Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Trey
Snuff – Slipknot
“Mac, honestly… I blame you,” Chace says, dead calm, like he’s the one suffering as I walk into the apartment, the elevator announcing my arrival.
Mac’s curled against Logan on the couch, “I accept zero responsibility for your terrible cooking habits.”
Logan’s smiling, quiet, watching them go back and forth like he’s been waiting for this.
“How can you say that? It’s science.” Chace waves a hand, like the word itself settles it. “Higher heat, less cooking time. No need to leave it for ages to prove. Simple. Logan, get your woman in line. She’s arguing with me about science, bro.”
I can see by the flare of Mac’s nostrils that she’s about to blow.
“Fuck right off with that shit. Baking is part science, sure, but it’s also art. Instinct.” She elbows Logan. “Right, baby?”
His smirk falters for half a second as he glances between them, but he still gives her what she wants. “You’re right, angel.”
“See? Baby’s got my back.” She squeezes him, hard enough that he grunts.
“Urgh, baby, still got shot…”
“Shit—sorry.” She squeaks, pulling her hands back like she’s been burned.
Not that it lasts. She’s been constantly pawing at him since he came home from the hospital a week ago, like she can’t believe he’s still here.
Can’t say I blame her, but it’s kind of hilarious watching her try not to break him while also refusing to let him breathe.
The air feels lighter for a moment, warm.
“What’s on the menu?” I say, pulling off my hoodie and dropping onto the couch.
“I got something perfect for your mouth right here!” Chace grins, standing in the kitchen, the double entendre is not given a chance to linger before he prances proudly over to me.
His apron’s dusted in flour; big white handprints smeared across it.
Crumbs and soot sprinkle the black slate flooring, proof of his so-called masterpiece.
“Oh, honey, say less.” I stick out my tongue as he holds out a piece of something that looks like a fossilized pastry. I take it between my teeth, the edge crumbling like charcoal. “Chace.”
“Good, right?”
“Did you… go off script and infuse it with charcoal?”
“No. Why?”
“Because it—” I bite down and instantly regret every life choice that led me here. My molar protests with a sharp jolt of pain. “Because this should be used in construction material, or defensive measures. What the fuck.”
“Ah… swallow! You won’t get the full taste otherwise.” Chace says, way too entertained.
I don’t actually want to… but I kind of have to now.
“Of course, Momma didn’t raise no bitch,” I mutter, choking it down. It scrapes like sandpaper all the way into my gut. Good news, though—I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that charcoal’s good for digestion. Or was that for dogs? Eh. Same thing.
Of course, even while I’m joking, the word “Momma” hits a bruise inside me.
“I didn’t realize I had been missing you two and your domestic bliss scene… So, when are you two going to couple up already?” Logan’s voice cuts through, easy but teasing, like he’s been waiting to drop it.
Chace barks out a laugh. “Even if we were into it, he couldn’t handle all this.
” He whips out his man bun, shakes his golden hair free, and gives us a smolder that belongs on the cover of some trashy romance.
We all lose it—Mac’s cackling, Logan grins despite himself, and even I can’t keep the corner of my mouth from twitching.
“Besides,” Chace adds, eyes sliding to me, “wrong hair color, isn’t that right, Trey?”
I’ve just taken a sip of water and nearly choke, throat seizing. The compulsion to lie burns, protective instinct rising like smoke. “My good man, I have no idea to what it is that you refer.”
Brilliant. Smooth. Real fucking smooth.
“Ah, he’s sounding like an old-timey Brit!” Mac sings, her voice lilting with fake drama. “That means he’s ner-vous.”
“A-and Chace has family obligations, right?” I throw back, desperate to deflect.
Did I just fucking stutter?
“I think you got him rattled with that one, Chace.” Sam groans with a yawn.
“Never gonna happen, my guy. Sorry.” Chace smirks, unbothered.
“In another life?” I ask bemusedly.
“Can I be the top?” Chace asks, I shake my head. “Then not even then!”
“So, your giving weak dick energy, even after I fed you something that contained my blood, sweat and tears, so… what’s up?”
I clap my hands together. There is a hundred ways to get through this, I can joke, deflect, avoid, but no. I should be open and honest, we’ve been through too much to be hiding shit now.
“So, brothers, and sister…I have news.”
I dig the crumpled letter from my jeans and toss it onto the coffee table. It lands with a slap, edges bent, words glaring up at us all.
Sam leans in first, scanning quickly. His jaw tightens. Chace picks it up next, his knuckles whitening around the paper. Mac’s hand curls tighter around Logan’s, her lips parting in quiet shock.
Logan doesn’t move. His voice cuts through the room like a blade.
“Fuck… wait… this is dated…”
“Early release.” The words scrape out of me, raw. “Good behavior, apparently. Guess monsters clean up nice behind bars.”
The silence that follows is suffocating. Heavy. Chace swears under his breath, pacing now, restless energy rolling off him like a storm. Sam sets the paper down with deliberate care, as if handling a bomb.
Logan shifts, grimacing against the pull of his still-healing injuries, but his gaze never leaves me.
I swallow hard. “Three months ago.”
Mac gasps. Even she can’t keep the sound down.
Three months. Ninety days. He’s been out there all this time. Breathing the same air. Walking the same streets. Free.
The words keep spilling before I can stop them.
“It’s not just anger. Or fear. It’s… it’s like I’m seventeen again.
Like every scar under this ink burns fresh.
Like the walls are closing in and I’m back in that house.
He stole everything. My childhood. My mother’s mind.
And now he walks free like none of it ever happened. ”
The confession tears something open in me. I clench my fists against my thighs. I don’t want their pity. Don’t want their soft eyes or whispered comforts.
But they don’t give me that.
“Trey…” Mac says, reaching her hand out. I take it in mine. Quiet strength. No pity in her expression—just a shift to something almost mirthful.
“You’re not some broke, punk seventeen-year-old anymore—full of emotions and covered in scars.
Now you’re a rich, six-foot-three, fucked-up twenty-one-year-old covered in tattoos.
That being said, little brother, Logan and I finally get a year that’s about us.
Think you can bump your daddy issues to next year? ”
“Can’t be next year. I plan on having a meltdown while becoming a mob boss,” Chace objects.
“Year after. I’m dealing with some family stuff,” Sam adds.
“Looks like we can pencil you in after that, okay?” Mac says sweetly.
I freeze for a moment, staring into her mischievous eyes.
“It’s fine. You’re probably going to forget all this anyway!”
“Huh? Sorry, who are you?” she responds.
“Not funny, angel,” Logan grumps.
“Sorry, baby. I’ll make it up to you later.”
“You guys are the fucking worst… I love you, guys.”
“We love you, too.”
“Trey, if you can tell me where you think he is, I can take care of it.”
Sam shakes his head—calm but no less fierce. “You know that’s not the way, Chace. But we’ll protect him. All of us. Even if Trey can be an annoying little shit at times, he’s our little shit.”
“You wouldn’t have me any other way!” I say, walking over to Sam. I signal for him to lean forward, staring intently at his bald head.
“What? What is it?” Sam asks, confused.
“Sam… you are so handsome, man. I think I’m going to take a look online and order some headphones for you. Over-the-ear ones for when you work out.”
“Thanks, why?”
“I was just thinking, if you had a nice shiny chrome set, you’d look identical to my pierced dick.”
The sound rattles loose some of the tension knotted in my chest. It feels wrong, almost—laughing. But maybe it’s the only way I know how to keep standing. If I let the darkness have me for even a second, it’ll drown me whole.
“Keep talking shit, and I am going to put Veet in your shampoo, bro.”
“Don’t worry, Sam, his hair is already receding!” Mac chimes in.
“Logan, put a muzzle on your woman!”
”So… three months and no sign from him, is that a good thing?” Logan asks, ignoring my comment. I just shrug.
“I… I don’t know…”
The truth? It scares me that it’s been quiet. Silence never meant safety when I was a kid. It meant waiting for the storm to break. I don’t know if I can survive another fucking storm.
“Well, whatever happens, you know we got you, so no tail spinning alright?”
“Some tail spinning?” I say with a wry smile.
“Nah, he’s taken enough from you already by the sounds of it man, don’t give him more. Not an inch.” Logan says.
His words land heavier than I want them to. Because part of me knows he’s right. My father’s already inside my head again, taking up space he doesn’t deserve. I hate that I still flinch at the thought of him. Hate that the scars under my tattoos feel raw and new again.
“I agree with Logan, fuck your old man.” There are some mutterings of agreement.
“Fuck him!” I agree, though my heart beats too fast and my palms sweat.
The apartment is dark except for the glow from the security light leaking through the blinds. The hum of the fridge in the kitchen is the only sound. Everyone’s asleep. I should be too.
But I can’t close my eyes without seeing the letter. Without feeling the date stamped on the top like it’s burned into my skull.
Jonathan Baker released. Three months ago.
I stretch out on the couch, arm across my eyes. My chest rises too fast, too shallow. I tell myself to breathe, but the more I think about it, the tighter it gets. My ribs ache like they’re still cracked.
I turn on my side, press my face into the cushion. Tell myself it’s just tonight, just exhaustion, just the shit of everything piling up. But the second my eyes shut—
I’m back there.
It hits before the memory even forms—the rot of spilled beer soaked into carpet, the sour tang of old cigarettes ground into the walls, the stale sweat of a house that never breathes. It fills my lungs so fast I can’t tell if I’m remembering it or drowning in it.
“You worthless little shit.”
His voice slices through the haze, slurred but sharp, a blade dipped in liquor.
Then Mom. God—Mom. Her voice trembling at the edges, already broken. “Jonathan… please… not tonight. Please.”
My body moves before my mind catches up. It always did. The instinct was older than thought—get between them, take the hit, keep him off her. I step into the doorway like stepping into weather I’ve learned how to brace for.
He’s towering. A moving wall of hate. His pupils tiny pins in bloodshot eyes. His shadow eats the room whole.
“You think you can stop me, boy?”
I don’t answer. My jaw clamps until something cracks—bone or resolve, I can never tell.
His fist hits my cheek so hard the world detonates in white. I taste iron instantly. My legs fold but he drags me upright by the collar before I can fall.
The second punch caves into my ribs. A hot flash, sharp and deep, like something tearing inside. My breath leaves in a sound that isn’t quite a cry, isn’t quite anything human.
The next one knocks the wind from my stomach. Acid stings my throat. I choke it back because if I throw up, he’ll call it weakness, and weakness he beats out of me.
Mom screams, but he doesn’t even look at her. She’s background noise to him. Static.
“Stop it! He’s just a boy!”
Her voice cuts me worse than his fists. Because she means it. Because she still hopes. Because I know what comes next when she tries to interfere.
His knuckles split my lip. Blood spills fast, warm, metallic. I spit it onto the carpet, a crimson smear blooming into the filthy fibers. His fingers twist into the front of my shirt and he slams me into the wall so hard the plaster cracks behind me.
“You’ll never be a man,” he snarls into my face, whiskey fumes burning my eyes. “You’ll never be anything.”
I make myself meet his gaze. Even with my vision swimming, even with the room flickering like a dying bulb. I don’t give him the flinch he wants. I can’t stop the shaking, but I can give him silence.
That’s the only piece I ever had to keep.
Then the rage breaks loose. Blow after blow. My shoulder, my ribs, my jaw—each impact a dull, sickening thud that echoes inside my skull. My arms won’t lift to block anymore. My legs stop belonging to me. The pain becomes everything—a single sheet of heat and pressure and shaking bones.
Then, suddenly, it stops.
His fists fall still. His breath rasps like an animal’s. Then he’s gone—boots pounding down the hall, a door slamming hard enough to rattle the pictures on the wall.
Silence.
Mom collapses beside me, hands trembling so badly she can barely touch me. Her palms slide over my face, my chest, terrified she’ll find something broken she can’t fix. Her fingers come away red.
“Oh God… baby, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Her voice cracks. “He was never mine to take… never mine… this is all my fault…”
I want to tell her she’s wrong. That I’d take every hit again if it means he leaves her standing. But my throat won’t work. My lips won’t move. The words get stuck somewhere behind the swelling and the blood.
All I can do is listen to her cry.
The memory dissolves with that sound—the part that always hurts worse than the beating.
I sit up on the couch, gasping like I’ve been held under water. Sweat drenches my shirt, clings to my skin. My heart won’t slow down. My hands are fists, knuckles white, nails digging so deep into my palms they almost break skin.
The room is still. No yelling. No fists. Just the hum of the fridge.
I press my hands over my face, but it doesn’t block it out. I can still feel him. Still smell the whiskey. Still hear mom’s broken voice.
I thought I buried it. Thought leaving that house behind meant leaving him there too.
But he’s out now. Walking free.
I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not the kid who stayed quiet so Mom wouldn’t cry.
But that kid lives in me. He always will.
I lower my hands, stare at the ceiling until my vision blurs. My chest rises and falls too fast.
I tell myself I’m safe. I tell myself he can’t touch me now. But the truth is—
I’m not afraid of what he’ll do to me.
I’m afraid of what he’ll do to the people I love.
Or if I see him first… what I’ll do to him.