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“You can’t tell me that. I’m her father. I deserve…” Downy interrupted him.

“You’re not her father now, are you?” He challenged.

My father’s mouth thinned, and he turned accusing eyes to my mom.

My mom, who’d already been pale, became even paler.

“Attie,” I whispered softly. “Why don’t you go over there and check on Mace?”

Attie’s eyes, which had been avidly watching both me and Downy, turned without another word as she hurried in Mace’s direction.

Once she’d reached him safely, I turned back to my mom, brother, and father.

“Guys,” I started. “This isn’t the time, nor place, for this.”

Downy shot me a furious glare.

“Shut it,” he said.

I sighed and held up my hands, knowing better than to mess with my brother when he was angry.

And boy was he angry!

In fact, he wasn’t just angry. Oh no, he was livid.

All of those emotions swirled together to create the mask of fuming fury on my brother’s face.

My eyes narrowed at my brother, and I opened my mouth to rip him a new one when his wife came running up out of nowhere, her arms going around Downy’s chest.

What was this? A fucking family reunion?

“Don’t think we won’t talk about this,” Downy said through clenched teeth, his eyes going down to his wife’s hands that were wrapped around his chest, then back up to my mother.

My mother nodded very slowly, her eyes wide and wary as she looked back to her husband.

“I think that’s best,” she whispered.

Something inside me loosened, and I backed away.

“I’m going to talk to Drew,” I squeaked.

Not one of them acknowledged me, their eyes still locked in a strange sort of intense stare down that I was ready to move away from.

Which I did seconds later, turning and hurrying in the direction of Drew and Raphael.

The two of them were standing loosely, but the moment Drew saw me coming he opened up his arms, holding his hand out to me as he continued to speak.

“Wasn’t about me at all, but about Attie,” Drew was saying to Raphael. “That would’ve been helpful to know.”

I bit my lip and looked over to where Attie and Mace were currently laughing in the back of the ambulance.

His arm was in a sling, and he had a huge black mark over the left side of his face that was quickly becoming a bruise which would be even larger and more vividly colored tomorrow for sure.

“What happened to you?” I asked Raphael.

Raphael’s eyes turned to me, and his mouth smiled.

His eyes, however, didn’t.