Unspoken Rules (Rules 2)

If you try to escape, we’ll come back and kill your entire family.

But there was no point…

His family was already dead.

26

Together Again

Winter

Haze slouches against the couch and conceals his face with his right hand, as though he’s hoping it’ll make him any less vulnerable, any less broken. I’ve never seen him clearer. His life made him this way. Not just his parents, not just Desiree, not even crazy Tanner. Everything he’s gone through shaped him into the man he is today.

He’s been blaming himself ever since that night. He thinks he’s responsible for his little sister’s death, and he’s been living with that guilt. This guilt that no sane human can possibly carry without shutting down.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

Tears of anger glint at his eyes. The story isn’t over, I can tell. But he needs a minute. So I give it to him.

“She was cold. She was so cold.” He chokes on the words, and I feel like I’m right there, with him, alone in the darkness of the Adamses’ mansion. I feel like I’m the one watching the life being sucked out of my sister as the capacity to hope leaves my body forever. “I didn’t know what to do. She was crying and… there was so much blood. So much… So I just held her until she… she…” He can’t seem to say it at first. “I watched her die.”

Then, he can’t take it any longer. Tears cascade down his face, and I find myself crying, too. I open my arms to him, and he accepts my embrace, leaning into me. He doesn’t say anything. He lets me hold him.

I’ve never seen Haze really lose it before. I’ve seen him shed a tear, yes, but I’ve never seen him have a full-blown panic attack. He can barely breathe, his chest moving up and down uncontrollably fast in my arms. Do you ever truly know someone until you’ve seen them completely fall apart? He’s fighting his tears… fighting himself.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m here. I’m here,” I repeat and hold him tighter. “Just breathe with me. Breathe.” I inhale and exhale repeatedly until, eventually, he matches my breathing patterns and clears his throat. He sits back up and looks in the opposite direction. He hates being vulnerable.

“Seven days later, the house was gone. We moved to Florida two weeks after. My parents never cried in front of us. Not once. The night of her funeral, I heard my dad say to my mom that I was weak. That I should’ve saved her. He never looked at me the same way again.”

This is why he started fighting.

“Tanner suggested to train me. I started working out every single day so that I’d never be weak again. I refused to be a helpless little bitch who couldn’t defend himself anymore. Then, when we moved here, we heard about the fights and… you know the rest.”

He started fighting and training every day so that he’d never lose someone else. He was fourteen years old, for Pete’s sake. He was so young. It’s no wonder he couldn’t stand up to two grown men with guns. Why do I feel like becoming a fighter was secretly his way of punishing himself?

“Did they ever catch him? Marcus?”

He clenches his fists at my question. That’s my answer. The combination of so much pain and anger in one person can’t end well. The way his life turned out is the mere example of that.

“No.”

It all makes sense now.

“I wanted to tell you, Winter, I swear. You have no idea how many times I almost did. But… you’re the brightest thing in my life, and this is the darkest one of all.”

I have no reason to doubt him anymore. He told me about the biggest trauma of his life. My eyes descend to the numbers tattooed on his forearm. 04/16. I’ve been wondering what it meant since the day I met him.

“Is that the date she died?” My fingers gently brush his skin.

“No. God, no. She deserved better than that.” He shakes his head. “That’s the date she was born.”

I wait for him to elaborate.

“I didn’t want to remember the day that I lost her. I wanted to remember all the years that I didn’t.”

I understand what he means by that. He didn’t want to ink himself with the tragic date when she was taken away. He wanted to honor her life by celebrating the time he got to spend with her.

“It wasn’t your fault. Please tell me you know that.” I interlace our fingers and run my thumb along the palm of his hand. He draws a breath. I know better than to think me saying it to him once will be enough to end a lifetime of Haze blaming himself.