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A lump forms in my throat and no matter how many times I try to swallow it down it just won’t go. I suck in a sobbing breath but don’t say anything, not that I could anyway. Not without losing it completely. Not without showing him exactly how broken I’ve been—and still am. Instead I reach for the door handle, desperate to get away from the man that I love.
I’m outside and running through drizzling rain before I even hear the driver’s door open. The house is dark, but I need the darkness. I can hide better in it, not that I think I can get away from him if he decides to come after me. But at least in the dark I can hide my pain, my brokenness.
Hawk
As soon as Bash disappears down the stairs of the frat house with my baby sister, I turn to the girl still sitting on the couch. I hate seeing Felicity like this. Hate how broken her spirit is. No woman should ever be this destroyed over a guy, especially a bastard like Jet.
Sighing, I drop down beside her. Felicity’s hands play with the nearly empty bottle of cheap tequila while her eyes continue to watch the door Bash and Raven just left through.
“They aren’t coming back. She just talked him out of committing murder. It’s best if she keeps him away from people for the next few hours.”
Felicity shrugs but doesn’t say a word. I settle back into the couch and take in all the changes in the girl I’ve known from birth. The old Felicity had been vivacious but reserved with those she wasn’t comfortable around. Her eyes, so startling blue that I always compare them to blue forget-me-not flowers that my mom used to grow in our back yard when I was a kid. Felicity has always been curvy and I’m just enough of a bastard to have fantasized about her a time … or three. But in the last six months or so she’s lost a lot of those soft curves only to be replaced by a sex-on-legs version of sweet little Felicity.
Her eyes are no longer as blue as those forget-me-not flowers I love so much. Gray storm clouds have entered her eyes, something that’s been there since the night I had to leave my bed and bring her to the ER that one cold night.
“Flick …” I rub a tired hand over my face, wishing I could help her but knowing that the only one that can is sitting in a prison cell. “No man is worth destroying yourself over. Haven’t I told you and Raven that a million times growing up?”
“This isn’t about Jet.” She finally turns to face me, those eyes so stormy looking that it breaks a little piece of something inside me every time I see them. “I can’t sleep at night. I can barely eat. It isn’t Jet that made me like this. It’s me. I broke me and I can’t put myself back together again. But I’m trying Hawk. I’m trying so hard.”
“Is this about the … baby?” It’s hard for me to even say the word baby. I nearly had a little niece or nephew, but it was taken away before it even had a chance to be loved by a family that would have moved Heaven and Earth for it. If I’m still so shattered over it, then I know that Felicity has to be too.
I know that Jet has to be fucked up in the head over it.
Her chin trembles telling me that this is entirely about the baby. “What can I do to help you, Flick? How can I make this better for you?”
“You can’t.” Her voice breaks ever so slightly, and then she clears her throat. “Like I said, only I can fix me.”
Muttering a curse, because I’m not exactly stable when there’s something broken and I can’t fix it, I pull her into my arms and kiss the top of her head and she lets me. She’s so trusting. Having spent my life watching over her and my baby sister, she knows she can trust me with her life. Despite a few inappropriate fantasies that I might have had in the last few years, I consider Felicity like a sister. She’ll always be my little Flick—the name that Raven had given her because she couldn’t say Felicity when she was a baby.
“If you need anything, Flick—anything—you come to me. Do you understand? Day or night, I’m always here for you.” She nods, cuddling into my embrace a little more. “I’ll always take care of you, sweetheart.”
A shuddering sigh escapes her. “I know.”
We sit there for a long while. The music is still blaring and yeah, there are still couples having sex on the other two couches. They’re so strung out on whatever it is that’s been passed around tonight they don’t have anything on their minds but getting off. When the sounds of moaning females start to affect my body, I stand and grasp Felicity’s hand. I need to get her out of there before I do something crazy like seducing her just to relieve my aching body.
As we start down the stairs, a sudden bone chilling screaming drowns out the pounding rock music. Felicity goes rigid beside me as I freeze on the step. Her eyes meet mine as another scream follows the first. She’s moving before I even comprehend that I should be looking around for the source of the scream.
Felicity runs down the stairs with me right on her heels. She starts forcing doors open on the first floor looking for the girl that continues to scream as if her very life depends on it. My stomach churns because I know all the possible scenarios that we’ll find and each one sickens me.
It’s hard to follow the sound of the screams over the loudness of the music, but Felicity seems to be getting closer. Finally, Felicity finds a room at the back of the frat house with a locked door, and the screams are coming from the other side. I move her aside and kick the door splintering the heavy wood. Using my shoulder, I push the door down and find a sight that will haunt me to my dying day.
Chapter 7
Gracie
I know I’m going to regret agreeing to this stupid party as soon as Janice pulls into the yard of the frat house. The music’s playing so loud inside that I can already feel my head starting to throb in time to the drums. The two girls attacking the captain of the lacrosse team only reinforces the fact that I don’t belong here.
I don’t do parties, and I don’t do the whole fraternity thing. I’m still a fudging virgin for fudge’s sake. Watching people having sex in all corners of the house while others watch isn’t something I’m comfo
rtable with.
So why did I agree to come tonight with my roommate Janice?
Yeah, I’m still wondering that myself.
I’m not even sure I like Janice. We had been paired together by the university’s housing authorities because we supposedly came from similar backgrounds. The first impression I had gotten from the girl was that she was a bitch, and coming from me that means a lot. I try to see the best in people, but so far it’s been hard to see any in Janice.
Still, I want to give her a chance. So when she had offered this olive branch asking me to come with her tonight, I jumped at it.
