Harlen’s eyes turn sharp,icy. “He hasn’t done that before, right?”
Acid burns in my stomach. “Right.”
“Fuck,” he whispers, and if I wasn’t listening, I wouldn’t have heard him. It was so low.
My eyes latch on to a black dot embedded in the brick across the room, then I tell him, “I made a promise to myself when I was fifteen, lying on the ground after he beat me, that if he ever touched Jade…” I pause when a whimper threatens to escape. Swallowing hard, I bring my eyes back to Harlen's. “I would kill him.”
A knock at the door snaps Harlen’s gaze from mine, though mine remains fixed, searing hot tears well in my eyes and one drips from the socket, landing in a pool on my torn black jeans.
I quickly shove my face into my elbow ditch when I feel a hand clench my shoulder, the couch dipping out beside me.
“Who are we killing?” Keaton Everson—known to all as Skinner, the enforcer of the Devil’s Peak MC—asks, glee in his voice.
I turn and look at him, my eyes catching on the gnarly scar sliced high into his right cheekbone.
His hair is cut a little shorter than normal, sitting closer to the scalp. His blue orbs frosted over.
I hadn’t told Skinner about my home life. But today, when I look at him, something twists and turns and pulls in my gut, urging me to speak, though words congeal in the base of my throat.
When I blink, he beats the palm of his hand against my deltoid. “It’s all good, you don’t have to?—”
“My father,” I cut him off, and he whistles, falling back into the cushions behind us.
“Have you killed anyone before?” he asks blankly, reaching into his pocket, retrieving an already gnawed toothpick.
When I don’t reply, Skinner leans forward, knocks his elbow to mine.
I shake my head.
“It’ll fuck you up, man,” he warns, only, it doesn’t stick.
Inhaling roughly, my chest rises, then falls. “I was fucked up the day I watched my father lay his hands on my mother.” My words are mumbled beneath my breath.
A pop of knuckles, ten, then Skinner’s deep, hard voice follows. “Yeah, now I want to kill that motherfucker, too.”
Harlen snorts, and I flick my eyes to him, brows furrowing as I try to process what the fuck he thinks is funny.
He raises his calloused hands in surrender. “I was just thinking about how that piece of shit would literally shit himself if he came face to face with our boy here.” He reaches forward and attempts to knuckle Skinner.
Skinner kicks his legs out and brushes a finger beneath his nose. He doesn’t entertain Harlen. “What’s really going on?”
I feel my face turn to steel, and my eyes shift away when I remember how my father’s hand on Jade’s jaw looked.
His grip only became tighter when she cried harder.
“He hurt my sister today,” I breathe my words out, shame for the bloodline I carry trembling in the rigidness of my tone, my veins. When Skinner doesn’t reply, I shoot my gaze to my side and watch him grind his molars together, a vein in his neck ticking before his mouth flattens like ice.
“Is your sister okay?” he asks, his voice void of emotion.
And I shake my head, because even though she acts like she is, I know she’s not.
And she never will be again.
The bristles of my toothbrush sweep across my bottom lip.
“Remind me why I’m doing this again?” I prompt Jade, teeth clenched.
Jade giggles, toothbrush pushed to her own. “Just a little longer.”
