“Yeah. A bunch of creepy old men and me. Sometimes their creepy sons, too.”
Trips just looks at Mattie and she groans behind me. “Fine. I get it.”
“You can’t fall off the wagon, Mattie. Not yet. You’ve got to get out of here first. No trouble, nothing for Father to hold over you. I fucked up. But you don’t have to.”
“What about Clara? I don’t see you giving her the same warnings.”
I clear my throat, not wanting to be tossed in the middle. But she needs to know. “I already fucked up. He’s got things to hold over me.”
Mattie’s search for pins halts. “What kind of hold?”
Trips reaches into his pocket, tossing the ring box to Mattie. But he’s watching me. His eyes are a dreary gray, no light shining from within. No fight. No nothing. The fire isn’t banked. It’s simply gone.
More tears—the leaky faucet kind—threaten, but I hold them back as Mattie gasps behind me. Her arms are heavy against my exhausted body as she holds me tight. “Oh my God. Wait, but Father did this?”
She pulls back, glancing between Trips and me. “You didn’t choose this.” Her shoulders slump, and for the first time, she looks like a girl, not a force of nature. A devastated girl, hands twisting in her skirt.
“No. We didn’t,” Trips says.
“If he can do this to you…”
“Then he can do it to you, Mattie. No mistakes. Make something of yourself. Escape.”
She tilts her head back, staring at the ceiling, blinking fast. “You promised we’d both get out,” she hisses, her fingers tracing the underside of her eyes, keeping her makeup from running.
“We can’t always get what we want, Sparkles.”
She whips around, charging Trips, slamming her fist into his face.
He could have dodged. He could have caught her hand. I’ve seen him fight before. I’ve trained with him, I suppose. But he doesn’t flinch, just lets her fist knock him in the jaw, his eyes closing for a moment. Just a moment to hide from the pain before him, before forcing them open again. Like he needs to see his penance. See his mistakes.
“You promised,” she whispers, looking up at him. And he folds her into a hug, holding her tight. I feel like I shouldn’t be here. Like I’m seeing something private. Something Trips would never want known outside of this random guest bathroom on his father’s estate.
He cares. So much. And there’s fuck all he can do about it.
His father had been a specter before. A monster in the night. A lever I tried to pull this fall to get Trips free from jail.
I released this monster when I thought I was making a bargain with a strict but reasonable man.
Two monsters set upon the people I care about most. One fully mine. One shared.
Both willing to tear us apart, however they can.
Trips meets my eyes over his sister’s shoulder. There’s no hope there. None.
He’s as good as told his sister that he’s given up. He belongs to the monster now.
I shift my weight, and the ring box brushes against my thigh. Picking it up, the setting flashy and girlish, I realize I belong to the monster now, too.
How do we escape a trap built just for us?
What am I going to tell Walker, RJ, and Jansen?
How can we break free when Trips has given up? When the fighter has ceded victory? When the stakes are so damn high?
How the hell do I fix this?
Chapter 6
