Faith had been unharmed other than the damage that was steadily being done to her psyche. These bastards wearing her down. Carving her out. Looking for something that wasn’t even there.
Her parents had rushed over as soon as they’d heard, terrified, her father’s jaw clenched shut. I wasn’t sure what to expect when he’d approached me, my insides lined with steel as I’d prepared for his anger.
But he’d reached out, squeezed my shoulder, unable to say anything, only giving me that silent show of gratitude before he’d turned and disappeared into Bailey’s room.
If only I could have done more. Ended it this afternoon. Helplessness spun through the space, and I tried to blink away the blinding torment and vengeance possessing me.
Mack had shown up looking every bit the deviant I felt. His anger as deep as mine. The venomous tattoos that screamed death and destruction on his arms coming alive beneath the bristle of his straining muscles.
All my screaming was on the inside. Spirit exploding with fury. Soul shaking with the wrath it pumped into my veins.
I gritted my teeth, doing my best not to lose it right there in the quiet hall. “They fucking rammed us twice, man. It was no accident. Wasn’t even close to being a simple hit and run. It was them. I know it.”
“No shit.” He gripped the longer pieces of his blond hair between both hands. If he tugged any harder, he would have yanked it free.
He dropped his attention to the white-and-gray speckled linoleum floor, like he was reading some hidden message written in the design. “It has to be . . . some kind of fucked-up warning. Otherwise, they would have stayed and finished it.”
Finished it.
His words cut through me.
Daggers and knives.
My back hit the wall, and my head rocked back hard in my frustration. A fresh round of pain splintered through my head when it knocked against the plaster.
I welcomed it.
Let it stoke the fire.
“They could have been hurt. Killed.” Grit and hate. They seethed from my tongue.
Mack swung his attention back up to me. “You sure you didn’t get a good look at them? Anything that I can go on?”
I gave a harsh shake of my head. “Could barely make out two guys. Nothing of their faces. Didn’t get the license, either, but the front of the car was smashed to shit. Not sure how they even drove away.”
Frustrated, he pushed out a sigh, warily looking up at me in his own sort of desperation. “They found it abandoned about a mile outside of town. Wiped clean. It had been reported stolen this morning from Raleigh. Wouldn’t have mattered if you caught the license, anyway.”
“Shit,” I cursed at the floor.
His voice was a harsh murmur, “These guys aren’t fucking immortal. They can’t just disappear. There has to be something. Something I’m missing.”
Didn’t help that the only name I had been able to give Mack had come up as a dead end.
Steven in the ground a few months before Joseph had been killed. Not that I was mourning that piece of shit.
The monster who’d started the entire chain of events.
Forcing me into running that poison for him.
Nothing but a slave.
Shackled.
Every bit as real as the bars I’d found myself behind.
Mack angled his head so he could meet my eye. “I’m going to find these assholes, Jace. I will. I promise you.”
I lifted my chin. “I sure has hell hope so, Mack . . . because you aren’t going to like it if I find them first.”
I wound around him, and he snatched me by the wrist. “Jace, didn’t confide all of this to you to get you hurt.”
Yanking my arm out of his hold, I backed away. “You should know me better than to think I wouldn’t gladly die for them.”
Spinning on my heel, I started down the hall, faltering to a stop when Mack’s grated words hit me from behind. “They killed Joseph, man. Put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”
His voice was jagged. Cracked and bleeding. His own regret filling the narrow hall. A plea for me to think twice. “I couldn’t stand it if I let that happen to you.”
I swung back around, my brow twisting so tight I could barely see.
Couldn’t see through the hate.
The devotion.
The protectiveness that wound inside me.
“You, Mack? You didn’t let that happen. I did. Don’t think for a second I’m going to stand aside and let it happen to Faith and Bailey.”
My heart thrashed in my chest. Like it had teeth and claws. Looking for a way out to avenge.
His attention dropped to his boots. “No, I don’t. It’s just . . .” He lifted his gaze. “You have to tell her everything. What he did. What he had himself into.”
“I know.” I took another step back, drawn to the door Bailey was behind. I gulped for the nonexistent air. “I will . . . I promise.”
The selfish part of me wasn’t ready for this. Because I could feel it coming—everything I’d been a fool to think I might be able to keep slipping through my fingers.
My hands fisted.
Tightly.
Because I refused to let go.
Thirty-Two
Jace
Eighteen Years Old
Jace did his best to ignore the way Joseph and Ian had stopped talking the second he’d come out into the living room.
He was already on edge.
Watching over his goddamn shoulder.
Fighting the misery of what he’d become.
The last thing he wanted was for either of them to know what he’d succumbed to, and he sure as hell didn’t want them to know he’d done it for them.
Most of all, he hoped to God they wouldn’t do something stupid.
Go behind his back and get deeper into that sort of sordid trouble.
Steven, that cock-sucking lowlife, had been lurking. Spending more and more time at the trailer.
Jace doubted it had much to do with the allure of his trashed-out mother.
He always worried that they’d slip into the lifestyle they’d been bred into. He knew it was so much easier than fighting it every step of the way. He could only pray that they got that fighting was worth it.
He dropped his backpack to the ground at the door, glaring at it like it held some of the culpability. Doing this?
Yielding?
It was his own form of fighting.
“Where you been, Jace?” Joseph called, something sour in his tone.
God, Joseph was pissing him off more and more.
Ian laughed. “He was probably off getting himself a fine piece of ass. Pretty obvious, isn’t it?”
Jace tried to control his temper.
Hating the way it constantly flared.
The way he was constantly on edge.
He looked at them where they sat on the couch watching a movie. “I was out.”
He sure as hell wasn’t gonna let on where he’d been.
“To see Faith?” Ian goaded, grinning wide. “You lucky bastard.”
Jace shook his head. “She’s not a joke.”
“But she is hot.”
Joseph glared daggers at Ian and then turned them on Jace. Angry in a way Jace hadn’t ever seen him before. He had no idea what his problem was lately.
Joseph climbed to his feet and headed for the door. Jace swiveled around as Joseph jerked it open. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” Joseph tossed out the same excuse Jace had just given them. Jace knew that was exactly what it was. A cover for something.
Worry sloshed with the anger, like two rivers coming together and forming white-water rapids.
“Where?” he demanded, taking a step in Joseph’s direction.
An incredulous smirk twisted Joseph’s mouth into something defiant. “You don’t have a say in what I do, Jace.”
Panic surged, and Jace had him against the wall again. “Stay away from Steven. I already warned you.”
Joseph pushed Jace back.
As hard as he could.
Jace barely stumbled, glaring Joseph down, ready to fight the insolence out of him if that’s what it took.
“You want to fight, Jace? Bring it on. I’m finished listening to you . . . spouting all your holier-than-thou bullshit while you’re off having all the fun.”
Scornful laughter rocked from Jace. “All the fun? That’s what you think? That I’m off, having fun?”