21. Reed

21

Reed

Seven years ago

T he door splintered off its hinges as I kicked it in, not wasting a single second after Brandy’s muffled voice carried through the door. Her words had ignited a wrath in me I’d never felt before, my vision tunneling as only one goal roared in my head: get her out.

As soon as the door hit the floor, my eyes flew to Brandy, where she sat curled up in a ball on the bed. Her pants were off, her legs shaking with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. I wanted to relight the match she kept lit deep inside her, hating how scared she looked in this moment. Like all she wanted to do was fold in on herself because of him.

My eyes snapped to Matt. “You think taking advantage of underage girls is fun, now?”

I knew the guy from high school. He was always such a fucking prick, and even more so now by the looks of it. It hadn’t taken long for one of the other idiots downstairs to fess up where Brandy was and who was with her.

“We’re just having fun, man,” Matt defended.

My fingers flexed as they curled into fists, my boots stomping across the plush carpet. Matt backed himself into a corner as I approached with every intent to crush the fucking life out of him. “You have fun with someone who fucking consents, not a drunk seventeen-year-old girl.”

One look at Brandy, and I knew she’d had too much to drink, which only pissed me off more because if I could see it in one glance, I damn well knew Matt was well the fuck aware.

Matt’s back hit the wall with a thud. “She wanted to.”

I swung a hand in Brandy’s direction, keeping my eyes on him. “That look like she fucking wants to?”

“She didn’t say no,” Matt said.

All I saw was fucking red. Her asking to be let out was her saying no. Her shaking on the bed was her saying no. Her having more than two drinks in her system was her saying no . Her being underage was her fucking saying no .

My fist connected with his jaw, and his head snapped to the side as a crunch filled the room. The force of it sent a flurry of pain through my fingers, and I shook my hand out, not satisfied with just one hit. “She said she wanted out.”

Matt’s hand lifted to touch the blood pooling on his lower lip as he turned his head. “Fuck, man. Not out of the room. Out of her shirt, finally.”

I rolled my lips together a moment before sending another punch to his nose. Another crack rent the air, and he groaned. Another hit. Another crunch. More and more until I couldn’t fucking stop. He wasn’t going to stop with her, so why should I? Why give him the benefit of the fucking doubt when what he wanted to do to her was ten times worse than what a punch could do? The physical healed, but not the fucking mental. If he had gone one step further, it would’ve stuck with her for life, yet he thought it was simply a moment in time. One opportunity to get off, while she lived with the memories forever.

He deserved to fucking die. To bleed out and succumb to his injuries.

I kept going. Even when he slumped against the wall, even when his eyes became so swollen he wouldn’t be able to open them. I. Kept. Going.

As soon as I’d come upstairs, everyone had fled the hall, retreating to empty rooms or down the stairs, so when I finally stopped throwing fist after fist, when Matt slid down the wall, groaning from the pain, I knelt before him and made my next words real fucking clear.

“You say a word of this to anyone or even think about touching Brandy again, and you’ll fucking regret it.”

Behind me, Brandy’s whispered words pulled me from my tunnel vision. “Please. Please, stop.”

I looked over my shoulder to find her rocking back and forth, her hands covering her ears as tears streamed down her cheeks. I didn’t give Matt another glance as I stood and crossed the room to her.

I wrapped my fingers around her wrists, causing a yelp to escape her lips.

“Brandy, look at me.” I lowered myself so we were eye level. She had hers squeezed shut, tears slipping from her eyelids. “You’re safe. I'm here.”

Slowly, she opened them, finding me immediately. Her hands shook as she removed them from either side of her head.

“We need to go,” I said, regaining my composure and doing my best to lighten my tone.

“Go?” she questioned.

I nodded, turning to search the ground for her pants. I let go of her wrists, bending over to retrieve them from the ground as well as her shoes and socks.

“I’m taking you home.”

I twisted, finding her staring directly at Matt’s slumped form in the corner. Instantly, her breathing quickened, and I moved, blocking her sight of him. “Don’t look at him. Look at me.”

She blinked, angling her head back to look up at me.

“Now, Brandy.”

She immediately began moving, nearly tipping over as she stood. My hand shot out, grabbing her upper arm to steady her. Her eyes fell to my skin, finding my knuckles bruised and covered in blood.

“I-is he dead?” she asked, her words barely a whisper.

“No,” I answered, hoping it was the truth, despite a small part of me wishing it wasn’t.

I led her out of the room, but once we made it down the hall to the top of the stairs, I stopped her. I didn’t want her going down there in her shirt and underwear and to have them all see, guessing what happened up here.

“Lift your leg,” I commanded, dropping her shoes and socks to the ground before fumbling with her jeans until I had the top opened wide.

She attempted to listen, but then she careened sideways. I dropped her pants before she could fall down the stairs, righting her. An impatient sigh escaped me, but I immediately felt bad as shame filled her features. This wasn’t her fault, as much as she might believe it was.

“Arms up,” I ordered instead, forgetting the jeans on the ground and lifting my shirt over my head.

Once it was off, I found Brandy standing there with her arms elevated. I situated the shirt over her, the hem falling to her mid-thigh, covering her far more than her own top. Quickly grabbing her clothes, I wrapped an arm around her waist to help her down the stairs.

“Anyone says anything to you, you ignore them,” I muttered to her as we reached the bottom.

“Please don’t kill anyone else tonight,” she whispered, keeping her eyes downcast as we walked through the living room. I ignored the watchful eyes, keeping my focus trained on the front door.

“I didn’t kill him,” I whispered back.

She didn’t say anything else as we exited the house, but as soon as we were outside and the cold air hit our warm skin, she was bending over, heaving.

I tried to straighten her with my arm around her waist. “Don’t you dare vomit, Brandy Rose.”

She let me guide her to my truck, reaching it without any stomach remnants making an appearance. She had a hand on her belly, taking slow, even breaths to likely calm the bile that threatened to rise.

“How much did you drink?” I asked as we approached the passenger side.

“A few.”

I opened the door, dropping my arm from around her. “How much is a few?”

“I think there’s two of you,” she slurred.

I frowned in response.

Once she caught sight of it, she said, “I lost track, okay? A lot, probably.”

My frown only deepened as I gestured to the seat for her to get in.

As she climbed into the truck, she kept a hand on the bottom of my shirt she wore, making sure it kept her covered. Once she was seated, she reached for the seat belt, but her fingers fumbled with the fabric as she couldn’t quite get a grasp. On the third try, I finally grabbed it, tugging it across her to secure it.

I closed the passenger door, then rounded the truck to get in on the driver’s side. I set her clothes on the center console and buckled myself before starting the engine.

“Why’d you go out tonight?” I asked, keeping my eyes trained ahead as I pulled onto the road.

“Because I wanted to,” she clipped, her words tired.

My hands twisted the steering wheel. “Because of your dad?”

“Shut up,” she snapped, the warning clear that if I continued, she’d likely get mad. I almost wanted to push my luck. Anything was better than seeing this beat down version of Brandy, hopeless and scared.

“Because of what happened this morning?”

Silence, save for the exhaust rumbling beneath us, was the only response.

“You don’t go out and get fucking drunk to deal with your problems, Brandy,” I scolded.

“I said shut up,” she snapped again.

“He’s twenty-four!” I yelled back. “What, did he lie and tell you he was your age?”

She remained quiet once again.

I scoffed. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” That usual sass was back in her tone.

“You’re resorting to acting out, to ruining yourself, instead of facing your problems.”

“What do you want me to do, hit my dad right back?” she shouted.

I shook my head, my grip on the wheel tightening. “Not fucking act out like some child.”

“I’m not acting out,” she retorted.

“No? That why you’re at some stupid high school party, getting drunk and letting a guy take advantage of you?”

“Stop.”

My tongue darted out to wet my lips at the memory of her voice. I want out. I wanted nothing more than to turn around and make sure the fucker was dead.

“That’s not how you handle having an abusive dad,” I said, which was probably the wrong thing to say right now, but I was so fucking mad .

She twisted, pulling on the seat belt to face me. “Oh, yeah? Do fucking tell me how I should handle that. With your perfect, happy family and all, tell me. How should I react to my father hitting my mom in front of me? Should I beat him like you just did to Matt? Handle my problems like an adult ?”

My jaw ticked. “Not like this. Not with acting like a fucking teenager.”

“I am a fucking teenager!” she yelled. “Stop treating me like I’m some fucking child!”

“Then stop acting like one and maybe people wouldn’t have to fucking save you!”

All this was becoming was a fucking yelling match, but fuck . I didn’t know what else to do. What if I hadn’t shown up? Why was I so fucking concerned for her? I was mad at myself for not showing up earlier, mad at her for being at this damn party in the first place, and mad at Matt for having the fucking audacity to touch her.

She didn’t reply, and when I glanced her way, I found her eyes filled to the brim with tears she tried to hold at bay. I struck a chord I hadn’t meant to, and she was hurting.

God, I’m not fucking good at this.

I pulled up to the curb outside her parents’ house, not knowing where else to take her. If I brought her to the ranch, her dad might just end up more mad. We were all fucking stuck with no solution to any of this.

I shifted into park as she ripped my shirt off over her head in one swift motion.

“Brandy.”

She tossed it at my lap and didn’t stop as she unbuckled and grabbed her belongings off the center console and shoved open the door.

I couldn’t let her go thinking I was mad I got her out of there. Fuck, if anything, I was grateful I did. She didn’t deserve that.

I quickly pressed the button on my seatbelt, letting it whip back against the frame as I opened my door and jumped out.

“Brandy.”

She didn’t turn around as she crossed the sidewalk to the path leading up to the house.

“Brandy, stop.”

She did, but she didn’t look my way. She stood there, in the dim light of the moon, her bare legs shivering in the cold, and all I wanted was to tell her everything was okay because it was.

It’s a bad day, Brandy Rose, not a bad life.

But something told me she thought it couldn’t get worse than this.

That rock bottom was a familiar face to her.

“This isn’t like you,” I said, forcing my tone softer, quieter, in case her dad woke up. Last thing I needed was him seeing me out here with his daughter in her fucking underwear.

“It’s one night, Reed.” She shook her head, still refusing to look at me. “Get over it.”

Then she disappeared inside, and I feared I wouldn’t be the one having trouble letting go of this night.

It’d be her.