Be My Brayshaw (Brayshaw High #4)(12)

I glance behind me, taking in Raven’s long, sleek, jet black hair with purple-colored strips, and stony gray eyes. Even her skin tone is different, a lighter, creaminess, a contrast of her curved, pink lips.

Victoria is more bronze-toned, a flawless summer tan she carries all year long, dark eyes and plumper lips, like she keeps them constantly pursed.

Their styles, though, are slightly similar—thick black liner stays on their eyes and they both sway toward a hood-like rocker chick with a wild side, but where Raven screams recklessness, Victoria’s straight cynicism.

Raven doesn’t think, she acts, and Victoria forever has something working through her mind.

Raven laughs. “That’s because I was cursed to look like my mom, may the devil keep her soul burning in Hell.”

I scoff, shifting to face her better.

It was only months ago she dumped her mother’s ashes in the creek out at our family cabin, giving the vile woman a familiar place to rest, even though Raven didn’t even think she deserved one.

“You been thinking about her?” I ask, my eyes falling to her stomach.

She shrugs, a slight frown taking over as she focuses on the flower stencil covering Zoey’s wall. “If worrying I’ll suck as bad as she did at the whole mothering thing counts, then yeah.” A heavy sigh leaves her. “With every couple blinks,” she admits.

“What’s Maddoc say?”

“How I’m not her and would never allow myself to be.”

“He’s right.”

Raven scowl deepens. “She was a drug addict, Cap. I smoke weed, or did before I got knocked up. She sold her body for quick cash, I let people beat on mine for the same.”

“You didn’t let people beat on you.” I shake my head. “You found a way to take care of yourself, got in a ring and earned some money with your fists by winning. That’s nowhere near the same thing.”

Her lips pinch and she gives a jerky nod.

“Trust me, Brayshaw, you’ll be more than she ever could have.”

She looks to me with a small smile. “Or die trying.”

No doubt in my mind she’d do exactly that.

We eye each other, and with each passing second, her features soften.

She tilts her head, always knowing when I have something to say, but will never force it from me.

I ask her what’s been on my mind. “Why do you think our dad did this for her, why hide a Graven with the girls in the group home?”

She nods as if she was expecting this question at some point, proving me right when she speaks.

“I worked this shit out in my head so many times,” she admits. “I thought for sure it was to keep an eye on her, track trouble, you know?” She takes a deep breath. “But now that I know he’s not a total dickhead,” she says, making me chuckle. “I think he wanted to give her a chance in hell at a life.” She looks my way. “Who the hell knows what it was really like for her before this place. You saw the scars on her stomach, same as me. We can’t even pretend to know how she got ‘em.”

My lips flatten at the mention of the markings on Victoria’s skin, something we were never meant to see but did when her shirt was torn without her knowledge a few months back, giving my brothers, myself, and Raven an accidental clear view of the markings carved into her. She never offered an explanation and we never asked for one.

I’ve turned over every possibility in my head, but in our world, it could be the result of a million things. My thoughts could be tame compared to her reality, not that I have any way of fucking knowing.

“I think she has a lot to tell,” Raven says.

“Then why the fuck hasn’t she?”

A soft chuckle leaves her, and she shoves to her feet. “Asks the guy who shares his life with us, but his deepest thoughts with a paper and pen.”

I frown, pushing from the windowsill to stand in front of her.

“Why hasn’t she?” she teases as she pats my chest, her gray eyes meeting mine. “How about, why would she? She might be living in a big fancy mansion, but with space doesn’t come comfort for girls like us, and we’ve given her none.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re fucked up rejects, and we know it. In case we ever start to forget, society is always game, set, and ready to remind us. We’re well aware the dangers hope can bring, so... we have none.”

With that, she moves toward the door, and my gaze follows, knowing she’ll pause to add something before she walks out.

She does.

Her hand plants on the doorframe as she shifts her body sideways to look at me. “Trust is normally a two-way street, Cap, but in our case it’s a four-lane, one-way highway. Imagine being on the outside of that.”

“You were, at first.”

“And I made mistakes.”

“You made selfless choices.”

“I made reckless decisions.”

“For us,” I stress.

Raven shrugs. “Who’s to say she didn’t do the same? Your dad brought her here, put her in the safety of your group home, on your property, in your town. Maybe she felt a sense of loyalty without realizing it. Or maybe she does and admitting is the hard part. All she knew of Brayshaw was the man she was raised with. Can’t be easy to suddenly hurt for one Brayshaw when not long ago you wanted to hurt another.”