Break Me (Brayshaw High #5)(75)

“People with nothing to lose.”

“People okay with losing.”

I swallow and try again. “Tell me what happened.”

Royce pauses for a second and then reaches in to grab a bat once more.

He turns to me and holds it out, so I wrap my hands around the grip.

He walks toward my brother’s busted up car, and I follow his lead.

Royce steps around the back of it, tearing the tarp off completely.

A lost look covers his face as he inspects the car from the back window to the passenger one.

He plants his feet there and stares inside.

“My family was dealing with some straight Jerry Springer shit for a minute, fucked-up family members, connected bloodlines and things you’d never believe. Hit after hit until it all started to crumble. Your brother pissed us off, but when it came down to it, we trusted him more than anyone, so when the one person who meant as much to each of us as we meant to each other needed an extra eye, he was the only one who could do it.”

I swallow. Raven.

He puts his hand on the doorframe, leaning in to look inside with a tight frown. “Me and Maddoc were headed to see our niece when Captain was... unable. We came around the corner to find two cars in the middle of the road, one we didn’t recognize and one we’d seen a million times. Smoke and small flames, and the body of a girl on the ground was all we could see.”

I step around the driver’s side, listening as I too focus on the car.

“We hopped out with the car still rolling and ran. Bishop had this asshole by the neck, a knife to him.”

I must gasp as his eyes pop up to mine briefly.

“Then we spotted Raven falling against the car—the girl on the ground wasn’t her. She was white as a fuckin’ ghost, about to fall on her ass. She called for Bass, and he didn’t hesitate, dropped the guy instantly. He left his back blind and went for her, just like that.”

I take a deep breath.

“We were running up right as the motherfucker stood. It was a guy we trusted not long before that. Our friend, his friend.”

“Who was it?”

He hesitates and then says, “His name was Leo, he was a towheaded little bitch, sharpest shot we’d ever seen. In Leo’s mind, Raven took a place he wanted, but he was too dumb to realize it wasn’t a place we knew would be filled. Bass was already ahead of him, but they were cool, so when Bass was suddenly the one called on, Leo grew even more bitter. He was fucking up before then, but obviously, it took over his weak little mind, enough to try to take our own out.”

Jesus. I swallow. “So what happened when Leo got up?”

“He ran for Bass’ back, a big-ass piece of broken glass in his grip. Maddoc went for Raven.”

“And you helped my brother.”

His eyes snap to mine. “Shouldn’t have had to. He should have called when she asked him to take her somewhere.”

“But he didn’t, and you still had his back.”

Royce glares at the busted airbags. “He had hers, and not just that time.”

“Was he in love with her?”

“Nah, I don’t think so, but only he could say for sure.” He pauses, and then says, “They both came from a fucked-up place, so he understood her, and she understood him.”

“Where’s Leo now?”

He eyes me. “Ask your brother. I tried to get Bass to leave the crash site with us, but he refused, said he knew just where to take Leo to drown him out.”

“Drown him out... my brother didn’t know how to swim.”

He shrugs. “Maybe Leo didn’t either.”

I sigh, looking along the car. “My brother. He’s not here, is he?”

“No,” he answers instantly, watching me closely.

“Did you make him leave?”

He stares a long hard moment and then shakes his head.

No.

He didn’t make him leave.

He chose to leave and didn’t tell me.

Did he feel like he couldn’t?

My chest begins to ache as I stand in front of a car I’ve been waiting to find parked outside my aunt’s house for the past four years.

Bass said he was working to better our lives, and maybe he is, but what a shitty sister I’ve been to do nothing other than wait for his hand to take mine.

I’ve been sitting idle, waiting for my big brother to call and tell me it’s time, that we’d be a family again and build a new life somewhere away from it all. Start over.

Why should I be his responsibility?

Why should he have to grind his ass for anyone other than himself?

Maybe he no longer wants the added weight a little sister brings?

He didn’t ask for the messed-up life we had, and he’s already saved me once, many times if I count all the days and nights he took the beatings for me.

I step back, eyeing the Cutlass, flashes of the day he was finally given the keys, still too young but able to reach the pedals to drive it, coming back and with it, the ache of the blows that followed increasing in numbers.

I never told my brother how every time he’d leave for an angry evening’s drive, angrier hands would come down on me.

He needed his escape, and I was okay with being the punching bag that allowed him that.

I was younger, thinner, and weaker, smaller all around, but for a few short minutes, I was protecting him.