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“No, you naïve child.” I peel off her fingers. “Their lives are in your hands.”
Message sent and received.
I turn away from her huge, watery green eyes and leave her to decide our fate.
54
Leonid
—
I can’t move from the fucking bed. If I do, I will chase down that waste of life and crush every bone in his despicable body.
My knuckles crack with the squeezing of my fists. My molars saw away enamel. And the pounding in my ears, the pounding, pounding, pounding…
I need to break something, destroy something, and purge this rage from my system.
Save that temper for when we need it.
“Why are there no locks?” Frankie stares at the door she slammed behind Denver, her shoulders hunched and voice trembling. “We need a security bar, a steel rod, something to brace across this door. If we install brackets here…” She traces the frame with a finger and pauses when she finds the screw holes I filled all those years ago. “Hold on. There used to be something…”
She turns and reads the room.
Wolf pokes at his food. I focus on my breathing. Neither of us respond.
“There used to be a bar on this door,” she huffs. “Did Denver remove it?”
“No.” Wolf slides off the bed and carries his plate to the desk. “We don’t need locks.”
“I disagree. We’ll sleep better if we can keep that monster out.” She looks between us and worries her lip. “What are you not telling me?”
She follows my gaze to Kody.
“This is why we don’t have locks.” I angle out of the way and touch his side, drawing a finger along one of the old scars that runs from his back to his front.
Her eyes widen, and she covers her mouth with a shaking hand.
She gets it.
But Wolf clarifies anyway. “Denver used to lock himself in here with Kody.”
I close my eyes and rub my eyelids as if I can scrub away the memories. “Whatever we use to keep Denver out also keeps us out.”
She clutches her neck. “The security bar prevented you from breaking in. You couldn’t reach Kody when Denver was hurting him?”
“Too many times.” Wolf looks away. “We were stuck on the other side of that door, unable to help him.”
“Oh, Wolf.” She goes to him, her voice thick with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Leo fixed that.” He brushes the hair from her face. “He removed the locks. All of them.”
“Oh.” She shifts back to the door, staring at it as if looking past it. “I always wondered about that.”
“Our bathroom door has a flimsy lock.” Wolf meets my eyes. “It’s there as a courtesy, so we don’t walk in on one another. But if you throw your weight into it, it pops right open. As evidenced by the maniac this morning.”
“A protective maniac.” She joins me on the bed and twines our hands together, forcing my fists to loosen. “Denver didn’t try to reinstall the locks?”
“I melted them down into metal parts for other projects. He didn’t care. As you already know, he was working on nonviolent ways to control us.”
“Nonviolent,” she mutters. “Every woman in that fire pit would have something to say about that.” Her gaze trails over Kody’s battered body, pausing on old wounds amid the new ones. “Are all those scars from Denver?”
“Most, but not all.”
“How about this one?” She points at a long white slice near his sternum.
“How about you finish your breakfast, and we’ll tell you about them?” I nod to Wolf, who is already heading over with her meat and potatoes.
“Okay.” She accepts the dishes and settles on the bed between Kody and the wall.
Wolf joins her with his own serving, and we eat in comfortable silence. When he finishes, he leans against her shoulder and chuckles. “I was young when he got that scar.”
“Still shitting your pants,” I mutter.
“Probably. But I remember it too well. Leo had just built the dirt bike. Neither he nor Kody knew how to ride it.”
“But you knew how to build it?” Her eyebrows rise.
“Denver helped when I got stuck. It took me two years to build it.”
“The instant the engine fired up,” Wolf says, “Kody jumped on it, hit the gas, and bam! Slammed right into one of the pilings supporting the cabin.”
“The handlebars tore up his chest.” I gesture at his scar. “While he spent the summer in bed, I spent those months repairing the house and the damn bike.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.” She smiles around a potato wedge.
It’s good to see her eating. And smiling. She’s a spoonful of medicine for my anger.
“I got him back the following summer.” I wink at Wolf. “Remember the roof?”
“I don’t know who’s dumber, him or you.” He tugs up the hem on Kody’s pants leg, revealing a gnarly scar on his shin. “They got into a pissing match on the roof while repairing the shingles. I don’t even remember the argument.”
