Trouble at Brayshaw High (Brayshaw, #2)(39)

Hair down, face fresh and clear. Sweats and T-shirt.

Ready to breathe fire down our necks.

My baby.

Her forehead pinches slightly like she hears my inner whispers, but she stays strong. “Did you know?” she asks point blank, but there are deep creases at the edge of her eyes that have me thinking the question isn’t as standard as it sounds.

“Know what exactly?”

“Don’t fuck with me right now,” she snaps.

“I need you to break it down for me.”

Her jaw clenches and she glances away. “I need a ride home.”

“What the fuck?” Royce barks. “This is your fucking home!”

“My real home, Royce.”

I move closer to her, and her eyes slice to mine.

“I’m not playing. Take me or I’ll find a way. I’ll jump out the second-floor window if I have to.”

“Tell me why,” I demand, unease settling low in my stomach.

She shakes her head. “That’s not gonna happen, not right now, so it’s your call.”

“We had no damn clue he was doing all that today,” Royce shouts, moving toward her in a slight panic. “And if you’re mad he mentioned your past, well fuck, RaeRae, be mad at him, not us.”

Her forehead tightens, and she bounces her left leg. “Are we going to see my mom or not?”

My eyes narrow and she finally meets my stare and holds it.

Defiance flashes in her eyes.

“Fine. We’ll take you, but don’t pull anything stupid when we’re there,” I warn her, an edge to my tone I didn’t expect to use on her today.

Fuck man, I’ve been gone, not knowing if I was coming back to a Raven-less house again, and she’s acting like a stubborn fucking brat. Hiding what’s on her mind.

“Now?” she stresses.

I glance to Captain and Royce who both give curt nods, their features drawn up in an irritated confusion.

I look back to her and she nods, then disappears into the house.

Soon as we’re sure she’s out of earshot, I turn to my brothers.

“If we have to tie her ass up and drag her back here with us, we do it.”

They nod in agreement and it’s settled.

She will come back with us. Period.





I wasn’t even home for an hour last night before we were on the road.

Being winter break for Brayshaw High, there’s no class for a few weeks, but we still have games to be played, so the quicker we get back, the fucking better.

“This is the exit,” Raven tells Captain and we pull off the highway.

We put the address we had on file into the GPS, but Raven said it wouldn’t get us to her side of town without taking us all the way around since there were no official roads to her mom’s place. Apparently, the trailers are just thrown down on a random lot at the edge of the city, so we let her navigate. At least, Cap pretended to. I’m sure he figured out and memorized the way before even sliding into the driver’s seat.

We take a left on a broken-down gravel road, turning into a dirt lot gated off by large sheets of mismatched tin, something you’d see on a cheap shed roof or surrounding a junkyard.

It’s night fall, but barefoot kids still play out in the cold, nobody bothering to tell them to get out of the way of our SUV as we roll toward them.

Captain slows at the sight, almost to a full stop, but I pat the back of his seat and he meets my eyes in the mirror.

His features tighten as does his grip on the wheel and I know he’s thinking about Zoey and where she could have ended up if we hadn’t learned of her existence just in time.

Come on, brother.

It takes a few seconds, then he lets out a deep breath and continues forward.

A little farther down, we spot a group of men sitting around a beat-up, parted out car. They jump to their feet as we edge closer, cigarettes hanging from most of their mouths. Their eyes fall to the blackout rims before lifting back to the tinted windows.

“I told you we should have gotten a cheap rental or borrowed someone else’s car.” Raven keeps her eyes on the group as we pass.

“Which one?” Cap asks her.

She looks ahead. “Last one on the right, up against the fence.”

My eyes follow her direction and brows dip low.

I never stopped to consider what the place Raven grew up in looked like, but even if I did, I’d have missed the mark. There’s no little porch with an overlaying awning like the trailers we’ve seen. No space in front of it with a table and chair set for when you need to step outside.

It’s nothing but a fucking rectangular box with tin foil in the windows and alayer of dirt so thick not even rain could wash it away. It’s basically an RV without the fucking engine.

The ‘fence’ she mentioned is not a fucking fence, but an old wire wrap tied loosely to a few rotted wood posts.

On the other side are train tracks with a few broken down carts laying at the edges of them. There’s laughter and lights coming from one of them – I’m guessing it’s used as a squat house for homeless or maybe where teenagers get fucked up. I can picture Raven going out there to smoke at night or just to get away. Maybe this is where her love for riding trains came from, her own fucked up playground she shared with dozens of others.