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Doe
A door banging open startled me awake. Heart pounding, yet disoriented from sleep, I sat upright, my eyes flickering around in search of danger. Grabbing the blanket, I pulled it up over me just as the bedroom door opened. I had no time to react as someone crossed to me and lifted me as if I weighed no more than a sack of potatoes.
My hands flew out, slapping away whoever held me, but he was already moving back to the open door, the only light coming from the living room. When I saw the outline of Jenner’s jaw, I started slapping at his arms harder. “Put me down!”
He grunted as he stomped to the front door and out into the corridor. Seeing my brothers standing in the open elevator, my jaw went slack for a moment before hurt filled my chest. “Traitors!”
Aspen slunk back against the wall, trying to hide behind Jackson and Bryant as LJ hit the button for the lobby.
“I see you, Williams. Don’t try to hide behind these assholes.”
No one spoke to me as the elevator descended, but they talked among themselves as if I weren’t trying to wiggle free of Jenner’s arms. “Piper is already at the house,” Bryant said as he texted away on his phone. “We need to get there before she goes nuclear on Mom and Dad.”
“You’re the one who included her in this,” Jackson complained. “It would have been easier if it were just us. But you said Piper would be a good ally.”
“She and Pixie will be the female support team that Doe needs. If it’s just us guys, she’ll feel outnumbered and won’t listen.”
“Then maybe you should have called Violet instead,” LJ suggested. “She’s the sweet one.”
“Vi means Luca, and we all know that he can be unpredictable. When in doubt, you go with the devil you know, not the one who can flip a switch in the blink of his swirling eyes.”
“I don’t know what you idiots are talking about, but as soon as I’m on my feet, I’m going to kick you all in the balls!” I shouted as the elevator door slid open, and everyone stepped off.
Outside, Jenner carried me to his car, where Bryant opened the back door. Jenner placed me inside, then nudged me over so he could get in next to me, while LJ got behind the wheel. Meanwhile, Aspen and Jackson got into a truck I didn’t recognize, and then Bryant took shotgun in the car.
While they were getting settled, I tried to escape through the other back door, but the child locks were engaged. “Motherfuckers!” I screeched, pounding a fist against the window. “LJ, you let me out of this car right now, or I’ll tell everyone who set off the fireworks in the library junior year and caused it to catch on fire.”
“Bro, that was you?” Bryant asked with a laugh. “I thought it was Jackson.”
“Nope,” our brother said proudly. “Overheard the librarian running her mouth.”
“About?”
Bryant and Jenner asked at almost the same time.
LJ’s eyes caught mine in the rearview mirror. “Precious things,” he said softly before pulling out into traffic.
Embarrassed, because I could only imagine what the old crone had been saying about me, I shifted my gaze out the side window. Even the teachers at school had been horrible. I didn’t know that LJ had known about the librarian, though. I’d thought he’d done it for no other reason than boredom. No one had ever caught him, and as far as I knew, I was the only one who knew it had been him. It wasn’t like I would have narced on him, not when it would have meant he would have faced criminal charges for destruction of property and arson.
“She got what she had coming to her,” he muttered, and the car grew silent again.
Beside me, Jenner gently urged me to sit back. I smacked his hand away from my shoulder, but he only reached for the seat belt and tried to fasten it around me.
“I’m not a child,” I snapped. “I can put on the damned thing if I want it on.”
“Please put it on,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I can’t stand the thought of something hurting you.”
“You should have thought about that before—”
“Doe!” Bryant snapped from the front passenger seat, turning to give me the same look our dad tended to give us when someone was misbehaving. “Put on the goddamn seat belt. Stop and just listen! Everyone in this car fucking loves you, and we don’t want you to be harmed if we’re in an accident.”
Stubbornly, I sat there glaring at my brother. “What happened to picking up my stuff? Instead, you guys came back with Jenner, and I don’t see any of my boxes. Thanks for proving that I can’t even trust the three people who were supposed to always have my back. Just like everyone else in the world who claims to love me. You’re like the rest of them, Bryant. Unreliable.”
He flinched but didn’t argue with me. Jaw clenched, he shifted so he was facing the front window once again.
“Doe—” LJ began, but Bryant cut him off.
“Don’t. She doesn’t know yet, and now isn’t the time. Doe has every right to be upset right now.”
