Page 27 of Break

And he can give a lot.

“No, she ran because of what you three did to her. I had a perfect little fuck toy and you three screwed it up!” Coach snarls. “So you’re going to fix it. I’ve had to spend seven years only hearing her voice on the phone. Seven years watching the videos.”

“Did sheevercome on to you?” Knox snarls.

“You’ve seen the videos!”

“The videos ofyou, a grown man, fucking your daughter,” I hiss as my stomach churns at the thought. It was never right, no matter how stupid and brainwashed we were in the past. “Videos you never should have shown us.”

“She’s a whore! She’s just like her mother, ready to spread her legs for anyone, but then you three broke her! I bet you hurt her. You’re the ones who didn’t listen to her saying no. Did you even wait for the yes?” her father snarls.

“Did you?” Knox demands.

He starts to say something, but Knox takes a step forward, his hands curling into fists. It shuts up Hope’s dad long enough for Knox to speak. “Did you beat her until she said yes? Threaten her with worse if she didn’t?”

“I—”

“That’s what it sounds like.”

“A good whore knows her place,” Hope’s father says.

I wince on his behalf. His behalf and Hope’s. How the fuck did we ignore it? No. We didn’t ignore it. There’s no excuse forthe kind of shit we pulled. I was sure she was legal and sure it was super ‘Alabama’ of her to want her dad, but there’s stepdad porn and… fuck, I made every possible excuse to not believe he was… The word is too terrible to say. I don’t want to think she had to deal with that for years.

So many videos.

Knox looks at me, and I realize I said those last three words aloud. They hang in the air for what feels like minutes before fading away into tense silence. Silence that is meant to be broken.

No…shattered.

Something breaks in Knox. He loses it. He grabs coach’s face and slams his head into the coffee table, breaking Coach’s nose and probably dislocating his jaw. I stand up and push Knox back.

“Don’t kill him,” I order, fighting the part of me that wants to see Coach bleed and suffer for all the fucked up shit he did to our girl.

“He deserves it,” Knox argues, struggling against me.

“Kill him and you’re in jail. If you’re in jail, the team is fucked, we’re fucked, and so is Hope because this assholewon’tbe in jail,” I try to reason.

“So pretty. So much like her mom,” Coach drools. “It was so easy. A few threats, a few warnings, a few drugs every now and again.” He laughs. “Once I had one video, all I had to say was that I’d release it. And who would believe her? I was a pillar of the community. Nothing could stop me.”

“You'd better say that to the fucking police or I will kill you,” Knox snarls. “I’ll make sure you feel every second of it and bury you where no one will find you.”

And he means it. He will absolutely follow through on his threats. He learned it from the bloody asshole in front of him.

Fifteen

HOPE

Idon’t know what to feel. Seeing Jaxon beat the shit out of my father. Finally having someone stand up for me… and his words. It hurts too much. So I shower and scrub my father’s touch off me until I’m nearly bleeding, bile burning in the back of my throat as I fight the urge to vomit.

I can’t believe he’s back. I can’t believe he… touched me like he still has some sort of claim on me. Perhaps he does. There will always be a part of me that fears him, that hates him so much that it brings tears to my eyes.

Why can’t I just scrub away that part of me? Or cut it out of my heart and soul? I’d rather not be whole than forever suffer from that part of me.

Tainted. Broken. Weak.

Or is that actually all of me?

Once I get out of the shower, I pull on my clothes that feel as close to a shield as I can get and then take some melatonin before getting in bed.

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