Page 78 of The Worst Kind of Promise
The endless sobs she cried into my chest as I held her, the burst capillaries in her red eyes, the shaking of her pale limbs. The only time I’d ever seen her so broken was the night she called me. The common denominator of this entire thing stems fromhim. A weed invading Faye’s lonesome little dandelion, starving her of peace and happiness, growing between her cracks with an irremovable grasp on her.
And how do you kill a weed?
You pull it.
When I arrive on the doorstep of the house he’s staying in, I notice the singular car parked in the driveway. It’s one of those classic, American dream houses, hugged by a white picket fence and bordered by hedges that don’t have a single leaf out of place. Two stories with a wraparound porch, a pathway made of cobblestone, and too many double-paned windows for any one person to need. The sky is bruised with a plum gloam, tiny clusters of stars twinkling through an overhanging nebulous. The breeze pestering my arms forewarns a cold night, but I welcome the shock to my system, letting it fuel my ratcheting anger as I rap on the door with my fist.
I can hear the faint rumblings of a game on television, followed by heavy footsteps trudging my way. The door swings open to reveal the douche canoe himself—Saxon—standing all dumbfounded with the stupidest expression on his face.
His mouth hangs open. “Kit Langley?”
“Hi,” I say, leaning my shoulder against the doorframe, realizing now how much I tower over him, how quick of a visit this will be.
I crack my knuckles one finger at a time, gridlocking my eyes with his, rage wading through my bloodstream in boiling-hot pulses.
Saxon adheres a sickening smile to his face, one that brings out the skew of his front teeth and the wrinkles in his too-big forehead. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Oh, trust me. It won’t be a pleasure for much longer.”
* * *
When I get home,my hand is oozing blood. I tried to staunch the flow with a pair of spare shorts I found in the back seat, but all it’s done is change the color of the shorts from light gray to a deep maroon. I admit that in the moment, I didn’t really think about how I’d sneak back into the house, and my patience is so fucking thin that there’s no way in hell I’m going to make an effort. I walk through the door, trailing droplets of carnage behind me, ignoring the wide-eyed stares from my teammates currently huddled in the front room.
“Whoa, dude. What the fuck happened to you?” Casen asks.
Whatever leftover fury I had is still storming inside of me, and my lips pull back from my teeth in a growl. “None of your business.”
Gage sits up from his slouching, knocking a bag of tortilla chips off his lap. “Um, it most certainly is when you’re leaking at least half a pint of blood out of your hand.”
I’m a sick fuck for wanting to smile. “It’s not mine.”
“Not yours?” Bristol chimes in, very clearly biting back whatever unnecessary comment he was going to throw at me.
I try not to let their disappointment cloud me and wring out the adrenaline rush I got from beating Faye’s rapist with nothing but my fist. How fear crystallized in his eyes when I backed him into a corner, how easily his skin split underneath my knuckles, the volume of his screams and the sticky tears that tracked down his lacerated face. Even though his blood was warm and the smell turned my stomach, I needed to see more of it. I needed to see copious amounts of it spurt from his broken nose and cracked lip, needed to subject him to as much pain as possible.
I imagined how Faye must’ve felt that night—how scared she was, how much pain she endured. And that imagery fed every one of my throws, each becoming harder and quicker than the last, so much so that when my own knuckles began to bleed, I didn’t care. My hand is so sore I can barely move it. I might need stitches.
But none of that matters.
“Helped someone who was bleeding,” I gruff out, adding pressure to my throbbing hand. All I want to do is see Faye. Make sure she’s okay after today. I don’t need a surprise intervention from my teammates. Nothing they could say would make me regret what I did.
Hayes’ eyebrows furrow. “Did you take them to the hospital?”
“Yep.”
“What happened to them?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“’M sure.”
Fulton, for once, is speechless. Nobody knows what to say, or what to do, apparently, because I’m still soaking through my makeshift bandage.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go wrap this in my bathroom,” I grumble, sauntering impassively past a myriad of confused and disbelieving looks. Nobody dares to follow me.
I’m not that much of a hothead on the ice, but I am a defenseman. I take hits all the time, deck them out myself. Being beat up is something I’m used to, and the guys usually don’t question it. I also prefer to keep certain aspects of my life private from them, and they know not to overstep their boundaries. Yeah, they’ll probably continue interrogating me in the morning, but if they were to get all up in my face right now, I’d blow a gasket.
