Page 73 of Pistol Whipped

End Interlude

Chapter 33

You Broke Me Too

Cohen

History. Our history. It’s repeating itself. None of us are so foolish as to raise hell while we’re still out here in front of a crowd. Ten years ago, we probably would have, but now, ready as I am to rip Lou to fucking shreds, I’ll wait and do it when there isn’t a room full of people who can gossip about it or blast it all over the damn internet.

That doesn’t mean we don’t make a break for it the second Lou shouts to the crowd, “My fellow Deviants—enjoy the fucking party!”

I latch on to Rain’s waist, unable to hide my satisfaction at the grumble that elicits from Dutch. Her candy-coated dress might make her look goddamn edible, but that’s not the reason I’ve grabbed her. Dax and Dutch follow as I walk her back into the hidden staff corridor just in time for Blue and his revolving door of bandmates-slash-minions to walk by. His ice-blue eyes roam over Rain, and that crusty mother fucker winks as he passes.

The already weakened tether on my piss poor patience snaps, and I push Rain harder than I intend, sending her spine crashing into the sterile grey walls of the corridor.

I pivot with her and scream, “Did you know?!?!” all while ignoring Dutch’s gruff warnings to, “Watch it.”

My face is pressed right up close to hers so I’ll see the lies forming behind those bewitching eyes.

“Did you know?” I ask again.

This close, my fury makes her hair tangle and twist in her face, and I can make out every twitch, every wince, and the barest flush on her cheeks. Whether from my question or, maybe, my dick unhelpfully suggests, it’s because I’m pressed right up against her. A position that, somehow, I keep finding myself in.

Not for long this time, though. She shoves me back a step and juts her chest out. “No!” she answers forcefully. In the empty hallway, it rings loudly. The next time she opens her mouth, her volume is a little lower.

“No, Cohen. I didn’t know! I haven’t seen Blue Grace in person in ten damn years.” Her tongue runs along her teeth, and it’s as if her next words taste poisonous. “And if you, any of you, had even bothered to listen back then, you’d know that there’s not a single person on this fucking planet that hates that man the way I do!”

My eyes roll, or start to, but don’t get far before a palm connects with the side of my face, sending a blinding shock of pain across my skin. The hand is too big and too dark to belong to Rain.

“Fucking listen,” Dutch cusses, “For once in your damn life.”

He points at Rainy before rubbing his thumb across the palm he suckered me with. Guess that slap didn’t just hurt me. Still, the hit has woken me up. To the way Rain’s shaking and the empty look in her eyes, as she says the same words she said all those years ago.

“Blue Grace stole everything from me.” She says it like the man himself has taken a spoon and hollowed out everything about her that makes her Rain.

From behind us, it’s not Dutch, but Dallas who approaches her. He laces his delicate, if calloused, fingers with hers and, in his gravelly Dax way, prompts her, “You can say it, Rainy. Time to face those demons.”

And fuck me, if that doesn’t transform her whole face. Her eyes turn to glass, but she looks up at Dax as if he’s invented a melody that is all for her.

“How long have you known?” she mumbles.

His own expression is so soft as he looks down at her. “I think from day one. I was just too messed up to say as much.”

“It triggered you?” she questions, and he dips his chin to confirm. Their own private conversation passes in that single look. It’s one I’m not a part of, and never have been.

Still, I find myself barking, “Say what?”

Rain breaks her eye contact with Dallas, straightens her spine and closes her eyes. There’s a long, slow breath as she prepares for whatever she is about to say. But there’s no preparing me for the three words that leave her lips.

“I was raped.”

Every note of anger and frustration inside me goes deathly silent.

Her eyes re-open, but she’s not here. She’s trapped in the past. “That night, by Blue Grace. But not just him, I think; it’s all messed up. My memories are a maze of grey, and black and pain, but he wasn’t alone. Blue wasn’t alone. There were at least two others.”

She shudders, and those words, every last one of them, settle on top of me like boulders on my chest, threatening to stop my lungs. In the moments between one aching breath and the next, I, too, am catapulted back in time, to the days after the party.

“B-b-but, I saw the video.”