Better When He's Brave (Welcome to the Point #3)(57)
I forced myself to hand the phone back to the principal and stared up helplessly at the entrance of the school. There was no doubt in my mind that Karsen was trapped somewhere inside and everything inside of me was screaming at me to go save her. That’s what I did—saved the innocent from the violence of the Point—and now Roark had effectively tied my hands, and it was making me furious. I started shouting at my fellow officers and anyone that would listen that they had to wait before they went inside. I wasn’t sure what kind of threat Roark had in place but I was in no position to push him. When my colleagues looked at me like I had lost my mind, I told them we had to wait for the bomb squad. It was the simplest excuse I could come up with off the top of my head. They didn’t like it but they backed down as I paced back and forth, never taking my eyes from the door.
She was just a kid, a really good kid at that. She deserved better than to be drawn into Roark’s deadly games. I clenched my hands into tight fists at my sides and looked at the cop that I had spoken to when I arrived on the scene. “The parents are starting to show.” He nodded his head in the direction from which cars and people were starting to stream in. Parents hysterical as they spotted their kids and the kids looking bored with it all. I was trying to figure out a way to sneak inside the school or a way to get some idea of what was happening on the inside when I heard a shrill voice call my name.
“Titus! What’s going on?” My heart immediately dropped into my shoes when I saw Brysen jogging up to me, her superblue eyes wide with fear. She wasn’t with Race, which was surprising; instead Booker was keeping pace with her, looking like he was going to murder anyone that got in his way.
“There was a bomb threat.”
“I was in class and I got a call saying the school was evacuated and they needed me to come get Karsen. Where is she and why are you here?”
“The students are all with the teachers over there but I haven’t seen Karsen with them.” I wasn’t ready to tell her that her little sister was currently a pawn in a very dangerous game and that I had no idea how to help her.
Booker lifted an eyebrow at me. His look downright menacing with that scar distorting his face. “Why don’t you tell me why you aren’t in there looking for the girl because we both know she isn’t over there with those teachers.”
I let out a long breath and lifted my hand to rub the back of my neck. I looked down at the tip of my boots in shame and defeat. “Roark just called me. He said if I go in the school after Karsen, he’ll kill her. He told me to keep all of law enforcement out of the building or there will be fatalities. I’m just trying to buy time until the bomb squad gets here so we can get eyes inside and I can see what we’re dealing with.”
Brysen lifted shaking hands to her mouth and I saw her eyes pop to an unnaturally large size. “You think he’s in there with her?”
I didn’t want to think anything, but if this was another one of Roark’s salvos then anything was possible. I was going to open my mouth to give the pretty young woman my typical platitudes when Booker stepped around me and took a striding step toward the front of the school. I reached out a hand to grab him and got pulled off balance as he jerked to a stop. The guy was built like a mountain and it wasn’t often someone could match me in the physicality department.
“Where do you think you’re going? I told you no one goes in until the building is clear. We can’t risk it.”
He shook me off and his eyes went flat and hard. I knew the look well. It was the same look Bax got when he was getting ready to tell me to go f*ck myself because he was going to do something I didn’t like.
“I’m not a cop and all Roark said was keep the cops out. Race pays me to take care of those girls, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
There was no point in arguing any further because aside from tasing him or putting a bullet in him, the guy was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. And honestly, I wished I was the one that was just saying to hell with it all and storming inside the building to look for the missing teenager. Booker flipped off a couple more cops that tried to stop him and even pushed one over that was stupid enough to get directly in his path. I sighed because now he was looking at charges for assaulting an officer even if he skated around whatever charges I could find to throw at him for ignoring a direct police order.
“What if she’s hurt or something worse? How can I live with that? It’s my job to keep her safe.” Brysen’s voice was weak but she was holding herself together surprisingly well. She wasn’t crying, at least not yet, and she was wrong. The safety of Karsen and the rest of the kids that hadn’t been tainted by the city yet was my job.
It hit me like a ton of bricks. So heavy and hard it almost took me to my knees. Roark had been going after the thing that mattered most to me from the very beginning. I cared about the people that still had a shot at making it out of the Point. I fought for the innocent and the young because I often felt like no one else was going to. Every person that Roark had hurt, had twisted, had infected in his quest to exact his revenge had been someone I’d sworn I would protect and keep safe.
It started with the kid whose neck he snapped and ditched outside of the Pit. Just some dumb jock barely in his twenties that liked to gamble, but he was just a kid and deserved a better end. Then it was the club. Before it burned to the ground, Nassir had been deliberately lured away and all the victims were just kids out looking for some trouble and fun. They lost their lives doing what kids all across the country did every single day. After that it was the girl on the dock and the armed stripper at Spanky’s. Two girls too young to be caught up in that kind of life and too young to be dead. Two girls I should’ve been able to keep safe. And lastly there was my brother. Sure, Bax was far from innocent, far from having a shot at a good and law-abiding life, but he was still my only family, my blood, and even if I had let him down in the past, I took my duty to keep him safe and keep him out of trouble to heart now. Killing Bax would have served the dual purpose of exacting revenge on the man who Roark thought was responsible for his father’s death and rubbing salt into the wound I would suffer for being unable to protect him.