Page 98 of This Reckless Home

“Call him in the morning, things will feel better then and it’s mighty late, Miss. You should get some rest.”

“Thank you, Henry,” I whisper. “Goodnight.”

“Anytime, Miss. I’ll be by in the morning, see if there’s anything else I can do. Goodnight.”

This time when the line goes dead something small lights up in my chest. I look at the contact, and it’s as if it’s the first solid thing I’ve held all evening.

Locking my phone, I lie down, there on the sofa, pulling a blanket over me, cocooning myself in their scents.

Cedar, clean soap for Ant. Rain on pavement, coconut and coffee for Nox. Motor oil and wild pine for Steele. I wrap them around me, pretending that they are here with me, holding me close as the tears fall down my cheeks and soak the cushion underneath me.

I’m coming, hold on.

“BREATHE ME” BY SIA

STEELE

My head fucking throbs where that asshole hit me with his baton for no good fucking reason. But then again, he’s the type that doesn’t need a good reason. And the shitty treatment didn’t stop with him.

We were man handled through processing, stripped naked in front of complete fucking strangers who judged our bodies when they had no right to look at them. Our clothes, everything we own taken from us and forced to wear these awful fucking orange jumpsuits that barely fit around my bulky frame. I saw a glint of amusement in the needy eyes of one cop when I couldn’t get the buttons up above my waist.

Fucking cunt.

And now I’m sitting in a small cell, alone for possibly the first time since I left home.

The silence is loud. Threatening. The sounds of the block distant and with the occasional sudden slamming of doors so relaxing is off the cards.

I think several hours have passed, but there’s no fucking window, just a small window panel in the solid metal door and concrete walls.

Total isolation.

I don’t know where my brothers are. Don’t know if they are okay.

The florescent strip light doesn’t fully dim even though it’s probably the middle of the night. It’s giving me a headache, though that might be more to do with the head injury that at least has stopped bleeding. No one mentioned it during processing, just gave me a bandage and hauled me into this cell.

We’ve had no word from Blossom. She’s not come, which part of me logically knows it’s the middle of the night and she might not even know where we are. Plus there are the kids, the bail hearing isn’t set until tomorrow. She needs a lawyer.

But, what if this is too much for her? Maybe her father, that cunt Wilson, was right and we’re no good for her. Maybe she sees that and has decided to cut her losses.

She’s not like that.

The thought whispers in my mind, but on the back of it, another, darker thought. The stone that won’t leave me, and sits there, waiting for me to feel its weight.

The officer that hit me. The one who says racist fucking bullshit to Nox. Those are the type of men who Blossom handed two hundred thousand dollars to. Men who think like Wilson Devonshire, who would use their white privileged connections and money to put three innocent men in jail because they didn’t like them. Who would treat them as lesser because they could. Who would see them not as humans, but as animals.

I know why Blossom did what she did. I know this is not the same. I know that I’m choosing her.

The stone doesn’t budge though.

It sits there, heavy and immovable.

I stare up at the ceiling, releasing a breath that still feels trapped in my lungs.

I love her.

And it still sits wrong.

Leaning my head against the cold concrete wall, I close my eyes and wait for morning.