Page 13 of Defiant
If my past decisions in Midpark were any indication on how it would go, I’d choose wrong.
Chapter Five – Vaughn
I sat in one of the lounges in the house. The Scott house was more like a castle than a mansion, a giant, multi-story home built on acres of land, with security all around and cameras in every corner. A lot of illegal things happened here, and it would continue until the family was no more. I would become a part of what took place in the basement, after high school.
Really, I had no idea why I still did my homework. All I had to get was a passing grade.
I had my math textbook open in front of me, a notebook on my lap. I sat cross-legged on a chair, the TV in the lounge on for background noise. Try as I might to focus, I just couldn’t.
Jaz wasn’t in school today, and I was pretty sure I knew why. I’d seen the video. It was hard to avoid it, with everyone talking about it, showing each other, passing it around through texts and shares and mentions in their stories.
Jaz had gone to a party with Archer Vega, and she’d been humiliated for all to see. I hadn’t been there—was never one to get invited to such things, and if a girl ever did make the mistake of inviting me, I never went—but if I had been, things would not have gone down how they did.
It stunned me, how protective I was of this girl, even though she’d just entered my life, and frankly it shocked me how confused she made me.
Girls had always fallen on either side of the line. Some wanted to test me out, see if they could change me, while others wanted absolutely nothing to do with me—even my last name couldn’t change the unnerving quality I had. It was partially why Markus had agreed to keep me in-house after high school; I wasn’t good at pretending like some of my brothers and cousins were.
Jaz, though, was different. I couldn’t say how, couldn’t say why, but she just was. From the very first day, when she’d sat down at my lunch table, I’d known. As the days wore on, I only grew more and more confused by her, and today, when I realized she wouldn’t be joining me for lunch, when I really started paying attention to what the school was talking about—even going so far as to look it up myself—a pit had formed in my stomach.
I realized then I wanted to protect her, and I wanted to make all those who hurt her pay. Archer, Brittany, her prissy friends…every single face I saw in that video.
It was strange to me, because I’d never cared enough to have feelings like this, especially about a girl. That’s all Jaz was, I knew. Just a girl, a girl who didn’t belong in Midpark. A girl who was vehement in her investigation into Midpark’s history, and my family’s involvement in it. If anything, I should steer clear of her, but I knew that’s not what would happen.
When it came to her, my willpower was oddly weak.
I shouldn’t be thinking about her now, shouldn’t let those dark eyes dominate my mind any more than they already had, and yet I couldn’t shake the thought of her. She was distracting in the most peculiar of ways, and I didn’t know what to do with myself.
A fit of giggling erupted in the hall, and I glanced over to the archway separating the lounge from the hall, finding a small figure dashing in. I barely had time to shove my notebook and textbook aside before she got to me. A three-year-old child, one of the newest members of the family, with the typical dark hair of the family and eyes bluer than the sky on a cloudless day.
Tori leaped into my arms, crawling onto my lap. I let her, because I knew better than to deny her what she wanted. Just because she was young didn’t mean she didn’t know how to make your life a living hell. She could be dreadfully annoying, sometimes, as most children could. But with her, I was pretty sure she did it on purpose.
“Whatcha doing?” Tori asked, blinking her eyes up at me. She wore all black, our family’s usual colors, though unlike the majority of the Scotts, she enjoyed wearing fluffy dresses. I did wonder if that would change as she grew up.
“I was working on homework,” I told her, sighing when I knew I probably wouldn’t get shit done the rest of the night. It was close to dinner time, anyway.
She made a funny face, her cherub cheeks puffing as she frowned. “Boring.”
“Yeah, tell me about it.”
Tori slid off my lap, tugging on my hand, though I refused to move off the chair I was in. “Play with us.” It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to get me to play; ninety-nine percent of the time, I just didn’t care enough to try.
But now…with my mind alight with Jaz, I felt like that was changing. I felt the strange urge to actually try, to not only protect her from the hazards of Midpark High and the residents of this city, but also to be more for her. To feel those lips on mine again, to have her near. I didn’t want anything else.
Was that what normal people felt when they liked someone? The inexplicable desire to be with them at all hours of the day and night, never getting enough?
I heaved a sigh as I got to my feet. I had no idea what I was agreeing to play, but as it turned out, I needn’t have worried too much, for in the next moment, a third presence joined us in the room, causing Tori to giggle, release my hand, and dart away, slipping past her mother and sprinting into the hall.
“I already found you,” Stella called after her, though she did not chase her. “That’s…not really how hide and seek works—” It was clear Tori still wanted to play, so Stella added, “Fine, I’ll count to ten again, but this time you better hide.”
Stella had joined our family a few years ago. She’d made a name for herself here, with the family. My older brother, Markus, was not one to respect anyone who wasn’t himself, but I did believe she had a modicum of it, though he’d never admit it aloud. She had become our Butcher, the one who handled the messiest jobs in the basement. I’d heard stories of the things she did, so I knew her innocent appearance was deceiving.
She was maybe thirty now, with long brown hair and mismatched eyes—one blue and one brown. When I’d first met her, it’d been strange to stare into a gaze like that, but over time, you got used to it.
Something about Stella made me feel at ease. I couldn’t say what it was, but I knew the feeling was mutual. She’d told me once that I reminded her of herself, before she’d met my brother Lincoln. To this day, I still wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but I never asked.
Stella moved near the chair, peering at my textbook. “Math. How…fun.” The way she said it, I knew she did not think it was fun. The opposite, actually.
I shrugged, going to sit where I was before Tori had swept in here like a hurricane. “I’m trying to focus, but it’s hard.”
