All Grown Up (Eden High)

I hope not. It had taken us months to get Jace to calm the fuck down after the last go-around. If she rears her fuck stupid head again, he just might go postal, and that won’t be good for anybody. “I’ll leave you to think about it.” I left the room, hoping he’d do the right thing for once in his selfish ass life.

Alex

I remembered to take the note back at the last second before leaving his office and heading up the stairs to find her. I’d had this all planned out in a completely different way. Out of respect, I was going to meet with her parents, let them in on my plans for our future, get their blessings or not, I really didn’t care, but at least I was planning to be a gentleman.

One of Jace’s mantras is if you act like you own the place, you own the place and people usually fall in line with whatever it is that you’re up to. In other words, be totally confident in all you do. Never falter, never doubt, and on another note, when questioned, deny-deny-deny. Shayne and I like to joke that he and Track are criminals in the making.

Between his shit and Mancini’s little side job, I’ve pretty much shed every last bit of boyish innocence I had left in the last year or so. You can’t very well hold onto that silliness when you literally have people’s lives in your hands, and that’s pretty much what it boils down to in the end. The girls and women we have to grab back from the assholes who snatched them depend on it.

I played around with the idea of letting Cassie know how much I knew but needed some time to get that shit figured out in my head first. It’s a given that I want her as far away from this shit as possible, but how do I do that when she was there that night? Telling her to forget what she saw isn’t going to work, obviously, and I know she’s worried about her mom and what this getting out could do to her family.

I asked the housekeeper for directions when I ran into her on the stairs, and she gave them to me after looking me over as if searching for bugs or some shit. I started walking away, heading in the direction she’d told me when she called after me. “Miss. Cassie is a very sweet girl; if you’re only going to play with her, you should just leave now.” I looked back over my shoulder, but she was already making a hasty retreat.

I turned back around with a smile, pleased to know that my baby had at least one person in her corner in this fucked up house. I understand from Jace’s story that the mother was going through some shit at the time, and what the asshole husband did didn’t help her mental imbalance. Still, I can’t forgive what they did to their daughter, the fact that neither of them spared her a thought and were only thinking about themselves.

Her door was slightly open, and I saw her sitting on her bed, staring into space. My heart hurt, and I felt a sadness I’d never known creep over me. She looked so sad, so lost, and it damn near broke my heart. I could only think of my sisters in law, the way they’re always happy and laughing. The way my brothers go out of their way to make that happen, and I started to feel like a failure again.

Any other teenage girl would be flitting around the room with excitement over the bag of gifts at their feet, but not her; she sat there looking worried and alone. I should’ve punched him in the face. I bit back the anger and upset as I pushed the door open, alerting her to my presence. She looked up with a smile, but I could still see the sadness in her eyes.

I walked into the room and sat down next to her, putting my arm around her shoulder. “Cassie, baby, don’t pretend with me; it’s the worst thing for a relationship. If you’re hurt, sad, angry, whatever it is, be honest with me, okay.” She looked at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. I can imagine living with these two the past couple of years had given her some fucked up ideas about relationships.

I’m trying hard not to blame the mother who, according to Jace, had been suffering from postpartum depression at the time; how he knows that shit is a whole other story. But as much as I sympathize with her, my only real interest is in Cassie and her own mental stability. Like, what the fuck, did anybody even check in with her after the dust had settled?