Page 266 of Wicked Brutal

The humor drains out of her face so fast it’s almost frightening. Her gaze moves over the dark marks on my left arm, then the right. She doesn’t say anything. Neither does anyone else. Then she walks closer — not toward the dress anymore, toward me — her eyes moving from one arm to the other. “What happened?”

I instinctively start to cross my arms. Then stop myself. “I’m okay.”

“I didn’t ask if you’re okay.”

Oh. The room changes around us. Penny looks up. Becca goes quiet. Cat watches Bella like she’s deciding something.

“It was Dad.”

Bella stares at me. “Roman did that?”

“Yes.” Her eyes go back to my arms. They’re unmistakable this close — fingers, hands, a person’s grip preserved beneath my skin. “Both arms?”

I nod. “He grabbed me.”

“And shook her,” Cat says.

Bella’s eyes cut toward her. Cat doesn’t blink. “Hard.”

Bella looks back at me, and now that she’s searching for it, she finds the rest — the discoloration makeup couldn’t quite erase, then my lip. Her expression changes again.

“He hit you.”

I nod. Something ugly moves through her face, and for a second she doesn’t bother hiding it.

“When?”

“Thursday. After school.”

“He was angry.” She says it flat, and I recognize it — the reflex, the reaching for the reason, the same thing I do in my own head every single time.

So I start to answer the way I always answer. "He was—"

Bella’s gaze snaps back to mine before I can. “I don’t give a fuck what he was.”

It comes out instantly. Hard. Not performed. She hears herself a half-second too late, and for once there’s no clever thing waiting behind it to smooth it over. She just looks at my arms like they’ve told her something she already knew and hoped she was wrong about.

“Victor know?”

My stomach tightens. “About this? No.”

Her mouth flattens. “Of course he doesn’t.”

Penny watches her closely. Bella seems to realize she’s said too much, and she does what she always does — reaches for the dress, wrinkles her nose, puts the mask back on.

“Well. Roman O’Toole is a piece of shit, and that dress is still terrible.”

A laugh escapes me. My lip pulls. I wince — and Bella’s eyes go to it, and that murderous thing crosses her face again, there and gone, before she points at the dressing room.

“Take it off.”

Penny folds her arms. “You’re very bossy for someone nobody invited.”

“And yet desperately needed.”

And somehow, Bella stays. Worse — she’s good at this. Really good. She takes one look at a dress Cat likes and tells her the neckline is fighting with her shoulders.

Cat studies herself in the mirror, then Bella. “Annoying.”