32. Briggs
32
brIGGS
I t’s instantaneous, the way my whole body responds to the sight of a familiar car in front of the house.
A storm explodes inside my skull. He’s not supposed to be here. What is he doing here? When did he show up? The truck is barely in park by the time I jump out of it. Wren didn’t call or text to give me the heads up. Maybe he just got here.
Maybe he didn’t give her the chance.
Somehow, that feels true. I can believe that. It’s what makes me fly up the front steps and through the front door. Dead quiet greets me as I stand in the entry hall. My stomach sinks a little further with every silent second that passes. “Wren?” I finally call out, walking to the stairs, looking up. “Where are you?”
She doesn’t answer me, but I hear her, anyway. The scream that cuts through the air makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I’m running before I can think about it, racing for the basement door. That’s where she is—where he is, and now I hear him snarling and cursing at her.
I’m going to kill him.
“Stop! Please!” Wren’s cries are muffled by the blood rushing in my ears and my feet pounding the stairs. She’s dragging herself to the corner, barely able to crawl, her arms and elbows all scraped up. I take it all in at once, but finally, my attention lands on the swaying, threatening form of my father standing over her, his fist pulled back like he’s ready to land another punch.
“You, fucker!” I should’ve done this a long time ago. With my hand on his collar, I yank back hard enough to knock him off balance. He stumbles backward and lands on his ass, sputtering and cursing, his face red, sweat beading at his temples, his eyes wide and wild. “How dare you?” he bellows, but that’s all he’s able to get out before a kick to his stomach knocks the wind out of him. He doubles over, curling in a ball, groaning in pain.
It’s not enough pain. It’s not even close to enough. This motherfucker. He ruined all of our lives, his included, but God forbid he ever take responsibility for that. No, he consoles himself by punishing everybody else. Including this girl in front of him who never hurt a single soul.
All of that and more races through my head as I drop to one knee and haul him up by his collar again. There’s a second where our eyes meet—I want him to know exactly why I’m doing this. I need him to see how much I loathe him and how much fun I’m going to have doing this. There is nothing like the satisfaction of finally landing a blow against his jaw. The rush that comes over me is addictive, and I’m laughing by the time I punch him again, putting all my force behind it, all the pain, missing Mom, holding Tia while she cried, hiding her from the worst of his rages. All of it and so much more flows through me as I begin systematically beating the ever-loving shit out of him. My fist will hurt later, but right now, there’s nothing but joy racing through me as every blow draws blood, makes him groan pitifully.
It’s still not enough. “I should fucking kill you!” I scream, my face close enough to his that my spit hits his skin. “How dare you touch her?” It’s so satisfying, the sound his head makes when I slam it against the concrete floor.
“No! You’re killing him!” Even now, Wren finds the strength to make me stop. Not that I care if I killed him, but I care about what it would do to Tia. And I wouldn’t want Wren to witness it, either. Reality seeps back into my rage-fueled thoughts and calms me enough that I can see what a mistake it would be to continue.
He groans and rolls to the side once I’ve let him go, covering his head with his folded arms, sipping air carefully like he is in a fuck-ton of pain. Still not enough, but if I start again, I won’t be able to stop.
There are things that matter more. Like checking her out, making a list of what he did. Her bottom lip is split, swelling so much she can’t speak clearly. The blood dripping onto her chin is ugly, but not nearly as ugly as her left eye now that it’s turned purple and started to swell shut.
“I’m okay,” she whispers, taking my hands, holding them still when I try to touch her face. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I should’ve guessed this would happen. I’m so fucking sorry.”
“You couldn’t have. You didn’t know.”
“Come on.” I can’t stand to listen to him fighting to breathe and whimper in pain another second. “Let’s get you out of here. Get you cleaned up.”
Only when she tries to stand, a tiny, animal whimper stirs in her throat, and she sucks in a pained breath through her clenched teeth. “I can’t,” she finally whispers, shaking her head, lowering herself to the bottom step. “It hurts too much.”
“What hurts?” That’s it. I’m going to have to kill him now. Fuck the consequences.
“My ribs. He kicked me.” She’s shaking from the pain, and he has absolutely no reason to breathe another second.
It’s what she says next that stops me dead. Lifting her head slowly, she manages to force the words out. “It was him. He did it.”
“Did what?”
“The notes.” She takes a thin, shaky breath. “He told me. It was him.”
The rage that was already roaring in my head explodes into something that goes deeper than violence. It’s betrayal, it’s disgust, it’s even disappointment that I have to be related to this heartless, gutless piece of shit still curled in a tight ball on the floor.
There are better ways to take out the trash. “You’re sure about this?” I ask, pulling my phone from my pocket so I can update Paul Wilder. Her head bobs up and down while a tear trickles from between her swollen eyelids.
Once Paul answers, I announce, “Looks like we found the person responsible for those death threats.” I nudge my father’s back with my foot, and he flinches, groaning. “It was my dad. He told her so.”
Glancing her way makes something squeeze my heart so tight, I’m sure it’s going to pop. “While he was beating the shit out of her in the basement. I should’ve been here. I shouldn’t have?—”
“Don’t do that,” Paul warns. He’s flat, professional, and I appreciate that. There’s a job to be done now. “Take her to the hospital, get her checked out.”
“What about him?”
“Don’t you worry about him. I’ll take care of it.” The way he says it makes my lips pull back from my teeth in a satisfied smile. I only wish I could be around to watch him face his punishment.
But Paul’s right. Wren is what matters now. “I’m taking you to the hospital,” I murmur, sliding one arm under her knees and wrapping the other one around her upper back, under her arms. “I’m going to pick you up, and I’m going to carry you to the truck. I’ll try to be as careful as I can.”
“I don’t need—” A squeak of pain cuts short her weak, useless protests once I lift her off the stairs. Right. She doesn’t need to go to the hospital. That’s believable.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her more than once while helping her into the truck, setting her down as gently as possible, easing the seatbelt over and around her while she struggles to take one pained breath after another. I bet she’s got broken ribs, plenty of them.
It’s almost too tempting, the idea of heading back down to the basement and finishing what I started, but somehow, I manage to stay on task by going upstairs instead of down. Tia is in her room, and she asks no questions once I tell her to put her shoes on. “We need to make a little trip,” I explain. There’s only so much I can hide from her—she’s going to see the blood. She’s going to hear Wren trying to hide the pain.
I did my best. He is the one to blame for my sister’s innocence being lost.
He is the one to blame for a lot of things.
“We want to keep her overnight for observation.” Dr. Scott glances into the room where Wren now rests in bed. If he wasn’t one of the five families, he surely wouldn’t give me any of Wren’s medical information, but lucky for me he is one of us and has been informed about the situation.
Tia is reading aloud from one of the books she brought along with her to keep herself occupied. Every once in a while, something that passes for a smile touches the corners of Wren’s swollen mouth.
“You think she’s got something seriously wrong with her?” I can’t stand the idea. What am I going to do if something happens to her?
“No, nothing like that. We only want to be sure, since she did hit her head while falling down the stairs. Otherwise, she does have several broken ribs, but her lungs are fine. It’ll hurt to breathe for a little while, but she’ll heal up quickly, as young as she is. There are contusions. Her knees and elbows are a little torn up, but it’s superficial enough that we are confident she can go home tomorrow, barring any surprises.”
Thanking him, I lean against the wall outside the room and release a shuddering breath. Now that the adrenaline rush has passed, and I can actually think again, I’m kind of amazed nobody thought to ask whether I’m the one who put her in that bed. That would be my first thought if I was at a hospital and saw a guy carrying a girl in who’d had her ass kicked. The doctors and nurses wanted to see her alone at first, and I’m guessing they asked her those personal questions at the time. She must have convinced them I had nothing to do with it.
My whole body tenses when I feel the buzzing in my pocket from my phone. We’ve been here at the hospital for a few hours, waiting for x-rays and CAT scans and all that, but the whole time, I’ve been waiting for a phone call. Confirmation that my father is no longer going to be an issue.
Which is why ice forms in my veins when I get the news. “He was gone when we got there.” Paul mutters some choice profanities under his breath while I close my eyes and fight for air. I should have ended him. The fucking coward. Running from the consequences of his actions yet again.
“He can’t have gotten far,” I decide, though I don’t believe myself. Not really. It’s what I need to force myself to believe. “I kicked the shit out of him. He might be dead right now if Wren hadn’t stopped me.”
“Trust me when I tell you he will be found. There are a lot of bodies out there hunting for him. It won’t be long.”
I want to believe that. I have to.
One thing is for sure, in the middle of so much uncertainty: I’m not leaving Wren alone. She won’t go through this by herself. It means I have to keep Tia occupied—walks up and down the hall, a couple of visits to the cafeteria, full control over the TV. Finally, by the time the sky is fully dark, she’s fast asleep on the pullout sofa in the corner.
That leaves Wren and me on our own, sort of. We don’t have to speak in code when she’s asleep. I’m in a recliner next to the bed, facing the TV like Wren is, watching an old comedy but not paying attention to a word of it. Remembering the satisfaction of hurting him. Remembering every drop of blood I spilled.
“What’s going to happen now?” she whispers, turning her face toward me while I do the same so I can look at her. She is still so beautiful under all that bruising.
“What do you mean?” Reaching out, I close a hand over hers, careful not to mess with the IV tubes pumping her full of saline and pain meds.
“What happens now? We know who was threatening me. I guess I should move back to the dorm? Although…” Her voice trails off like she’s unsure of herself or doesn’t want to say what’s on her mind.
“Not until they find him.” And even then, I don’t know if I’d be able to let her out of my sight for too long. I don’t ever want to feel what I felt when I reached that basement and saw what he was doing to her, what he could easily do because I wasn’t there to stop him. That sort of soul-crushing, nauseating helplessness and guilt.
“But he could come back to the house, right?” There’s panic at the edge of her words and all I want is to take it all away.
“I already called a locksmith earlier, when Tia was having her dinner,” I explain. “Dad won’t be able to get back in the house because his key won’t work. I’m also having a security system installed. We’ll know if he decides to come back.”
Stroking her fingers, I add, “I doubt he will. Because I think he knows next time, I won’t stop until his breathing stops.”
“Then I really hope he never comes back, because I don’t want to see you put yourself in that position.” Even now, she’s worried about me. She has every right to want him dead and buried, but she cares more about what it would do to me.
“I’ll be just fine,” I tell her with a grin. It seems to help a little. There’s not so much concern written across her creased forehead. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I am worried about you.” Her voice shakes a little, but she pushes through. “What is happening now? With us? I’m worried about you. I’m worried you’re going to change your mind on me all of a sudden. I don’t know how to feel or what to think or anything. What are we doing?”
That’s not so easy to answer, but I guess she knows that. She doesn’t look away, like she’s silently forcing me to answer.
I knew this had to be coming eventually. Of course, she would want to know. I wish I knew what to say. “Can I get back to you later?”
She snickers softly, but never breaks eye contact. “Seriously. We went from you hurting me and torturing me to whatever this is. What is this?”
I have to choose my words carefully. Not only because I don’t want to hurt her. She deserves honesty after everything she’s been through—because of me and other people. “Right. I went from hating you to… I’m not sure,” I admit. “I don’t know what to call it. I know I want to protect you. I know I would’ve killed that bastard today if you hadn’t stopped me. And I did stop, and not just for Tia, but for you. I didn’t want you to see it happen. You’ve already seen too much. I’m so sorry it went that far, and I’m not just sorry for what my father did. I’m sorry for what I did to you, how I treated you and what I made you do. I was punishing you for something that wasn’t your fault and I’m so sorry for that.”
“Well, thank you for that.”
But it’s not enough. I can tell. She sounds disappointed. “All I’m asking is that you trust me now. I can’t promise I’ll be able to give you everything you want or need, but I swear I will never hurt you again and I’ll do anything I can to keep you safe, no matter what happens between us in the future.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means… if you’re looking for love, I don’t know if I have any to give. Not just to you. It’s not easy for me. But I can tell you one thing for sure. I’m not letting you go,” I warn as my grip tightens around her hand. “You’re stuck with me from now on.”
Weeks ago, she would have made a smartass comment or at least scoffed at my choice of words.
Not now. Now, she smiles.