light blue eyes, and I don’t hate it. No, if anything, it gets me excited. It makes my heart pound in a way that has nothing to do with hating her and her mother. “You know what?” she mutters. “You can fuck off, Briggs.”
It has to be the shock that makes it so easy for her to get past me. She shoves her palms against my chest and ducks under the arm I threw up to bar the way, but she’s not fast enough. My fingers close around her arm and tighten until she sucks in a sharp breath.
I pull her towards me, my face inches from her ear. “You are so lucky I have more important things to do than punish you right now. Just don’t think this is over.”
Still, I can’t let it go without shoving her hard enough to make her trip over her feet. Somehow, she manages to keep her balance instead of falling the way I hoped she would.
Because nothing about her is the way I hoped. My mind is racing and I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel the way my dick twitches. It senses a challenge. What would it be like to have her wrapped around me, to make her shatter? To show her who holds all the power?
All I can do is stand back and watch her haul ass down the hall. She practically throws herself through the front doors—now she can’t hide how afraid she was, since she wouldn’t be running like there’s a fire in the building unless she was scared out of her mind. There’s something about it that makes the hair on my arms stand on end.
When was the last time I felt this… alive? Like all of a sudden, everything that was foggy and dark is crystal clear. Like I have a reason to look forward to coming to class. I’m not just going through the motions, the way I’ve been doing since my family fell apart. For once, there’s something more than the promise of weed and booze once I get home to sustain me. For once, I don’t want to be numb. I can almost remember what it felt like to be a normal person.
My feet carry me after her without me giving it any thought. I’m already through the doors and out in the bright sunshine when a familiar voice stops me in my tracks. “Damn, that ended quicker than I thought it would.”
I’m almost irritated to find Carter standing nearby, like he was waiting for me. Before I have the chance to ask what the hell he’s talking about, he jerks a thumb in the direction of the girl who just escaped me. I’ve never known anyone with hair as long as hers, a chocolate waterfall hanging all the way down to her ass. So much hair for me to wrap around my fist and hold her head in place. It would be so easy to make those baby blues pop open wide in fear and understanding.
I almost resent Carter for breaking into the fantasy that started building in my head. But really, it’s not like I was going to chase her. For one thing, I don’t want anybody on campus thinking I would chase someone like her. I don’t want them thinking I want to spend time with her. They wouldn’t understand what exists between us.
“She’s going to piss her pants.” Carter chuckles, nudging me. “If I were you, I would make it my mission to make her life hell.”
The venom running through his words leaks into my bloodstream; not that I needed any help hating her.
“I’m going to,” I tell him, and he laughs. “We’re partners on this project for class. She’s going to find out really soon that I have standards she needs to meet. And if she doesn’t…”
“I should sell tickets.” He laughs. “The whole school would watch. Fuck, maybe the whole town. What the fuck does she think she’s doing, going to school with us? She shouldn’t breathe the same air as we do.” He’s my best friend, which has to be why he sounds ready to kill her. It’s for my sake. He knows the damage that’s been done, knows what it did to me.
Carter Wilder has been my best friend since I can remember. His father Paul is the Chief of Police in Wicked Falls and one of the five founding families.
The thought of damage is what makes me check my phone. I’m not the only one who was damaged. “Fuck,” I groan when I realize how late it is. “I’ve gotta go.”
“Talk later,” he calls out behind me, but I’m in too much of a hurry to reply. Fuck me. Another reason to hate Wren Delaney. If anything goes wrong because she distracted me from what I needed to do, she’s going to regret ever being born.
I have to curse myself as I slide behind the wheel of my truck and pull out of the parking lot with the tires squealing. A horn blares behind me when I cut off another car as I turn onto the road. Any other time I might flip them off or at least show my face so they’d know who they made the mistake of honking at, but I don’t have the time. Some things are more important.
Please, let me get there in time. She can’t go home alone today. I won’t let her. There’s a reason I scheduled my classes around the time my little sister gets off the school bus. There is no way to predict what kind of mood Dad’s going to be in from one day to the next. Hell, from one hour to the next.
The past couple of days, he’s been worse than usual. Sort of like a volcano before it erupts. There’s an unsettled time beforehand. Little earthquakes, warnings. He’s been having those, and I think I know why. I’ve heard him talking with a couple of his guys about a meeting that’s supposed to be happening soon with the other four families that rule Wicked Falls. He’s stressed, hoping this is when he’ll get a bigger cut of the town instead of running the smallest, least important section. While the rest of the five families not only have bigger territory they also have important positions in the community. My dad simply has properties he is in charge of. It's plenty lucrative to have us live in a huge house and never want for anything, but that was never enough for my dad.
Slamming the heel of my hand against the horn, I swerve to get around an asshole who decided all of a sudden they want to turn in front of me. “Fuck off!” the dude shouts, but I can’t worry about that right now. The bus is supposed to show up any minute. I’m racing the clock.
By the time I pull in, a few spots down from the corner, her bus is sliding into view up ahead. I fall back against the seat and release a deep breath, a little sweaty around the collar of my T-shirt. Kids start pouring off the bus, but I take these few seconds to get myself under control. I don’t want Tia seeing me like this.
As always, the sight of her bouncing down the steps and talking a mile a minute to her friends makes my heart swell. She’s getting so damn big. I don’t know how long I’m going to be able to protect her from life. I only know I want to. She deserves to be innocent as long as possible.
When she doesn’t notice me, I tap the horn to get her attention. Just when I thought my heart couldn’t swell up anymore. She breaks out a big, toothy smile, and I have to smile back. The kid has no idea how she saves my life sometimes.
“Hey, nugget,” I call out as she comes my way. “Did you have a good day?”
“How come you always call me that?” She rolls her eyes all dramatically before climbing in. I wait until she buckles her seatbelt before pulling out. “Try eating something besides chicken nuggets all the time, and I’ll call you something else.”
“Like what? Spaghetti?” She rolls her eyes again, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
“How was your day?” I ask. If she thinks there’s anything weird about me picking her up from the bus stop, she doesn’t show it. She never has. It could be she’s just glad to have somebody looking out for her. God knows our father can’t be bothered.
“Fine, I guess.” She stares out the window next to her without saying anything else.
“You think you’re going to like your teacher?” When she looks at me in the rearview mirror, I shrug. “That’s what I was always worried about when I started a new year at school. If I was gonna like the teacher or not.”
“She’s okay. I think it’ll be fine. I have lots of forms that have to be signed.” She looks out the window again, biting her lip, and it’s not fair. A kid her age shouldn’t have to worry about shit like that. Not wanting to approach her own father to have him sign her forms at the beginning of the year. That was the kind of thing Mom would do back in the day.
“I’ll get it figured out. Don’t worry.” Even if it means forging his signature. The less I have to talk to him, the happier we all are.
At least she seems happier by the time we get home. It’s the biggest house on this side of town, for sure, but it’s nothing compared to what the other families live in. Our mansion is more the size of a captain’s or close advisor’s. Another little insult Dad deals with every day.
Some people get welcomed at the door when they come home from school. Not us. Instead, the sound of shattering glass greets us when we step into the tiled hall, followed by a scream that could come from a rabid animal. “Motherfucker! Who the fuck do they think they’re dealing with? Who the fuck do they think they are?”
Dammit. Why does he have to be this way when she gets home from school? Who the hell would want to come home to this? It was bad enough when Mom was alive—and now I understand how much she went through, hiding everything she could from me when I was Tia’s age. How sometimes, when she would be breathless and laugh a little too loud or get a little overexcited over going swimming out back, she was really trying to cover up for him by distracting me. Because that’s exactly what I want to do now, for my sister’s sake.
Her little hand finds mine and squeezes tight. The lava bubbling in my chest cools and hardens a little, but not by much. I can’t be angry in front of her. The kid needs to have at least one person in her life who doesn’t lose his shit in a drunken rage.
“Who the fuck do they think I am? Have they forgotten?” Something else crashes in the living room. I’m torn between wanting to see what he’s doing and wanting to keep Tia safe. Really, there isn’t much of a decision to be made. He’s on the phone, shouting and snarling and most likely drunk by now. The way he slurs confirms this for me, and it makes me sick. Of all the times for him to get his shit together, if only for Tia’s sake, but he couldn’t be bothered.
“They had a meeting without me? They fucking made sure I knew it was happening, then they didn’t invite me?” I cringe when he lets out a roar. “I’m sick of this shit, I’m telling you! How much longer do they think I’m going to put up with this? How much more am I supposed to take?”
“Briggs?” It’s Tia’s worried whisper that pulls me back into myself and tells me what I need to do.
“Come with me.” I put her on my left-hand side with an arm around her shoulders, keeping her close to me. The vaulted archway leading into the living room is on my right. He doesn’t even notice us, just continues storming around the room, his shoes crunching broken glass. Whatever he was drinking is now splashed across one wall, dripping down the silk wallpaper Mom used to love.
I get Tia to the bottom of the stairs before letting her go, giving her a gentle push. “Go straight up to your room,” I tell her, “and lock the door. Don’t come out until I tell you to. Got it?” She gives me a wide-eyed nod before taking off at a run, her feet pounding the stairs while Dad screams out his frustration and his rage.
All I can do is sink onto the stairs, settling in with my arms folded over my knees while the storm rages on.