Page 19 of Crow

“I’m moving out.” My voice manages to come out without shaking, but it’s too quiet. “Now.”

“What?” Mom gasps. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ll explain everything later.” I edge towards the door. “I just can’t do this anymore. I’m an adult now and I want to have my own place and make my own choices. I don’t expect you tounderstand. I know you’ll be angry, and you have every right to those feelings. I’m not taking anything that I haven’t paid for myself. I’m leaving the car and my phone, since you’re the one who pays for the contract. I know you won’t support me in this and I’m not asking you to.”

“How can you do this?” Mom wails, dropping down to her knees and clutching her chest like I’ve just thrust a knife straight into the center of it.

My dad’s hand shoots out and grasps my wrist, curling his fingers around like an iron manacle. “You’re our daughter. You’re not going to walk out of this house with no explanation, and certainly not with those criminals out there. You willnotdisrespect us like this.”

Our front door is one of those fancy ones where it’s mostly steel, except for a round glass window. There are two panels of frosted glass on either side that run the whole length of the door.

I’m not sure how much someone can see from the outside, but clearly, it’s enough.

A huge black boot comes crashing through the glass insert on the right, kicking upwards to clear most of it out, followed by an arm. A hand twists the deadbolt from the outside and the door bursts inward.

Crow stands there, looking ominous and awe inspiring, a dark god of judgment, something the underworld has dredged up and belched out. Charon himself, but he’s here to ferry me to safety.

It makes my heart thud in a completely inappropriate way that he eyes up my dad like he’s about to make a snack of him.

Grave and Decay are at his back. They’re big, surly, and imposing in their black t-shirts, stained jeans, and leather vests. Theirs don’t have as many patches on the front as Crow’s does.

Their leader is an unholy menace, breathing like a crazed bull about to charge straight into my dad. Crow’s dark eyes are fixed firmly on the fingers wrapped around my wrist.

“You might want to let her go before my friend dislocates your face,” Grave suggests cheerfully, like he hopes that my dad chooses not to obey and reaps the consequences.

“I don’t know who you are,” my dad growls, sounding nowhere near like these tough men. He’s like a playground bully who’s finally met someone twice his size and knows he can’t pick on the little kids anymore. He’s only putting on an act of being brave. “But Tarynn is my daughter. She’s not going anywhere.”

“Anywhere with us, or anywhere at all?” The other brother asks, like the clarification matters.

Maybe it does.

My dad’s grip tightens on my wrist, and he actuallyshakesme. The duffel bag goes flying off my right shoulder, the other ramming straight into him as he jolts me back and forth. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you’re not going to—”

Crow moves so fast that I barely register what happens. One second, my dad has hold of my arm, the next, he’s flying through the air and landing hard against the wall right by the stupid console table that my mom is always endlessly dusting.

Crow’s hand, bloody from the broken glass, wraps around my dad’s throat. My mom screams, but she’s frozen in place, just like I am. I should grab my bags and race out the door. I know the second I’m free, Crow and the brothers will follow.

I don’t truly know why he’s here. We’re not anything to each other past a couple grilled cheese and inadvisable promises.

His face looks terrible this morning. I note a line of fresh, neat black stitches, but they’re still jagged because the cut was. He’s going to have a scar layered on top of the one that was already there. I don’t think he slept either. His eyes are bloodshot and practically ringed in purple. His jaw is swollen above and below the new stitches, which causes his lips to look slightly crooked. Right now, they’re peeled back from his teeth. He’s every inch a savage animal.

“You’re going to do more than just let her go,” he hisses into my dad’s face. “You’re going to let her walk out of here and you’re not going to bother her again. If I so much as hear that you’ve uttered one word against her or that you’ve tried to drag her back here or prohibit her from achieving her dreams, I will break you.”

Oh my fucking god, what?

Mom doesn’t faint, but she’s completely bloodless. I don’t actually know how she’s even still upright, albeit on her knees. My dad doesn’t look much better. Crow isn’t cutting off his air or he’d be red, and right now he’s a sickly gray.

Crow shakes him the way he shook me, then casts him off. He whirls, grabs my bags that landed on the floor, and puts his arm around my shoulders.

“Is this everything?”

I can’t ignore the violent shiver that wrenches me at his touch. His skin is like an inferno under his clothing. He feels fevered, which spikes a completely different sort of worry in me.

I nod, not trusting myself to speak.

Half of me wants to cheer and dance the second I walk out that door, but the other half wants to weep.

I don’t look back.

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