Page 75 of Abyss

“Kavi.” He turns around when I follow him to his closet, giving me one of his hefty, unimpressed looks. “It’s not negotiable.” He pulls on a T-shirt that conforms to his body, and I try not to watch the way his sinewy biceps flex while he does it. “I’m taking you wherever you need to go. It’s not up for debate.”

I roll my eyes but, five minutes later, I’m in Hudson’s behemoth truck—one of his many vehicles, though I notice he uses this one the most—headed to find Jojo.

I chew my fingernails, looking out the rain-soaked passenger window, before turning the band on my thumb over and over. I repeat the movement a few more times when Hudson’s warm hand lands over mine, his touch grounding and reassuring. He entangles our fingers, bringing my hand to rest on his thigh, and I let him.

It seems, at least for the time being, we’ve both silently decided to put our own issues aside for a more pressing matter.

His thumb caresses my skin. “She’s going to be okay, Kav. You’ll see, okay? She’s going to be fine.”

I nod, hoping he’s right. “I just wish I’d reached out to her after class last week.”

“But she reached out to you on her own. Doesn’t that saysomething?” He flicks a glance at me. “She trusts you. She knows you’ll be here if she needs you.”

I nod again, though guilt still pricks my chest.

We park one house down from Jojo’s, and Hudson follows me as I make my way over to her backyard. I turn toward him. “You don’t have to come with me. I’ll just talk to her for a bit.”

Under his umbrella, he gives me that blank stare that says he’s not going to be changing his mind before nudging ahead of me to open the back gate, motioning for me to enter.

I make my way toward the dark shed, noticing none of the lights are on in the house. In fact, it seems like the entire neighborhood has lost power.

No fucking lights. Just what I needed right now.

My feet have me right in front of the shed, and I take a shuddered breath. My stomach drops and my heart races as I place my hand over the handle when the gentlest of hands squeezes my shoulder.

“I’m right here, Kav. I’ll be right out here.”

Tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I wonder if I’m feeling choked up because of my fear or because the man who took me out of his system in just one night is the one here with me now, seemingly understanding my fear without me having vocalized it.

Taking another breath to calm my racing pulse and remembering that I can’t tell my students to face their fears when I can’t face my own, I step into the dark shed.

Thankfully, my phone’s flashlight is enough to illuminate the space around me and quell my churning stomach a touch.

I breathe through the feeling of being locked in a small compartment. It’s so much like . . .

No. No, I’m not going there.

Forcing my intrusive thoughts away, I focus on findingJojo. I spot her in a corner, her head leaning back against the wall.

“Hey,” I say, taking a seat next to her on the damp ground. “What’s going on?” And then, noticing that her shirt and pants are covered with something wet and thick, I wave my flashlight over her with a gasp. It looks like acrylic paint. “Who did this?”

Her bottom lip trembles. “Max and her friends.”

I grab her hand. “What happened?”

She wipes off her cheek before taking a deep breath. “They came into my room and broke the picture frame of me and my mom before ripping the picture inside it. Then, they mixed up a bunch of my paints and flung it all over my room. When I came in to see what was going on, they laughed and one of them threw paint on me.”

“Oh, God—” My heart aches for this sweet kid. “Does this kind of thing happen often?”

Jojo shrugs. “It depends on Max’s mood. Last week, she destroyed the school project I’d spent hours working on.” She chuckles mirthlessly, the sound so forlorn, it lodges something rough inside my throat. “How far back do you want me to go, because this hasn’t stopped since Max and I moved in together with her mom and my dad.”

She continues to tell me that this seems to happen most when both the parents are away at work. And because her dad was so distraught after losing his late wife—Jojo’s mom—and has finally found some happiness again with her stepmom, Jojo hasn’t confided in him about the things going on in her life. Namely, her stepsister’s bullying.

I squeeze her hand, remembering exactly what it was like to feel helpless. “Would it help if I were there when you talked to him? Just the three of us?”

“What if Max finds out and it gets worse? What if this puts stress on Dad and Jackie’s marriage?”

“Do you like Jackie?” I ask, referring to her stepmom. “Does she treat you well?”

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