"I'm going to make him talk," I say.
Griff nods. "Good."
I sleep like shit. My bunk, with its slightly better mattress and the small shelf of earned items, feels grotesquely comfortable. I lie there listening to Jack, Harry, Miles. But not Liam. His empty bunk is three feet away, sheets still rumpled from when he last slept in them, and I feel like I'm suffocating.
Then Griff pulls Liam out. Gives him one day to decide. One day above ground to remember what sunlight feels like before they put him back in the dark.
I'm in the room when they bring him in during Quiet Time. I hear the door, and my heart does something violent, seizes, like a fist closing. And then there he is.
He's thinner. That's the first thing, and it hits me like a blow because Liam was already too thin. The bruises on his face have faded to a yellow-green that makes his blue eyes look almost supernatural, but they’re still there.
Jack yells and launches himself at Liam. Miles sits up and smiles, which from Miles is a standing ovation. Harry waves from his bunk with that smirk.
But Liam's looking at me.
I'm going to cry. I can feel it behind my eyes like pressure in a sealed room, this hot, awful thing I haven't let myself feel since the day my parents put me in here. Maybe before. I clench my jaw. Hold it. I will not fall apart. Not here, not in front of the others. Not when he needs me to be solid.
He comes to me after the briefest hug with Jack, and when I wrap my arms around him, I feel every rib. Feel the flinch before the melting. The sound he makes, this small, broken thing, almost takes me out at the knees. I hold tighter. Too tight, probably. I can't make myself let go.
"What the hell were you thinking?" I whisper into his hair, pressing my lips against the top of his head.
"I'm sorry," he says. Crying. Really crying, his whole body shaking against mine, and the guilt hits me like a wall. I was on break. I was gone. I left him here, and someone took him apart.
Then he tells me.
"Garrett got me alone one day," he whispers.
The world tilts.
The rage is instantaneous. Total. It floods through me, rewires my nervous system. My skin goes hot. My muscles lock. I'm shaking, goosebumps rising, my body preparing for violence with a thoroughness that scares even me.
"I'm gonna kill him."
I mean it. Standing here with Liam trembling against my chest, I mean it with every fiber. I will walk down that hall, findGarrett, and end him. I can do it. He's trash. And I know exactly where to hit, how hard, how many times.
But Liam panics. Eyes wide, breathing shredded into ragged gasps, begging me, hands fisted in my shirt, not to tell, not to say anything, because Garrett said he'd kill him and almost did.
I watch the rage drain, replaced by something worse: someone I love consumed by terror.
I pull him back in. Hold him. Pet his hair.
"It's okay, baby," I murmur. I don't care if Jack hears, or Miles, or Harry, or the entire academy. "I've got you. Daddy's here. I'm going to take care of it."
He's vibrating with fear. I hold him until the shaking slows, until his breathing syncs with mine, until his weight goes heavy and I know he's close to passing out from exhaustion.
"Don't think about this anymore, baby." I tip his chin up, gentle as I can with hands that still want to break things. "I told you I'll handle it, okay?"
He nods. His lower lip pushes out. He looks so young, so fragile, that something in my chest cracks in half.
I hold him until he falls asleep against me on his bed. Lay him down. Pull his blanket up. Sit in the half-dark of Quiet Time with my hands clasped between my knees and my jaw set.
He's going to hate me for this.
Chapter 34. Ethan
I wait until Liam's breathing is deep and even. Then I get up, step over Jack's outstretched legs, and get to Harry's bunk.
He's lying on his back, glasses off, squinting at me with that look he gets when he knows something interesting is about to happen. Harry can smell opportunity the way dogs smell fear. It's his worst quality and, right now, his most useful one.
