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“She’s here—here at our house. The Robbins’s piece of shit son hurt her pretty bad.”?
If I thought my blood ran cold earlier… ice is currently filling my veins.?“What the fuck do you mean? What happened? Where is she hurt?”?Fucking decent people, my ass.
“Mom’s cleaning her up now, but apparently, she went to the bathroom and came back into her room to him fucking with a camera she had sitting on her bed. When she asked him to stop and get out of her room, he went off. I could barely understand Em when she first got here, but he pushed her, and she fell into the side table, hitting her head enough to make it bleed. She tried getting up, and he punched her, Nox. How could someone do this to her? I want to kill him. He’s just like dad. Fucking piece of shit.”??
Punched her. Hit her head.?
“Where is he?” I ask with a clenched jaw, my fingernails digging into my palms.?
“She said the mom came out and broke it up. Apparently, the dad is working tonight. Emmy took off running over here. She said she thought she heard him coming after her, but he probably went to his dealer’s house over on Broad Street.”?
“Davis’s?” I know the punk. He’s a scrawny-ass senior at our high school who sells anything he can get his hands on from his uncle.??
“Yeah, Emerson said that’s where he hangs out almost any time he isn’t home.”?
“I’ll handle it,” I say to Colton and hang up, just as Greyson and Ford make their way to the truck.?
“We going to Frankie’s?” Ford asks, at the same time Greyson asks, “What’s wrong with you?”?
“No,” I say, cranking the truck back up. “We’re going to Davis’s. I’m going to kill that Tommy motherfucker.”?
* * *
Emerson
Age 15
The soundof a truck’s rattling exhaust pipe fills the silent room. I’m the only one awake, watching TV with the sound on mute. Colton has fallen asleep snuggled against me on the couch, and his mother has finally gone to bed after she tended to my wounds. She was worried sick about me. I can only imagine what my face looks like.??
I fear what Lucian will do when he finds out. He’s taken his big brother role very seriously since coming to live with the Robbins. Even though I have to remind him he’s only a few months older than me. Despite the fact that he bugs the shit out of me sometimes, I wouldn't change our relationship for anything.??
I feel like an idiot. I knew Tommy had a short fuse, but his outburst caught me off guard. He’s a few years older, giving him a height advantage, too. Couple that with his raging temper, and it’s a recipe for disaster. No amount of training could have prepared me for what happened.??
Working out atLights Out has become my solace. Giving me the perfect outlet for all this anger I hold deep inside. When I square up with a punching bag or the pads, everything else fades away, just like Lennox said it would.?
Wincing, I shift the bag of ice from my temple to my cheek.Fuck, it hurts. It’s not the worst I’ve endured, but it’s up there. At least the rest of my body is fine.?
The front door opens, and Lennox’s familiar form steps through. His head is down, which means he doesn’t see me as he makes his way toward the kitchen. I carefully slide out from under Colton's arm and follow him.??
I find him with his head in the freezer, searching for something. When he closes the door, I suck in a gasp, causing him to drop a frozen bag of peas.?
“Fuck,” he growls, as he watches the bag split open and its contents scatter across the kitchen floor.?
“Shit, sorry,” I say, knees slapping to the floor to help clean up the mess. Frantically scooping the peas into a pile, Nox crouches next to me.?
Reaching up, his one hand covers mine as his other pushes the hair out of my face. He examines the bruising on my cheek and the gash on my temple as my eyes roam his face, assessing the slice across his forehead.?
“What happened?” I ask, my fingers skating over his bloodied knuckles as his knees join mine on the floor.
“Don’t worry about me… Are you okay?”?
“Don’t give me that shit. I’ll always worry about you. What happened, Lennox?”?
“I found Tommy,” is all the answer I get, and all I need to know.?
I nod to the wound on his head. “He do that to you?”?
“Fuck no!” he scoffs. “Fucker was out cold within two punches. It was one of his scumbag friends who jumped me with a knife while I was on top of Tommy. He got to me before G and Ford had the chance to grab him… There was way more people there than we anticipated.”?
