“I was fucking jumped, and he was with them. The kid was with the guys who did this to me, okay? I think… it’s a long fucking story, but I think this was some payback that I didn’t realize I’d earned.”
“Get dressed,” Paxton growled at me, like he didn’t believe me.
“Fuck you too,” I said with as much force as I could muster. I swung my feet to the floor and then sort of melted to my knees. “Yeah, that’s not happening.” I curled up in a ball on the freezing cement and shivered. Fucking Paxton. Fucking Brickton. Fucking everyone.I closed my eyes and sighed.
“What did you do to yourself?” Paxton asked, and the next thing I knew there was a blanket over me too. Something happened and the world shifted, and then there was a grunt, and I was awkwardly hoisted into the air by some friendly, strong arms.
“Don’t like it,” I said and wrapped an arm around Paxton’s neck. My face was pressed to warm, clean-smelling skin. I opened my eyes and then closed them again because my glasses were crooked and they dug against my nose. “Good to know everyone thinks I’m the worst of the worst. Nothing could have happened to me,” I mumbled. “Oh no, always my fault.”
“Hush now. Who did what to you?” he asked. Cold air hit my feet and I tried to draw them under the blanket, but Paxton sucked in a breath. “You’re big, don’t wiggle about. Stop.”
“Not,” I grumped. But we were moving now, so I did what he said.
“Tell me what happened.”
So I did. I think. At least I made a lot of words for a long time. My mouth got dry. Paxton put me in the back of a warm, dark space, and I realized at some point it was the back seat of a truck. The door opposite me opened and Seb was placed, still sleeping… or maybe passed out, in the other seat.
“We’re going to have to take him to the hospital.” Slater worriedly opened Seb’s eyes with his fingers.
“I got Narcan, but not on me,” Paxton said from next to me. “Fuck, is he overdosing? Should we—”
“What’s going on,” Seb yelled, snapping awake like a zombie rising from the grave and then sucking in a deep breath. He startled Slater so badly that he almost fell on his ass, and Paxton had to keep me from falling out on his side. “Where’s Xander? Xander!” Seb yelled, but his eyes were glassy and he did not seem okay.
“You’re safe now,” Paxton said, leaning across me to take Seb’s hand where it was struggling out of his blanket. Seb blinked at him. “Your parents paid us to find you. You’re safe.” Paxton smiled and shook Seb’s hand around in a friendly way.
“Fuck that and fuck them, where’s Xander?” Seb tried to crawl out, but Slater simply pushed him back in.
“He ran away like a fucking coward. He thought they were the police,” I said, not wanting to be the bearer of bad news, but someone had to do it.
“Hey now, I am the police,” Paxton snarked.
“Not right now, are you? You’re moonlighting.” I stuck my tongue out at him and then snickered.
“How are you arguing with me after you were drugged?” he asked suspiciously and tapped me hard on the head.
I shrugged.
“My parents? Fuck my parents. Xander wouldn’t have left me here. He loves me.” My buddy Seb was getting hysterical and tried to shove at Slater, but he was obviously not doing much better than I was because all he succeeded in doing was actually falling out this time. Slater heaved a sigh and then picked Seb back up and set him inside again with shiny new scrapes he hadn’t had before.
“You know what, you little tosser? I thought you were being held against your will somewhere. If you don’t tone it down, I’ll run you into the station instead of taking you to your parents,” Paxton snarled at him. “By rights, I should. You should be charged with all manner of shite for the garbage you pulled, and your arse should be charged as an adult. There are people hurt because of you.”
“Yo, right here,” I said, raising my hand, but everyone ignored me and I put it down again.
Seb shut his mouth and slumped stonily in the seat, and Slater put the seat belt on him. He was still naked under his blanket, and so was I, and that made me feel weird. I didn’t like it. Anxiety wormed over me and I was sure everyone was looking at me.
“My stuff is inside, or it should be. Would you….” I couldn’t look Paxton in the eye. His shoulders heaved, and he slammed the door on me.
For a while my head spun, and at some point Slater and Paxton talked. They called Seb’s parents and asked them to come pick him up at Paxton’s house since they had me here too. Cue Seb crying and screaming and yelling about his boyfriend who had left him, which I could sympathize with on a gut level, and then the truck was moving. We pulled up outside of a familiar house in a quaint neighborhood.
The truck door opened again and Paxton was there, helping me out. This time I was able to step down myself without crumpling, sort of, with my arm wrapped around him. He kept my blanket on me and had my clothes hooked over his other arm. People who were probably Seb’s parents were already in the driveway, and they rushed to the truck and ripped open the door on his side before Slater could even step foot out of his own vehicle. Seb struggled and fought with them as they took him out of his seat, but he finally ended up going along while he sobbed so badly, he was having trouble breathing.
“What are they going to do with him?” I asked Paxton, gripping his arm tight. Paxton raised an eyebrow at me. “If he doesn’t want to go, maybe they’re not that great, you know?” I was unreasonably concerned about the kid who happily would have tried to ruin my entire life, but hearing the screams of “fuck you” and “he was my everything” brought some of my own worst tendencies to the forefront of my mind. I latched onto people like that, too. What would it have taken for me to do the same stupid shit as a teenager, had the opportunity presented itself?
Paxton snorted and got me moving toward a wide white wraparound porch that was so sweet-tooth homey I could barely stand to step up onto it. “Therapy. They’re loaded. It’ll be a private institution, and nurses and doctors, and mollycoddling for the next couple of years. Maybe forever.”
“And he did bad things?”
“Yeah.” Paxton swallowed and I could hear the click in his throat.
