“My mom married a gang member when I was nine,” I say. “Clyde. He was not a good person. He did a lot of bad shit that had people constantly trying to kill him. My mom was collateral to one of the shootings; I was almost collateral to another. The lower bullet scar is from a man who broke into our home when I was twelve.”
“And the upper one?” Connor questions, no remorse or contrition in his tone.
“From when my stepdad wasverydrunk a year later. He was pissed I didn’t die with my mom.”
“Jesus Christ,” Seamus murmurs.
“Can I please fuckingmove now, or are you planning on finishing the job he started?” I ask Connor, desperate to cover myself. Ihatethe scars on my body—they’re constant reminders of what I try to forget.
“That doesn’t explain how you learned to shoot,” Connor says.
“I started going to a gun range when I was fourteen. The owner was in love with my mom years ago; he was kind to me. I was pretty sure my stepdad would kill me some day, I could feel that he wanted to, so I learned how to protect myself.”
Connor releases me. “You’re going to stay here. I am going to check what you said. There should be hospital reports tocorroborate—”
I bark out a laugh. “There are no hospital reports.” I barely refrain from addingidiot. “I dug out the bullets on my own and nearly killed myself in the process. There’s one for when I had a broken bone in my leg, bad enough that the bone tore through skin and I needed surgery. There are few for my mom, from when Clyde hit her so hard she couldn’t heal on her own. That’s it.”
Connor’s quiet for a moment, examining my bullet scars again. “There are sloppy incision scars around the wound,” he confirms. “Could’ve been made by you. Okay. Stay here. I’ll be back. If what you say tracks, you’ll live to see another day. If you’re trying to fuckingplay me, and you got those wounds while training up with a gang or some shit, you’re dead.”
“Noted,” I snap. “I’ll wait patiently while you pull your head out of your ass.”
Connor shoots me a scathing glare before he stomps out of the room.
“You good, mate?” Seamus asks Dorian.
“Fucking dandy,” he replies. “I need this wound stitched up.”
I say nothing. I’m sure as fuck not going to bloody my hands helping him when he was content to leave me to Connor’s rage. I wrap the tatters of my shirt around myself, cross my arms to keep it in place, and slump back against the chair, thinking. I tune out Dorian and Seamus as they talk to each other, and allow myself to do something I very rarely engage in unless I’m listening to music; I dissociate. Music is vital for helping me zone out safely—dissociation without it is dangerous business, because there’s no way to know when I’ll come back to myself.
The experience of dissociating is blissful. My emotions fade. My physical being fades. My surroundings fade—it’s like I take a backseat in my body. My senses are still active, but easy to ignore. The feelingsand energies of the people around me are easy to disregard. I can think in peace without the inhibiting factors of the real world getting in my way.
I need to get out of here. That’s my first thought; the need to escape. I tried to play nice, and it did not get me into a desirable position. Icouldwait out the week until I’m let go, but there’s no telling how many times I’ll have to confront death again. Or how suspicious Connor will be of me, or if he’ll decide that it’d simply be easier to get rid of me.
I thought I could rely on Dorian for at leastsomeprotection since he seemed to like me, but that was clearly a miscalculation. I’m alone in keeping myself safeyet again. It’s not the first time, but I’d hoped to avoid ever being in such a position again.
Does the universe just hate me?
I try to think through my options. I could try to sneak out tonight or tomorrow, but where would I go? These guys all go to Greywood, and they’re obviously armed and connected. I can’t justleaveGreywood; I’m here on a scholarship. I couldtryto transfer schools and transfer the scholarship, but it would be nearly impossible to do that mid-semester. I’d need to wait for next semester at the very least, preferably the end of the school year.
I don’t know how long I spend trapped in my own mind, but faint footsteps draw me out of my self-induced stupor. My survival instincts force me to be present once more, bringing me partially out of my dissociative state. Connor enters the room just as I blink repeatedly, my vision coming back into focus.
He stares at me; I stare at him. After a moment, he looks at Seamus and Dorian. “What she said tracks. Reports line up.”
I don’t get an apology from him or even an apologetic glance, but I don’t expect either. He doesn’t seem the type to feel sorry for hurting someone, physically or otherwise.
“You need to get fixed up,” Connor says to Dorian. “I’ll call the doctor for a visit. We need to report this to the boss.”
Dorian looks at me. “I’d prefer to avoid a visit from the doc, and the obscenedonationhe’ll demand. You know how to do stitches?”
I let out a humorless puff of laughter.Of course I do.I offered to do them earlier.“Nope.”Just like I can’t shoot a gun.
Seamus’s eyebrows raise and faint amusement flashes across his expression. Connor rolls his eyes. Dorian’s brows furrow. “It has been a very long day followed by a very long night,” Dorian says lowly. “Trust me when I say, you do not want to piss any of us off right now. You’ve seen too much and heard too much.”
“I try to mess with your wound, there’s no guarantee I won’t accidentally slice through your brachial artery,” I say mildly. “You’ll want a professional to take care of it.” Iwouldn’tslice through his artery, but I am not doing anyone in this room any favors.
“I’ll call the boss,” Seamus says.
“And I’ll call the fucking doctor,” Connor growls. He glances at Dorian. “Can you walk?”
