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And hates authority.
By watching, he gets to view all the violence without any of the growling and yelling from Coach Rodney.
I pull myself from my thoughts, speaking again. “Do you know how bad this looks? I come in to find you on top of Landon, swinging at him without thought. It’s like you didn’t even recognize who it was beneath you.”
“I knew what I was doing. I’m in control.” He tilts his head at me.
‘I’m in control.’
Are you, though?
Knox turns away from me, finding the desk chair and planting himself in it. Vacantly he picks at the side of the smooth leather seat, his thoughts seemingly stealing him away already. I can smell the alcohol from here.
“If Landon is going to be a problem, I’ll take care of it,” he says so quietly it gives me chills.
Right, because that’s what Knox does. That’s what his father taught him to do. Take care of the problem. Bury it six feet under or deep enough no one will remember it’s an issue.
“Landon isn’t a problem.” I walk forward, stopping before him to rest my palms on the desk and give him an even stare. “Landon is our best friend.”
“How do you suppose we keep this up then?” Knox leans back in the chair holding my gaze with that chilling dead look in his gaze that he gets too often.
The real question is how do I talk Knox off the edge? How do I hold up my end of the deal, save Landon’s ass, and not let any more blood be spilled by his hands?
Suddenly it’s not just Dee in trouble anymore.
It’s all of us.
Fifteen
Dee
I’m making a plan. They wanted me gone, so I will be. The newspaper threatens to fold over as I’m reading but I shake it straight again. It’s a crawling noise like a whip that sends me back to the snapping of an old worn belt of a long forgotten boyfriend my mother once had.
I endure. It’s what I do. Endure, adapt, survive.
I notice the strain between the boys. I thought it would make me happy seeing them like this but it doesn’t. It makes me feel guilty, like it’s all my fault.
It’s a stupid, stupid gnawing feeling that I can’t shake.
Days have come and gone since Knox gave Landon the now yellowing bruise under his eye. His glasses are already replaced. God only knows how damn expensive it must have been to get new glasses that fast. The table and lamp they broke in their wake has already been replaced. I can’t help but feel like it was all because of me. They took me in because I wasn’t eighteen yet, I still needed a legal guardian.
I’m an adult now, I can figure it all out on my own now. If I can find the freaking rental listings. I exhale so loudly it shakes my paper in front of me.
Reed and Landon push into the kitchen together, clearly on the hunt for a snack. Their laughing dies down when they see me.
The paper bends backwards as Reed pulls it away from me. “You know they have electronics now, right? I think only the lower class actually open up newspapers…”
I’d cut off my right arm this very second if Reed had a clue what sort of shocking income makes up the lower class.
“What are you doing?” Landon asks.
“Looking for low income housing. I’m eighteen and can sign a lease.”
Such a not so casual thing to say but I shrug anyway. You know, just doing what every high school senior does, reading through the paper trying to find a house of my own so I can move out with all of my two belongings and get out of your hair.
Reed’s eyes grow alarmingly wide and he turns to Landon. Landon shakes his head slightly, dismissing what I say as if it’s not a possibility.
A sadistic laugh wants to bubble out of me but I choke it down. They don’t know how determined I am.
