Journey
My expression fell,and I sobered up real quick when Bain walked through the living room of the headmaster’s house. I tensed on Cade’s lap, and he must have felt it because he wrapped his arms tighter around me. I didn’t allow myself to cave into the fear and avoidance that I wanted to escape in, and I knew that being in Cade’s arms helped keep me steady in front of my…half-brother?
I need answers. A lot of them.
The conversations were replaying in my head, and my hands shook with the feel of the metal still in them. I shot someone. Shivers coated me from the top of my head down to my toes, and Cade’s hands ran down my arms, warming me up. And Sister Mary. Where is she?
“I would love a fucking explanation,” the headmaster said, locking his arms over his rising chest, glaring across the room at Bain. The flames of the fireplace behind him roared as he stomped farther away to put distance between them, but Bain didn’t seem fazed by the headmaster’s anger at all.
“Me, too,” Cade said from behind me.
It was Bain on one side of the room; the Rebels, myself, and Gemma on the couch; and then the headmaster a safe distance from us all.
“Was it you that fucking locked me in my room?” Shiner leaned forward, the couch dipping as he placed his elbows on his knees like he was ready to snap Bain’s neck in half. I’d always known Shiner as the flirty, amusing one of the Rebels, the one who made everyone laugh when we were supposed to be serious, but right now, he was angry.
“You didn’t seem to mind with your face buried in pussy. It was only after that you noticed.”
I felt the rise in temperature from Shiner, so I quickly placed a trembling hand on his knee, and he instantly fell back into the couch. There was too much violence tonight. There was too much of everything.
“Was it you?” I asked, sounding more like a mouse than anything else. My blurry vision hit the floor as I continued feasting on all the knowledge I’d learned in the last few hours. My hands were still shaking, and I swore I could still hear the ringing of the bullet flying from the gun inside my ears.
“Was what me?” Bain asked, expression softening as he stared at me from across the room.
I leaned forward, unwrapping myself from Cade so I could shove my sleeves up to my elbows, showing off my long scars. “Did you do this to me?”
His eyes instantly grew dark, and the muscles along his shoulders bundled, looking as if he was wearing armor underneath his t-shirt. “Yes.”
I was placed on my feet a heartbeat later, and Cade was suddenly storming over to him before I even realized his reaction. Isaiah and Brantley were beside him as Bain stood there, unmoving and completely unbothered.
“I’m going to snap your fucking hands off and then kill you afterward.” The threat was unrestrained and as clear as if he were speaking over the intercom of St. Mary’s.
The headmaster threw his hands up in disbelief, but Bain stared right at Cade and said, “You can snap my hands off, but you won’t kill me.”
“If you think that, then you don’t know me very well.”
“I’m her only family. You’re not going to fucking kill me, Cade.”
Cade’s jaw tightened as he looked away. Frustration flew off of him in thunderous waves.
“Cade,” I whispered hardly loud enough for anyone to hear. Bain’s attention flew to mine as Cade turned around to look at me. “Will you come back over here?” I need him. I needed him to get through this.
A piece of light-colored hair had swayed down onto his tight face. His golden-brown eyes looked brighter and full of something wild with the flames behind him. When he walked closer to me, I was able to breathe again.
He sat down and pulled me onto his lap, burying his face in my tangled hair. We inhaled at the same time. “I’m sorry.”
Bain cleared his throat before crossing his arms over his chest and kicking a leg behind him to rest against the wall. He met my eye, and I refused to look away.
“Yes, I was the one that cut your wrists.”
Panic made me burn. “Why?” I asked in disbelief. My heart climbed higher and higher until he answered. The thumping was deafening, and the room was slowly caving in. He cut me. He was the one to attack me.
Bain’s dark chuckle flew out into the living room before he said, “Because dead girls never talk, and if you were presumed dead, like when you were an infant, no one would ever find out who you were.”
It was a special kind of torture, looking at a person who attacked you, knowing you should’ve hated them, but instead you found yourself understanding and accepting the pain they’d caused you. What is wrong with me? Was it all just too much to handle? Was I just completely numb from what had happened earlier? I said nothing as I sat on Cade’s lap, blinking every few seconds.
Isaiah was the one to feed into his confession. “So, you weren’t trying to kill her? Instead, you were trying to show someone else that she was dead?”
Bain nodded. “My father was in town that night, doing some business with Richard at the Covens.”