I suck in a long breath. “I was attacked… years ago.” The words drag through me like rusty nails. “In a back alley.”
Tyler nods at my arm. “That all the damage?”
I nod, even as memories assault me—Simon’s stench of rank sweat and alcohol, his hands on me, pushing me down, to my knees. Any attempt to draw oxygen into my lungs fails, the images, the sensations pummeling me into pulp.
“Okay, let’s get out of here.” I barely register Tyler’s voice or his hand closing around my arm, but I stumble after him.
We cross the shop. He opens the door, and we are outside, Zane on my other side. The sun peeks through stray clouds. My head clears as we walk down the street, going God knows where, and my heart slows.
The tiny Edward Klief Park is just around the corner, and Tyler leads us to a bench under a tree. The shade is cool, and I sink down on the wooden seat with relief.
“Better, fucker?” Zane asks after a while, and I force my zoned-out brain to return to the now. “Thought you were gonna pass out in there for a moment.”
“Shit, don’t know what happened.”
Tyler is sitting with his hands hanging between his legs. He sends me a sideways look. “Sounds like you had a bad experience and certain situations remind you of it.” He makes it sound like a question.
I nod.
“It’s okay to freak out, you know,” he says. “I get that sometimes, too.”
That’s news to me. Tyler looks… solid. Totally solid. One hundred percent powerhouse. “You freak out? About things that happened to you?”
“We all do,” Zane says, and okay, my jaw is hanging slack. “See, fucker, you’ve avoided this for too long.”
“Avoided what?” I glance from him to Tyler and back. What is he talking about?
“The talk I had with the others, getting to know them. Fact is, I don’t know you half as well as I know the others. This has to change.”
Oh fuck. “Not a good idea.”
“Why’s that?”
The urge to get up and run returns. “You know enough.”
More than enough. I have no idea why he took me in, frankly, a smelly street bum with no future.
“I know a few things,” Zane admits. “I talked to Jason.”
“You did? Fuck.” I bury my face in my hands, then scrub them down. “Christ, Zane.”
Fucking hell.
But he continues as if nothing’s up. “It’s the rest I need to know. Things like this attack. Like where you lived before. Where you came from. All that shit.”
I don’t wanna talk about it. Especially not now, when every breath I take reminds me of Amber and how much I miss her, how much her anger and pain cuts into me.
But this is Zane, this is the brotherhood I owe everything to, and if Zane asks, then I’ll talk. And I do. I tell him about the attack, about Simon’s gang, about my time on the street, before and after Madison. About the boy camps, the group homes and foster families I ran away from.
By the time I’m done, my bones ache as if I’ve just gone through it all again—the beatings, the fights, the running and hiding, the violence and fear. I feel sick to my stomach.
God, I wish I could see Amber, wrap myself around her until I feel warm again. She makes the bad go away.
“That’s enough, buddy.” Tyler pats me on the back, and before I let my mouth run away with it—as if often does when I’m stressed—and ask if I get a treat for performing well, he gets up. “Need to return to the shop. See you later.”
Oh, right. Gut me, strew my insides on the ground, stomp on them, and then go back to work.
Nothing new here.