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I didn’t want to be here when anyone came to help. I wanted to go.
I wanted us to go.
“Are you going to let some whore you bought, a whore for the government, tell you what to do? Are you going to let him convince you to abandon your family?” Marcus Holden still sounded so reasonable when he spoke, like he could talk his way out of this. Hadn’t he seen what Jayce had done? Didn’t he see it now, swimming in his eyes?
Didn’t he realize he’d spent his entire life hurting a man who was completely capable of killing him?
“You don’t get to say you’re my family just because you took me in,” Jayce said the words in a soft, dangerous voice.
Marcus laughed. “Who else would have done it, boy? You were going to turn out a whore or in some street gang without me. I saw the potential in you. I made you what you are now. You wouldn’t be alive without me. You’d be dead — drugged out. You’d be nothing. I made you a Holden!” He gestured his gun angrily, and I saw the polished veneer he wore finally slipping away; in its wake was outrage, fury that Jayce would defy him. Fury that he was still denying him what he obviously wanted — for Jayce to admit he needed him.
Maybe a part of Marcus Holden had cared about his son in the only way a sick, sadistic man could. Maybe he cared, and it was Jayce who’d always denied him. Jayce who’d never given him the affection he so desperately sought in return.
I hadn’t expected that.
“Jayce…” There was something dangerous in the eyes of the man in front of us.
“Think carefully about what you’re doing, son.”
Jayce’s eyes flicked between me and Marcus, and then he smiled. It was beautiful and empty.
“Fuck, I can’t tell you how good it feels for me to finally say this. Fuck you, Dad.”
The gun went off, and I didn’t think. I just shoved him out of the way and felt something hot skate across my shoulder.
Bullet wound.
A little deeper than the last.
“Shit,” I muttered, but Jayce was already moving. He didn’t use his gun — he used his fist. It took Marcus Holden in the jaw. And then the nose. The hit took him to the ground, and Jayce kept raising his hand.
“Fuck you.” He snarled the words out.
“Fuck you for taking me off the street.” He punctuated it with a hit.
“Fuck you for thinking you could use me.” I heard bones cracking.
“Fuck you for thinking you could break me.” There was a wet gurgle beneath Jayce.
“And fuck you for thinking you ever had a right to touch him.”
Marcus Holden wasn’t moving anymore. Above him, I could see the tremor in Jayce’s shoulders. The only sound in the room was the roaring beat of my heart in my ears and the heaving sound of his breath coming in gasps.
“Jayce…” I stepped forward and took his arm as he raised it again. When he turned to look up at me, his eyes were almost black with how blown his pupils were. There was blood spattering his face, and his full lips were pulled back in a snarl. For just a second, we stared at each other like that. Him, covered in the blood of the only family he had — me, with blood dripping slowly down my arm and shoulder, sliding along my skin to mix and mingle with the red staining his hands.
I couldn’t tell where I started and he ended.
“Are you okay?” He said the words softly, but he didn’t stand. He was still crouched over the mess that had been Marcus Holden, and I wasn’t sure if he’d get up if I asked. Instead, I moved to lower myself beside him. It was the motion that made him stand, the motion that had him wrapping his arms around me. His bloody fingers slicked the red at my arm until he could see the injury beneath — shallow. A shallow bullet wound. When he checked the one on my shoulder with a low growl, I pushed him away.
“It’s fine. I’m fine. It barely touched me. They barely touched me. Are you okay?”
“I didn’t get hit.”
“That’s not what I meant.” I raised bloody hands and took his face in mine, forcing his eyes from my shoulder to look at me. “You just killed the man you called father. You shot everyone in this house, and I’m sure you knew them. Are you okay?”
“I did it for you.”
God, he couldn’t just say things like that. “That’s not what I asked. Are you —”
