Chapter 26
The bar feels alive in a way that makes my skin hum.
Neon light splashes across the walls in feverish pink and electric blue, catching on the cracked vinyl stools and sticky tabletops like a bad dream dressed up pretty.
The jukebox sputters out old country songs that don’t quite match the rhythm of the crowd, but no one cares.
Jackson is a one-man circus at the bar, dragging strangers into his orbit with wild stories, reckless laughter, and a shameless grin that could sell sin to a preacher.
Lee’s the opposite. He’s steady, sharp-eyed, tucked into a corner booth with a beer in hand, watching the chaos with that quiet smirk that makes it seem like nothing surprises him.
We’re overdressed, but it doesn’t matter. Everyone in here is too drunk to care. For the first time in forever, I feel… normal. Free. Like maybe I’ve slipped into someone else’s life for a night.
Jackson spins me on the dance floor until the room blurs, my heels nearly giving out.
I laugh so hard it feels foreign in my own throat—like the sound is coming from someone braver, lighter.
Lee shakes his head when we stagger back toward him, but I catch the faint curve of a smile tugging at his mouth, like he’s letting himself enjoy watching for once.
After another round, the high starts to thin. My chest aches with too much air, too much laughter, and the walls seem to pulse and come alive.
“I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” I tell them, slipping away before Jackson can pull me into another song. He calls after me, but the music swallows the words.
The bathroom is a different world. Dim, claustrophobic, the mirror streaked and cracked down one side like a spider web.
The air reeks of bleach over something sour and old beer.
The tiles under my heels are grimy, gritty.
I turn the faucet, run cool water over my wrists, trying to calm the heat in my face.
My pulse still thrums from dancing. For a moment, it works.
My reflection steadies. My lips part for a deep breath.
Then a sound pricks through the buzz of neon.
The scrape of a shoe.
A shift of air that doesn’t belong.
I freeze, my hands still dripping over the sink. The bathroom door is closed. No one answered it opening. My skin crawls.
I barely turn before a hard weight slams into me. My back smashes against the tiled wall with a crack that rattles my teeth. The edge of the sink digs into my hip. A hand clamps over my mouth, palm rough and smelling of sweat and cigarettes, cutting off sound and air in one brutal press.
“Stay quiet or I’ll cut your tongue out.”
The words are hot and venomous against my ear, slurred but purposeful.
Panic sears through me like electricity.
My body jerks before my mind can catch up, fists pounding at his chest, but he’s solid.
Too solid. His forearm crushes across my collarbone, pinning me so hard I can’t draw a full breath.
My vision wavers, black edging in at the corners.
His breath is sour, wet against my temple.
I catch a glimpse of a face, scruffy jaw, eyes glassy and bloodshot, but it’s already fading as fear narrows my vision.
“I’ve got a good payday coming if I get rid of you, sweetie,” he whispers in my ear, hot breath thick against my skin causing bile to rise in the back of my throat. “But they didn’t say I couldn’t have a little fun first. No one said you was a looker.”
I thrash harder at his sick words, nails scraping at his arm, desperate when—
“Peyton?” Jackson’s voice cuts through the muffled rush of blood in my ears. He’s outside. “You okay in there?”
The pressure eases for a heartbeat. My attacker freezes, his breath hot and ragged against my cheek. He smells like stale whiskey and chemicals. His grip trembles.
“Fucking Shaw’s,” he hisses, so low I barely hear it.
“I swear she hasn’t come back out,” Lee’s voice follows, closer now, steadier.
The man curses low under his breath. For a moment I think he’s going to tighten his hold, drag me somewhere worse. Instead, he bolts. He rips his hand away, shoves off me, and barrels through the door as it swings open.
Jackson’s shoulder slams it wide, his face flushed from running, his eyes darkening when he sees me slumped against the sink, black tears running down my cheeks. “Holy shit—Peyton?” His hands hover like he’s afraid I’ll shatter.
Lee’s gaze sweeps the empty stalls, the door still swaying on the opposite side from where the man fled. His jaw flexes once before he crouches in front of me, steady and calm. “You hurt?”
I shake my head, though I’m not sure it’s true. My lungs burn, my lips ache where they were crushed beneath the man’s palm, and my legs tremble like they don’t belong to me. The world feels tilted. Too bright, too loud, but muffled at the same time.
I’m still here. And whoever he was, he’s gone.
The bathroom feels colder now. The neon buzz bleeding in from the bar like nothing happened. Like the music never stopped. But something did. Something shifted. I can’t unfeel the press of that hand, the whisper of that voice telling me to stay quiet.
Someone had called the cops Which Jackson wasn’t all too happy about for some reason.
Wouldn’t he want them to take my statement?
Gather evidence? Look at security footage, if there is any?
Not that I saw much and from what I can tell, whoever attacked me wore a mask and gloves, but at least there would be a record.
When the cops do show up, they talk to Jackson as if he’s their boss and not some twenty-five-year-old kid from one of the town’s richer families.
The entire interaction is strange, and the sudden dark turn to our fun night out leaves me staggering.
My knuckles are white where I my clutch tightly, my breath shuddering in and out. Jackson hovers nervously as we wait, bouncing on his heels like he doesn’t know whether to crack a joke or cover me in bubble wrap. Lee’s steadier, his palm firm between my shoulder blades, grounding me without words.
And then the air shifts.
It’s a shift that tells me a storm is rolling in.
“What the fuck did you three think you were doing?”
Colter’s voice is a growl, low and lethal. The doorway fills with him, broad shoulder, sharp fury, eyes like a wolf scenting blood. The pulse that had barely started to slow in my throat spikes all over again, but for a different reason entirely.
Try as I might to deny it, angry Colter is fucking hot.
Jackson straightens like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “We were just—”
“Just what?” Colter cuts him off, stalking forward until the space feels too small for all of us. “Dragging her into a goddamn dive bar full of drunks and lowlifes? Jesus Christ, Jackson, do you think this a fucking game?”
Jackson bristles, but Lee slides in smoothly, his voice calm. “She wanted out. Away from the party. We weren’t going to leave her there.”
“She’s not your responsibility,” Colter snaps, the words sharp enough to draw blood. His gaze locks on me, pinning me harder than the man in this bathroom did. “She’s mine.”
The word crackles in the air, hot and raw. My lips part, but nothing comes out. I hate the way my body reacts to him. The way my chest pulls tighter, the way the truth in his voice rattles through me, even when I want to deny it.
Jackson tries again, shoving his hands in his pockets. “She was laughing. Having fun for the first time in—hell, I don’t even know how long. We weren’t hurting anybody.”
Colter’s laugh is short, humorless. “Fun? You call this fun?” He gestures at the cracked tiles, the buzzing fluorescent light above our heads, the fact that I’m still trembling against the sink. “She could’ve been killed. Do you get that?”
Lee’s eyes sharpen. “Do you not trust us?”
Colter ignores the question. His attention doesn’t leave me, not once. He steps closer, so close I tilt my chin to meet his eyes. “Tell me what happened, Peyton.”
My throat tightens. The memory of that hand, that whisper, shivers across my skin. For a second, the words stick like glue, but Colter doesn’t move. He waits. Demands. His body vibrating with a violence that says whoever touched me is already a dead man walking.
I finally find my voice. “Someone was in here. He—he grabbed me. Then he ran when he heard Jackson and Lee.” I know I’m not telling him everything, but I can’t. Not yet.
The storm in Colter’s face goes nuclear. His jaw flexes, his fists clench, and for a terrifying moment, I think he might punch through the car’s window to bleed off the rage coursing through him.
“Get out of here,” he bites out at his brother and Lee without taking his eyes off me. “Now.”
The two scurry away without being told twice, their eyes conveying a deep apology that I know they’ll voice to me later.
If there is a later.
The way Colter is staring at me right now makes it seem as if there won’t be anything left of me to apologize to once he’s through with me.
Without saying a word, he leads me to where his truck is parked, still running, and helps me into the passenger seat, making sure my dress doesn’t get caught up in the door.
The ride back is a blur of headlights and silence, but when the truck turns down a long stretch of gravel road that veers away from the main house, my stomach knots.
I’d always assumed Colter lived with his father.
That men like him never left the nest, not really.
But the truck rolls to a stop in front of a house I’ve never seen before.
And not any house.
It rises out of the darkness like something from a magazine spread.
Big, but not in the cold sprawling way of my father’s estate.
This place has weight and presence with logs and stone stacked tight against the night, a wide porch wrapping around it.
Warm light spills from the wall windows, cutting across the gravel drive, inviting and intimidating all at once.
My chest tightens. This isn’t any house.