“Then they dragged me to a dark back alley … ” She stares at the floor, letting the sentence trail off.
The implication of those words hits me, and a chill goes through my veins. I remember carrying that tiny broken girl in my arms.
I find myself suddenly up on my feet.
“Scarlette, stop! Don’t say anything else,” I tell her with my hand over my m outh.
She squints up at me, her eyes full of pain and confusion, but I look away from her and stare into the fire. My heart is beating out of con trol.
“I have to go,” I say. “I need to l eave.”
I feel the rage build up so suddenly that my hands start to shake. I turn and race back through the h ouse.
“Elvis?” Scarlette’s voice cracks as she shouts after me, but I don’t stop moving my feet.
It can’t be her! She can’t be the girl … Scarlette can’t be the girl! I keep muttering it to myself as I feel my hands on the steering wheel reversing Snow White out of the driveway. This can’t be real. This has to be one of my nightmares. My fingers grip the wheel—tighter and tighter. I want to wake up from all of this.
I drive without a sound in the car, speeding back to West Vancouver and up to the British Properties. Just as I reach my front gates, I’m startled by my phone ringing through the speakers, breaking the silence. Liam’s name flashes on my phone screen, but I ignore the call.
I’m inside my house in a jiffy, slamming the door shut behind me.
Someone walks out of the kitchen, but I pay them no mind as I move faster than a bullet towards the stairs, running down, straight into the gym room. I pass the boxing gloves hanging off the hook on the wall and grab the punching bag with both hands. I push it off, watching it swing back towards me, and I lunge forward to punch it—left hook, right hook—hitting it nonstop, exhaling aggressively as I s wing.
With every hit my bare hands make to the bag, smashing into it, I get a flash of memories from that night. My mind keeps racing back to the moment I first found her—I couldn’t even see her face. She looked so badly beaten, lying in my arms as I carried her out of the dark alley. She was lifeless. Scarlette was … I can’t even sa y it.
My heart is beating at the same speed it was that night. Another slam into the punching bag and I can feel my knuckles bleeding.
But all I see is her lying there, covered in her blood. I throw one last hard hit into the bag when I feel a pair of big, strong arms wrap aroun d me.
“ELVIS! ELVIS! Calm down!” my father shouts into my ear.
He holds me back, pinning down my arms in an attempt to stop my flailing fists. I look up and see my own blood on the punching bag. Somehow, I squeeze myself out of my father’s tight grip and catapult forward to push the punching bag away one more time, not noticing Adam is there to catch it. I stagger and stop still, locking my fingers through my wild hair and exhaling a deep breath out. I can sense the confusion behind me, but my dad and my brother say nothing, knowing not to ask.
“I need some air,” I say and lock my lips in a hard line.
Without looking at them, I walk straight back up our basement stairs, right to the front doors, and out onto the front porch.
The night air is cool, and I take gulps of oxygen into my lungs, trying to catch my breath. After a few moments, I reach into my pocket for my phone. Another missed call from Liam, and two from Philip. Nothing from Scarl ette.
Behind me, someone opens the door and a large hand reaches forward, holding a wet t owel.
“Clean your hands before your mother sees this,” my father says.
I take the towel, looking down at my knuckles, and we stand in silence as I start to wipe the blood off them. I hear the door open a gain.
“Hey, little bro.” Adam steps out, closing the door behind him with a concerned look on his face. “Ready to tell us why you look like you want to kill som eone?”
I stare into the dark -g reen field of our property. I see it again, but this time it isn’t my memory, it’s as if I was there, witnessing the way she was invaded. The thought makes me shake, and my eyes flood with tears. It feels like my heart is about to break. Then, the words finally begin to flow out of my mouth.
“Scarlette is the girl I found five years ago in that dark alley,” I say, my lips quivering in disbe lief.
“Whoa,” Adam breathes. “Are you sure?”
I nod. Closing my eyes, I see her face. The face I know so well.
My dad stays silent, standing still beside me. Suddenly, we see a set of headlights up ahead, driving down our long curvy driveway.
A royal -b lue Carrera pulls in, parks next to the LC, and Liam and Philip jump out, slamming its doors behind them.
“Why have you been difficult to reach tonight?” Phil asks, raising his arms in the air dramatically. My father and Adam say their hellos and turn back to the house to give us some s pace.
“We will speak to you inside, Elvis,” my father says in a calming voice, squeezing my shoulder with his big hand.
I haven’t said a word yet, or even looked at Liam and Phil, but I can feel them both staring a t me.
“Can you explain why Paige thinks you’re the biggest jerk in the world?” Liam asks.
“She said you walked out on Scarlette tonight. What the heck is going on?” He looks down at my clenched fists. “And why are your knuckles blee ding?”
Philip’s eyes instantly fall to my hands as well. “Did you get into a fight, E lvis?”
I feel my head spin and bring my body down to sit on the porch step with a heavy t hump.
“No,” I say, looking down, studying the jagged welts along the top of my fists. “There’s something you boys should know.”
Liam slowly seats himself two steps lower than me. Philip remains standing, leaning against the iron hand rail.
Feeling like someone punched the oxygen out of me, I draw in another lungful of air. “It was the night of the Black’s graduation pa rty … ”
I take them back to that night. They both stay silent while I go into every detail, from the misty, rain -c overed streets, to the humidity of the night, to the moment I found her lying there in a pool of blood, to the walk from the alley with her in arms, right to the hosp ital.
Eventually, I pause and look up to find them both staring wide -e yed back at me. “Then, tonight, when we were around the fire, she tells me about that same night. She’s the girl.” I run my hands through my hair, tugging it slig htly.
“What?” Philip says under his breath, still standing in the same posi tion.
“I always knew something was wrong after that night, “Liam says in a soft tone. “You were never the same, Elvis. That was a traumatic experi ence.”
I look into his concerned eyes. “I couldn’t see her face, Liam.
She was brutally beaten. I can’t help but feel that she was taken advantage of. She didn’t deserve any of it. No girl does … and now I feel gu ilty.”
“Hang on,” says Liam. “Why do you feel gu ilty?”
I think about the brawl. “I can’t help but feel if I never started that fight, she would never have left. None of this would have happ ened.”
Phil takes a few steps closer to Liam and me and kneels down, placing his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, man,” Phil says.