“I wish I was getting high on weed,” I mutter out in a groan.
“Ruby!” Grim chastises me, but he shouldn’t. We all know what he does here with the club is far worse than some Mary Jane.
“What, Grim!? You hold me up on this pedestal that I never asked to be on in the first place. You have our entire life and maybe I’m tired of being thrown up in the air like I’m better than you and Axel. Have you ever thought for one minute maybe I’m not? That I’m just like the two of you?”
He shakes his head while his cheeks flush cherry red. “I don’t fuckin’ understand this shit, Rub’. Halloween night you called me up and told me that a friend of yours, Portia, was pullin’ you out to go to a party. You mumbled about her being a pain in your ass but said how you loved her. Now it’s the middle of November and you act like you don’t wanna go back there at all. I don’t understand. How has so much changed in just a few short weeks? What the fuck happened, Rub’, and don’t you dare lie to me!”
I take a deep breath and start to fidget with my hair as I lower myself onto the leather couch in this room. Hopefully it’s been cleaned lately and there isn’t any dried up cum on it, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m only thinking about it right now to distract myself from what I’m about to tell Grim.
He’s picking up on the fact I’m playing with my hair and I know it. It’s a nervous tick I’ve had since I was a little girl.
“Stonewall University isn’t the marvelous place you think it is, Grim. Things go on there, things you think are only figments of your imagination. The type of fictional shit in books. You think it can’t possibly be real, but it is. It’s very real and depending who you associate with and if . . . if they want you . . . your life could belong to them.”
“They? Who is they?!” he hisses, obviously frustrated I’m speaking in riddles.
“The Scorpio Society,” I speak plainly, and he cracks out a laugh. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you. Because you’d think it’s some big freaking joke!” I throw my hands up in the air and realize quickly my shirt has shifted. His eyes expand and I know he’s seen my bruises, the ones on my back. But hopefully Grim doesn’t think those were done by Zorro, because they weren’t. They weren’t at all.
“Tell me more.” His eyes are pleading with me, and I think maybe the sight of my bruises caused him to realize there’s something more going on. Whether it’s a blessing or a curse, I don’t know.
“Look, my point is the school is different. Sure, you have some people who are innocent in it all. They just want to go off and be a corporate broker, or maybe get into the MLB or NFL. Then there are the others. The ones that’ll do whatever they have to do to feel powerful, to feel important. Those are the people who want to join the Society. Grim . . . I’m part of the Society. I didn’t have a choice. It was either accept what they were making me do, or I’d lose my scholarship there. I didn’t have the money to pay for college myself . . . so I didn’t put up a fight. I’m fine. I’m one of the lucky ones . . . but, the Society is so large. There is someone everywhere that has ties to them. I think they want to slowly take over the world and turn it into whatever suits their needs, turn it into a better place. I don’t have a problem being part of it, but I don’t want to lie to you and make you think I’m here for no reason. I’m supposed to be here in Montana. It’s what they want me to do when I graduate, run an online business and become one of those social media influencers. I just . . . there’s something I haven’t said and I want to—”
“Where the fuck did those marks come from?” Grim completely cuts me off, raising his voice and it visibly shakes me. My lip trembles uncontrollably and I find it hard to breathe.
I was just about to tell him. I was easing myself into it and he took it from me. “I was walking back to my dorm after the Halloween party and went through the park. This guy, at the party, he . . . he groped me and it set me off, so I thought it would be a good idea to cut through the park. To get fresh air and all. But it wasn’t. It all happened so quickly. I was surrounded and managed to get away and then . . . and then I was on the ground. My . . .” Tears slide down my cheeks in an effortless flow, but I’m certain this doesn’t look good.
I clear my throat and continue on. “My face was shoved into the dirt so my cries were muffled, but I think they were worried I couldn’t breathe, so then they yanked me up by the back of the hair and wrapped their hands around my mouth. I was beaten and . . . other things happened but I don’t want to go into that. So, please, don’t make me.”
“What the fuck?! You . . .” He stands up from where he’d sat down across from me and runs a hand over his head. “Didn’t you just fuck Zorro? Now you’re telling me you were attacked on campus a couple weeks ago?! What the fuck is this? Some sort of joke?”
“Why would I joke about something like this?!” I scream out at him. “Do you think I want to tell you this? That I want to tell my brother what happened to me? Do you think it brings me joy, or makes me feel good? Because it doesn’t! It makes me feel horrible, Grim! And for one second if you think I want to be your helpless little sister, I don’t. I don’t want to be the woman who can’t do anything unless her big, tough brothers are around.” I too stand up from where I sit and throw my hands up in the air in outrage. “And for the record, I didn’t just meet Zorro you idiot. If you would’ve opened your eyes last Christmas you could’ve seen I was spending a lot of time with him.”
He shakes his head before I even finish what I’ve said. “No you weren’t.”
God. I want to choke him right now. “I slept in his bed every damn night and you didn’t even notice. How could you be so blind? Oh wait, I forgot. I’m talking to the man who didn’t even realize his best friend was in love with him! Obviously seeing things that’re right in front of your face isn’t your strong suit.” Rosa, the woman who’s always been around my brother. She’s in love with him and everyone could tell, but no one said a damn thing.
“Little girl, it’s best you drop it down a few levels.”
“Little girl. Little girl?!” I repeat his words while my chest swarms with heat. I could slap him right now. I could fucking slap him harder than I’ve slapped any man.
“Ruby,” he says my name as a warning.
“You’re not Dad! Stop acting like you’re my father, like you’re the fill in. You aren’t. Unless you’ve somehow forgotten that you’re my brother. Is that what’s going on!?” I snap, heading straight to the door. I need to get out of here before my head explodes.
“I don’t understand any of this. You’re sitting down in this room, sobbing about how you were attacked, and I just found out Zorro took your virginity an hour ago. Which I might add is somethin’ I didn’t need to know about in the first place.”
Stopping in my tracks, I turn around to face him. He looks confused, but of course he’d be. “You’re not the woman who got attacked in the safest place she thought she could’ve been in besides her home. You’re not the one who was held down while men threw rocks at her, beat her with their fists and—and you’re never going to understand what it feels like to have a foot on your neck, squeezing down on your throat while someone is defiling your ass. You won’t ever understand, Grim, and I don’t expect you to. I don’t expect you to understand that I wanted the one man who’s always treated me with respect to take something so special, especially when I had firsthand experience on how easily it could’ve been taken from me. So, yeah, I flew out here when Axel called me and told me you got in your accident. But I needed to get away from Stonewall University. And I needed to see Zorro. I won’t make apologies for it, but I wanted my first time to mean something to me, and I hope you can . . . understand it one day.”