Page 12 of Penance

“Okay,” I say, my eyes falling away from her like I’m not worthy to look at such a precious thing.

“I missed you, brother,” Huxley tells me.

His dark gaze moving back to me, he gives me a tight smile. Dropping his hand to my shoulder, he squeezes it.

“I’m glad you’re home, even if things are kind of fucked up right now. You know we love you,” he says sincerely, and I nod.

I know they love me. They’re all I’ve had for the last ten years, my best friends, my brothers, my family. I never could have survived without them. They ground me.

All I can do is nod. Words seem to evade me as I find my gaze drawn back to the centre of the living room, to the centre of my universe. Kacey and Charlie sit on their knees, each of them holding onto one of Lala’s hands. Her face and neck smeared with her own blood, her heavy-lidded eyes glued to Kacey as he speaks softly to her. She smiles at him lazily and leans forward, he moves in, kissing her lips and my heart shatters.

She’s supposed to be mine.

“Maybe I should go. I’ll get a hotel room, I don’t want to make this worse,” I mumble quietly to Huxley.

His eyes pinch together painfully, but surely, he can see my being here isn’t going to work. I feel like an intruder in my own house, but Lala doesn’t need me around her right now and it’s obvious my boys want to care for her. I’m so fucking ashamed of myself. I’m so confused, I need to know what’s happening here to understand but at the same time I’m so goddamn afraid. Kacey and Huxley, both, are better men than I am. She deserves someone who will love her the way she deserves to be loved.

“No,” Lala says softly. My eyes find hers as she looks over her shoulder at me, clicking together like a magnet.

“Stay, this is your home.”

“Honestly, it’s fine. I’ll be fine,” I say, although I so want to stay here and be near her, just being near her is enough.

For now.

“No,” Lala says more firmly this time, but a tired sigh slips out anyway. “Stay,” she murmurs, and Huxley elbows me in the arm as he jerks his head towards her. “Stay here, Max,” she says barely above a whisper.

I nod, keeping my gaze averted, I can’t bear to look into those big, sad eyes. The pain I see in them just fucking kills me.

Chapter3

Kyla-Rose

Iwake up sandwiched between Huxley and Kacey, sweat pouring down my back and chest from their combined heat. I don’t even have enough room to flip onto my back, the bed is just too small, but I desperately need to get out of it, I feel like I’m on fire. Sliding down to the end of the mattress, the silky sheets beneath me helping my sticky body glide out from between them. My legs dangle from the end until I manage to drop to my knees. As soon as I’m out from between them I instantly find it easier to breathe.

God, I’m so hot, the two of them are like bloody furnaces.

The room is dark, curtains cracked, it must be early morning because outside those curtains the world is trapped in darkness. It doesn’t get light until around eight-am during December, sometimes even later, depending on the weather.

I pad lightly over to the bathroom, my sweaty feet hitting the cool tiles, my shoulders relaxing with the frosty change in temperature. I sit down on the toilet, a shiver working its way up my spine as the cool air hits my naked flesh. When I’m done, I stand, leaning over the sink, I wash my good hand, wincing at the pain in the stitched one. I regret doing itnow,but I had to. In the moment it was my only logical option. Instead of lashing out at someone else, I hurt myself to get some sense of control. I was so enraged and uncontrolled, if I hadn’t physically attached myself to that chair, I know I would have committed murder.

Thoughts of killing don’t affect me. Not ever. I’m blinded to the motions of it now. But killing Max? My soul cries at the very thought. My demon inside hisses, thrashes, threatens, because as much as I blame Max for everything that happened to me, deep down I know that isn’t fair. Yes, he left me that night and didn’t come back. That, that I can blame him for. Being raped in juvie? Not even remotely his fault.

Cause and effect.

Action and reaction.

That’s all this life is.

I’m so exhausted that all this feels like it happened months ago rather than hours, and yet, here I stand in the dark, staring at my shadowed reflection in the mirror. My eyes looking far too much like my mother’s.

I thought I knewexactlywho I was, I’ve spent the last four years being queen of the fucking underworld, that’s who I knowhow to be. This Kyla-Rose, Lala, I don’t know how to be either of those people anymore.

Do they even exist?

Spending time with Huxley and Kacey started to show me a different life, in the last five weeks I’ve changed so much. I’ve just declared my fuckinglovefor these men, that’s a word I haven’t uttered to a man since Max. Sure, I tell my family I love them, I tell them all the time because I never know if that day will be my last. I could be taken out at any second ofeveryday, so I needto keep reminding them just how much I love them, so they’ll never have to wonder.

And I’m going to have to do that now for Kacey and Huxley too, because I realised tonight that I do love them, truly. Even imagining my life without them strips me to the core and my heart hurts. They’ve both shown me nothing but kindness and love andwarmth, maybe a little too much of that if my body temperature is anything to go by right now.

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