That was my fault. I was the one who'd destroyed Cy, and now Luke was shoving a wedge in the pieces that man had managed to glue back together. My excuse was that I'd been a kid, but Luke couldn't use that. He was damned well old enough to know better, but I wasn't going to shove him back. That would just give him an excuse to start punching.
"A good man wouldn't shit on the guy trying to help him out," I said, stepping back up to brace for Luke to shove me again. "You scared, Luke? You feel your balls crawling up into your throat? Well, hitting me isn't going to fix that."
The man growled under his breath. "Fuck you, Ash."
"Just think for a goddamned second," I said. "CPS has already been called. They'll find something or they won't."
"And it's gonna be on their record forever!" Luke hissed. "This isn't some game you're playing. These are real people's lives. You keep saying you're just here to help and shit, but we werefinebefore you got here."
"You were?" I asked. "Was that when Faith was cutting? Or was it when you were trapped in a go-nowhere job with nothing but the next day of the same shit to look forward to?"
This time, Luke shoved hard enough to make me stagger. "You fucking faggot," he growled.
I surged back toward him, stopping myself just before I hit him. "In case you missed it, you are too."
"You made me this way," he said. "And the last thing I'm gonna let you people do is pervert my kid like you did me." He turned, storming most of the way to his truck before he had to turn back. "This is exactly what they said you'd do. The whole town warned me, but you know what I said? I told them it's not like that. I fucking stood up for all of you. I took that back-stabbing asshole to church and sat beside him while I prayed." He pulled in a deep breath. "But they were right. They said you'd seduce me, corrupt me, and then rip away all the good shit in my life, and now here we are."
"Luke!" I tried, but he jumped in his truck and slammed the door.
I made it two steps before he turned his truck on and backed up too fast. For a second, I was sure he'd hit Cy's bike, but he didn't. He also didn't seem to care. This was all falling apart and I didn't have a clue how to put it back together.
"Luke!" I screamed after him, just before the gravel flew, making me duck back. "Asshole," I mumbled, turning back for the house in defeat.
Inside, Violet had Cy on the couch, both of them sitting sideways to face each other. She kept rubbing his arm, her head bobbing, but he was talking too low for me to hear. I could guess, though. He was either saying that he fucked everything up, or he was telling her about what was going on with Faith. When I got closer, I realized it was the latter.
"...Getting measured for a dress. I got a full eyeful of it, Vi. That girl was wearing nothing but her panties. She's just at the age to need a bra, but she didn't have one, you know? Her arms were out to her sides, and the seamstress was measuring the outside of her leg. Looked like he peeked in the door and got it. Faith didn't even know."
"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," Violet said gently. "What do we need to do, Cy?"
I leaned over the back of the couch, right between them. "You ok?" I asked, palming the back of his neck.
He looked up at me. "I don't mean to make it worse, Ash. Just seems I'm good at it."
"It's not you," I promised. "C'mon, you know that. He's in fight or flight, right? He needs to fight, and the only thing he can see is us. Isn't that what you said before?"
"Yeah, but..."
"No." I shook him gently. "Save that. We've got a little girl out there living with a pedophile. Our shit can wait. He needs to cool down a bit, throw a few things around, then he'll realize that he went too far. We'll just need to give him a way back, ok? That was my problem all those years ago. I wanted to call you and tell you I was sorry. I wanted to beg you to forgive me. I just didn't know how, and neither will he. This has nothing to do with you, Cy."
He nodded. "Ok." Then he sniffed, proving he was taking this a little harder than he wanted to admit. "From what I could tell, he's still grooming her, and Faith isn't making it easy."
"How do we stop it?" Violet asked.
"Well..." He was putting back on his proverbial doctor's hat. "Grooming is done in stages. First, they build trust. Then they get something to use against the child. The last step is to isolate. Doesn't always go in order, though. I think Brody's working on the last two, because the first one isn't as easy. Faith's a little too worldly to just believe anything he says, and her bond with Luke is going to be a problem. She knows her father loves her, so she's not going to seek attention from Brody just to fill a gap."
"Did we fuck that up just now?" I asked.
Cy shook his head. "Not with that man. The first thing he'll do is make sure she's ok." But Cy bent to scrub at his face. "I need to fill out my records while all of this is fresh. CPS will want them."
"And?" Violet asked.
Cy slid his hand down his thigh, almost like he was wiping it off, but he didn't stop. "Um, how far are we going with this?"
"Luke will be back tomorrow," Violet said. "This is what he does, but he always comes back. So, let's take it all the way."
"What if he doesn't?" Cy asked.
She pressed her lips together. "Doesn't matter. This isn't about us. This is about making sure Faith is safe. That's it, and we'll pull out all the stops."
