Page 9 of Protect

I hear my father shuffling in another room. His grunts and painful hisses draw my attention. He comes to my door, bangs on it once, and yells. “You don’t get to sleep! If you think you’re getting anything when you’re being a fucking brat…”

He doesn’t finish whatever threat is on his tongue. Instead, I hear him grunt and groan again. He’s already slurring his words. That means he’s close to passing out. Soon I won’t have to worry about his opinions or thoughts.

Plus, he has to take care of himself, right? He has to keep up some kind of ruse, which means that he has to leave some time. Then I can figure things out better. Maybe.

Who knows if I’ll get out of this room. There’s no window and the walls are strong enough that I can’t kick through them. So I’ll have to be smarter than my dad. He always called me manipulative, so I’ll have to figure out how to be exactly that.

I let my eyes close and savor the pain again. Once I get out of here, I’ll never be hurt again. I’ll make sure of it. Instead of making other people strong, I’ll do it for myself. I’ll make myself something that men fear instead of want. No one will touch me without permission. They’ll be too afraid.

A smile teases my lips at that.

Come get me, boys,I think.Celebrate thinking I’ll stay, relax, savor it, then I’ll disappear and this time no one will find me if I don’t want to be found.

Four

JAXON

Jared didn’t give us much to go off, but he gave us enough. A website that requires a certain VPN, one that’s on his laptop. I shake my head as I wash my hands, trying to getDimitri’s shocked expression out of my mind before he slammed the laptop shut. It doesn’t work though, nothing will work.

I keep thinking about the past. It teases me in bits and pieces, driving me insane one memory at a time.

“Why isn’t she here?” I ask Coach.

“Coming to games is a privilege she hasn’t earned. Why do you care?” he asks.

He watches me with something frustrated and demanding, then orders me to get on the field and focus. I don’t think about it a second time.

Monday at school, Hope is wearing long sleeves despite the heat. In our one shared class with Mrs. Ray, I notice her sink further into her chair to avoid Mrs. Ray’s gaze.

Who am I to question Coach? He knows her better than we do. He’s made it clear what she’s like.

She barely talks to other people.

“Come out of your thoughts,” Dimitri says.

I blink and glance over at him. “What?”

“You’re scowling and you’re going to break the door if you keep gripping it that hard. We have a lead,” Dimitri says.

I can tell he’s still pissed. He’s trying to hide it, maybe because he’s worried about my temper, but I know he’s just as pissy as I am when it comes to this situation. Coach shouldn’t have ever gotten to her a second time. We should have stopped it the first time around.

“This is our fault,” I say darkly.

“We didn’t make him do a damn thing,” Dimitri growls. “Don’t blame yourself for his shit. We didn’t tell him to take her.”

“We didn’t stop him either,” I hiss. “We had chances back then. We could have—”

“We can’t change it. And focusing on that distracts us from what we can do now. So let’s do what we can. You have the info and I have the way to use it. That will give us a direction.”

“Yeah,” I say. As if that will change the way we all treated her.

I get her avoidance now. But she loves us. I know she does. She may not want to admit it. She might want to pretend she doesn’t because of the past, but she loves us. If she wants to keep being rough on me and keep making me prove that I can love those dark pieces of her and still see how much she’s grown, I’ll happily do it.

“We’re getting her back,” I snarl. “She belongs with us. And once we have her back, I’m not letting her go. No one else gets to touch her. She’ll never be unprotected.”

Dimitri doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he parks and we get out of the car and head back up to Jared’s apartment. No one stops us. If anyone notices, they don’t say a damn thing. I don’t care if it’s because they’re afraid of us or because they recognize Jared’s a piece of shit. Either way, we’re getting our answers.

We sit by the coffee table and Dimitri mutters to himself as he opens the laptop and pulls up the website. I stare at it. I don’t know what else to do. It’s stare or punch the screen and lose our access.

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