The dark did nothing to hide the blood coating my skin.
Panic raced up my spine, a new sickness settling in before I could even put together what was wrong. I swallowed another cry as I worked to pull the biggest shard of glass from my foot, leaving an even bigger mess of torn and stained skin. Breath wouldn’t fill my lungs as my intuition crept up my spine. As I worked on a second piece, fumbling within the dark, I couldn’t stop myself from searching the room. Glass from a shattered overhead light covered the floor, and while I wanted so desperately to write it off as a loose bulb, my dry throat wouldn’t let me.
The screw was still in the socket.
This wasn’t an accident.
Someone had smashed my bulb.
By the time the creek of a crypt door filled my head, I couldn’t move. My scream didn’t have time to bubble out— not when the footsteps came rushing so quickly. I couldn’t turn around, couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe before someone was on top of me, a disgusting hand on my throat, the other over my mouth, my nose. The scream caught in my chest didn’t force its way out until my hands started to traverse my attacker fully, resting only momentarily on the sickening erection pressed into my abdomen.
Then, all I could do was sob.
All I could do was beg.
All I could do was surrender.
Fear shot through me, my legs beginning to grow useless as my head turned fuzzy. My body was relaxing without me knowing it, and the man on top of me let out a chuckle, his lips grazing my ear lobe as the fight sunk out of me.
“I’m right here, baby,” he cooed. “I’m not going anywhere. Not ever again.”
Suddenly, the world darkened and the scent of Gran’s peppermint was gone.
I was alone again.
Chapter Two
The stench hit me before I’d even opened the door.
That awful stink of death— the one that lived in the floorboards.
The thing they didn’t tell you about homecomings was you needed a home to come back to, and this was no home. Returning to that place felt more like torture than it did reprieve, and maybe that’s why it felt so difficult to lug my bag up the front porch steps. If the sun was going down, it meant that I had been driving for hours already, but time had started blurring together after my 36th hour awake. This pain in my head wouldn’t stop throbbing, the brightness of the sunset too strong for my dark shades, and peace didn’t come when I needed it the most. I’d become so good at moving from one moment to the next, from one day to the next, from one year to the next, that I’d forgotten how to search for the rest I needed the most.
With a final push forward, I made my way through the unlocked door— something else I’d have to snarl about. A groan was the only way I could even attempt to relax, pushing my dark hair out of my face and dropping my duffle bag on aging wood floors. Then, another forced attempt to lower my shoulders down my back, to untense my jaw muscles as I slipped my car keys onto the hook by the door. The ache in my bones screamed for rest, reached out for the impossibly comfortable couch sitting in the corner of my eye, but even that would have to wait. Everything had a place, and an aching head wouldn’t trick me into assuming my bag’s place was at the front fuckin’ door.
As I crouched to gather the rest of my things, a sound from the kitchen pulled my head up. The Victorian home was in need of care, walls and floors rotting through to foundation as it housed two men who couldn’t give a shit, but the open design made it a little easier for me to keep an eye on things. The front door gave a clear shot to the living room and, beyond that, the kitchen. Tucked behind an open door, with the front of his body burrowed beneath our sink, my brother’s bony ass was unmistakable— especially after I’d rotated between beating it and watching over it for the better part of 28 years. When the man could barely peek up from his work, couldn’t even be bothered to do much more than lazily wave his hand, I bit back my bark.
Six hours driving, two days spent with that asshole in the city, and Toby couldn’t even look at me?
Fuck that shit.
“Hey.”
Finally, my brother jerked up from his workplace— if only for a moment. His buzzed head and bright blue eyes were the only things even remotely alive under this roof, his sharp nose a glaring reminder of our mother’s. Though, all of that was gone as he turned his attention back to whatever the fuck was so important in our cabinet. An air of annoyance hissed through my teeth before I made my way back over to the sofa. For the first time in a week, I found myself able to relax back against something comfortable. My feet propped up on top of the coffee table as my head leaned back into the couch, and when I couldn’t stand to look at the water-damaged ceiling, I let my eyes close, let my breath still.
Despite hiding out here for three years, the Victorian estate would never feel like a home to me. The only thing it did offer was a sense of predictability, and predictability meant a level of safety. Though, near Toby, safety never did have a habit of staying for long. When my brother didn’t follow his usual routine of annoying the shit out of me with the most asinine questions, my chest tightened. Jerking my head up, I stole a careful glance at the boy in the kitchen.
“I did this shit for you, ya know,” I reminded him with a snarl. “Not even gonna ask me how it fuckin’ went?”
As the man rested back on his feet, crouched in a low squat, his eyes flashed between me and his lap. “What did he say?”
Hesitantly, I let my head fall back against the couch. “Said we could get in on 50k,” I called out, my eyes closing again. “He wants more frag traps.”
“That’s good.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘that’s good’?” I spat, my body tensing all over again. Still crouched, Toby remained completely unaware of the trouble his bullshit was costing me. “Gonna take at least two weeks to make, plus the drive to get the right parts.”
“It’s a good deal.”
When the sickness of anxiety took over, it didn’t feel right to lounge on a god damn stained sofa, to let that shit into my lungs. My body jerked forward, my head in my hands and my elbows on my knees. The peace I found with closed eyes was long gone now, images of the future far too bloody to live in.
“Not really what I was concerned about,” I breathed, a tightening chest making it impossible to voice the nagging that had been chewing away at my heart all day, all week, all year. Another breath whistled through my nose as Toby’s movements tore my attention to the side. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
My jaw tightened. If he hadn’t been so obsessed with this childish ‘gangster’ fantasy he clung onto, Toby would have been an evangelist. I mean, it would have been a means to an end— the end being some grandma’s savings account— but still. There wouldn’t be a job on earth that would accept his lack of sobriety, his mood swings. Toby was a toddler in a 22-year-old’s body. If he wasn’t talking to me, it was because he was up to his eyes in bullshit.
An erratic heart wouldn’t rush my movements. Carefully, I lifted myself from the couch and began to make my way towards the kitchen, aiming to circle behind the man as he worked. “I’m not goin’ there by myself again,” I started, earning a slight shift from the man as I drew closer. Circling around the kitchen table, I started to organize the trash Toby had left behind throughout the weekend, stealing a glance over to him only when I was certain I wouldn’t push him. “Jax was a grade-A cock before he got involved with those assholes. Now he thinks his shit doesn—”