Razed (Barnes Brothers #2)(79)

So you were a foster kid, huh? The state took me away from my dad once—Mom was traveling on business and somebody called CPS because they found out he was leaving me alone at night. Mom freaked. When did your dad die? Who do you live with now? Were you adopted . . .

“I . . . I don’t even remember how it happened, but one day we started . . . talking. I told her about my dad. About being put with the first foster family . . . then being taking away. The group home. Then the family that almost adopted me, but had to move because the dad lost his job. Then the next family—I loved them. I was with them a long time. But then . . . then my mother showing up. By Christmas, we were talking all the time. By the end of that year, we were inseparable.” Keelie looked down at her hands, remembered the way they’d looked, smeared with Toria’s blood. “My mother hated her. Couldn’t stand her. My stepbrother, my half sisters . . . they were about the same. The weekend after school started back up, there was a party. Both Toria and I were invited. I didn’t know he’d be there. Toria didn’t want to go, but I liked parties. She didn’t like me going alone.”

She curled a hand into a fist. “Toria was always smarter than I was.”

Zane’s hand covered hers.

The silence that fell between them hurt, like knives jabbing into her skin, into her heart with every slow thud.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to . . .

The urge to clamp her mouth shut, to take everything back, to hide and lock herself away was almost overwhelming. Because she knew if she stopped now, she’d never move forward, so she forced herself to keep going.

“They had booze there. I didn’t know. It was in the punch and I had one glass, then another . . . Toria tried to tell me, but I ignored her. There was this guy and he was flirting with me. I don’t remember much.” Her thoughts were a blurred rush and her heart sped up, lurching somewhere up in her throat as she recounted what she could of the night. Toria had tried to help. She could remember her own laughter and then, just grey. Nothing but grey, until she was on her hands and knees, somebody half shouting. The smell of vomit. Her shirt was half off and she was on the floor, on her knees.

Then Toria.

Come on, sweetie. We need to get out of here.

She’d stumbled down a hall with her friend and then the darkness faded in and out, tugging her under. When the world stopped pulling its disappearing act, she’d been on her back, in a bed, staring up at the sloped ceiling overhead.

She’d been terrified—and her terror about waking, alone in a strange place, all stemmed from that night. Some part of her was still afraid she’d find herself there, all over again.

The house had been quiet.

“Toria wasn’t anywhere around. I got up to find her, confused. I was in a room up on the fourth floor—it was a big house,” she murmured, her voice thick.


*

She looked so lost, Zane thought. He wanted to lock her against him, promise that nothing would ever happen to her, that nobody would ever hurt her, or shake her world again.

But the pain in her now was an old one. How could he fix that?

Sliding his hands up to rest on her shoulders, he just waited. What else could he do?

“I heard the noise on the third floor, started to run. My legs didn’t want to work. My throat felt funny. I tried to speak and couldn’t. I found the door—heard her scream and I grabbed the vase from the table just inside the room. He hadn’t shut the door. Two other guys were watching. Laughing. One held her down, the other had a camera. I smashed the vase down on my brother’s head.”

She stopped, lapsed into silence.

Her hands clenched into fists, empty ones that tightened then relaxed. “The guy with the camera took off running. The one holding her tried to hit me but . . .” She stopped again and looked up. “I spent too many years in foster homes. I had too many foster brothers—they either taught me how to fight or gave me a good reason to learn how. I broke his nose. Price was groaning and moving around but I didn’t wait. I helped her get up and we started out of the house. I took her home. I didn’t know what else to do.” Ugly, bitter laughter rang through the open space. “I should have taken her to the hospital. We called the cops, but they talked her out of going to the hospital. I didn’t even realize how bad that was until it was too late.”

Rage started to throb, pulse, beat inside him, a harsh tattoo that had him ready to pummel something. “The cops didn’t want her going to the hospital?” he asked softly.

“No.” She tipped her head back, stared at him with stark eyes. “My mother had married into a politician’s family, you see. The all-American boy, his well-off family. The good ol’ boy network clicked in fast. Real fast. I didn’t even realize what was going on until later, when the sheriff came to talk to me. It actually should have been turned over to the sheriff’s department anyway. It happened outside the county, but Toria had been staying with her dad that weekend. Her mom found out. If I’d called her from the beginning . . .”

A knot settled in her throat, the ache in her chest so hot and heavy. “A lot of if onlys in my life. Anyway, the sheriff was the one who tried to handle the investigation. They came to talk to me.”

Now, Sheriff Deluca, you understand how it is, surely . . . Her mother’s cool, calm voice.