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“What?” he echoes, blinking at me in the same way, his lazy smirk slowly being replaced with a frown. “You think you don’t own me?” he murmurs, a crease denting between his brows, he steps closer. “Baby boy, you’ve owned my heart since I was fourteen years old and you punched Jake Jones in the face for calling me a loser. I knew right then, I’d pick you over fucking anyone.”
“You-”
“I love you,” he says casually, a simple shrug of one shoulder. “Always have, always will.”
“I-”
“This door’s locked,” King grunts, both of us snapping our attention to him. “Poppy?” King’s twisting the door handle and my heart is pounding in my chest.
“She wouldn’t lock the door,” Rex murmurs beside me as we close the distance between us and King.
The air seems to change, thick, tinged with panic, and something feels off now, it didn’t before, I just wanted to see her. To get her back. Make her ours. Now everything just feels wrong.
“Poppy!” King pounds his fist on the door, shouting her name.
My chest is rising and falling, heart pounding in my chest, and a heavy sense of dread drops into my gut.
“Break the door,” I say sharply.
“What?” Rex snaps his head over his shoulder to look at me.
“Break the fucking door down!”
Without hesitation, hearing the panic in my voice, both of them step back, and then barrel into the door, splintering the wood, the hinges groaning as they break through. King steps onto the door, his heavy footsteps crushing it more, getting inside the dark room, quickly followed by Rex, his big body like a battering ram.
And all I can think as my feet track me forward, over the broken door, into the shadows, across the carpet, is, she wouldn’t be in the dark.
She wouldn’t be in the fucking dark.
Adrenaline deafens me to the sounds of the room. King is overtop of someone sprawled out on the floor, his fists pummeling into them again and again. It’s a dull thudding overridden by my hammering heart, my pulse storming in my ears.
Rex is on the bed, murmuring, and I can’t make out his words, but I can see him, straddling someone. A long arm, fine-line floral ink, a bloom of darkness against her pale skin, hanging limply off of the edge of the bed. I don’t want to see, but I need to.
This is my fault.
My feet don’t stop, drawing me closer like everything’s in slow motion. Like a punishment, to drag the moment out, make me see everything. Poppy’s limp on the bed, her eyes fixed open, unseeing, and for just a single moment, I think she’s dead.
My body rushes cold, then hot, stars spark across my vision, little dots of white then black, and I’m hardly able to stay standing.
“I’ve got her! But stop King before he kills him, Lynx!” Rex barks at me.
His shout muffled but I’m moving towards Raiden on instinct.
Protect your brother.
Protect your girl.
Get out of here without anyone seeing.
My arms go around Raiden’s neck and I’m hauling him towards me, his elbows connecting with my sides as I fight him back, the body on the floor unmoving. King knocks me to my ass, my spine connecting with the floor, my legs wrapping around his, wrestling him down.
“Raiden, Raiden, Raiden,” I chant.
His heaving back to my chest, my arms tight around him, pinning his arms at his sides. He throws his head back, connecting with my collarbone as I wrench my chin out of the way just in time. A sharp pain jolting up my neck, but I don’t let him go, holding him to me.
I say his name over and over and my hearing is coming back, and Rex’s deep voice meets my ears and I hear him say my brother’s name.Bennett.And I’ve never been so relieved. I’ve always needed my big brother, but right now, in this moment, I feel like I could cry. Grateful to have him.
“Raiden, man, please,” I grunt, tightening my thighs around him, squeezing his legs, his torso, every hard inch of him rebelling against my hold, twitching and fighting. “You gotta get it together, she needs us, you gotta stop. She needsyou.” My lips are to his ear, the taste of him on my tongue, and finally, finally, he stills, but I don’t release him. “You gotta stay with me, man. We need to do this shit together. If I let go of you, you gotta work with me, not against me, as a unit.” I’m panting, his weight crushing my lungs, but I’m not letting go, not until he agrees. “Yeah?”
