Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) (9 page)

God, the feel of her against me like this is amazing.

And just like that, she’s my somewhere I belong.

I’m stirred awake as I hear angry voices shouting in the other room. I look over at the clock. Two a.m.

“I told you not to fucking bet all the money!” Mrs. Richardson screams. “You gambled away our fucking rent!”

“Shut up, bitch! I don’t need your shit anymore; I heard your grating voice all the way fucking home!” Mr. Richardson shoots back.

Goddamnit! They’re back. And he sounds drunk!

I shake Quinn awake. “Wake up; you have to get under the bed.”

“What’s wrong?”

It only takes a moment before she hears them fighting. She presses her lips together and bravely nods.

Once she slips underneath, I pull the blanket so it drapes over the edge of the bed to hide her.

“You don’t
need
my shit?!” Mrs. Richardson yells. “Good! I don’t
need
to look at your ugly, worthless face anymore!”

Fuck!
If they keep this volume the neighbors are going to call the cops!

“Bitch, shut up!”

I hear him smash against something. I squeeze my eyes closed against the inevitable.

“You can’t even hit me, you’re such a pussy!” she taunts him.

I’ve been here long enough to know exactly what’s going to happen, she’s going to go to her room or go to the kitchen for something to eat, and he’s going to come in here and start shit with me.

I tune out for a second and wonder, if two people like me and Quinn ever got together, would we be miserably dysfunctional like these two asshole excuses for human beings? I could never imagine Quinn like that—and I’d rather cut off my own fucking arms than ever hurt her or a kid.

My door blasts open so fast it makes me jump, even though I was expecting it.

“The little douchebag
is
awake.” Mr. Richardson staggers in. “This room is a fucking pigpen!” he rages as he looks at the food wrappers on the floor. He grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling me up off the bed and throwing me to the floor. “PICK THEM UP, PIG!”

I quickly snatch up the two Subway wrappers and smash them together in my hands.

“Two sandwiches, you fat fuck? Where did you get the money for those?” His foot kicks into my ribcage.

I steal a glance under the bed at Quinn, who looks terrified.

I’d like to reassure her. I can take the asshole easily—I have before. I’ve stopped fighting back, though, since the weather turned colder. I usually let him hit me a few times until he gets tired and goes off to bed. My biggest concern right now is that I don’t want him discovering her.

I pull myself to my feet.

“Where you hiding your money, boy?” he seethes. “This is my house! Anything you bring in here is mine!”

He gets his hand around my neck and pushes me against the wall. In that movement, my eyes catch mine and Quinn’s shoes together near the wall.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!

He sees them too and understanding dawns on his face. “
Two
Subway wrappers and
two
pairs of shoes? Who have you let into my house, prick?”

“No one. I was hungry, and I found the pair of shoes by a dumpster,” I lie.

He spins me around and forces my head towards Quinn’s sneakers. He presses my face into them.

“They’re way too small to be yours, bigfoot!” He considers them then smiles. “You got a girl in here? Got your ass laid, didn’t you?”

I shove him off of me. “I told you, I fucking found them. I’m bringing them to school Monday.”

“You think I’m buying that?” He backhands me across the face so hard, I hit the far wall. The cheap wall material reverberates with the force.

I touch my hand to my lips and catch the blood in my fingers. “Goddamnit!”

“What did you say, asshole?” He leans his ear at me.

His fist pummels into my gut, another cracks against my jaw.

The next two blows I block, which infuriates him! The question is, do I let him beat the shit out of me or fight back? We’ve done it both ways before. He might throw me out on my ass either way—we’ve done that both ways too—and I can’t leave Quinn in here alone.

“Hey, guy, you’re drunk as shit! Just go the fuck to bed and make up with your old lady,” I say, exasperated.

“You good-for-nothing bastard!” He maneuvers me into a headlock and starts dragging me out of the room.

I’m not entirely unhappy with this; it keeps Quinn safe under my bed. For now.

If I can tire him out, he might forget all about the conversation and simply pass the fuck out.

“Did you say that piece of shit brought somebody into my house?” Mrs. Richardson squawks. “Is there someone in
my house
boy?”

She must have been in the kitchen, because now I can smell something cooking and she’s brandishing a large serrated kitchen knife.

“Jesus Christ! So, I got laid and threw her out when I was finished. She was carrying her goddamn shoes with her cause she was wearing her boots outside. This is not a big fucking deal!” I’ve never seen the woman with a knife before, in fact she’s never been involved with her husband’s rages, but it sinks in that I could be in serious danger.

“Did you let the slut in my room? Did she take anything?” She breathes into my face; her breath is rancid, and I can only wish that they’d been picked up by cops for driving drunk.

“No, ma’am.” I use respect, hoping it helps.

But it looks like they’re enjoying what’s transpiring.

“Let’s make him really sorry,” she says.

Mr. Richardson—Dick—throws me to the couch and pins me with his knee in my kidney. I feel the cool of the knife blade slide under the collar of my shirt and Bitch cuts it in half down my back.

What the fuck!
This is an entirely new MO for them, and I’m definitely freaking the fuck out! I hate men being so close to me … on top of me … behind me … so much so that I lose my sense of perspective and my self-control.

I struggle and try to kick up, but Dick laughs and puts all of his weight on top of me, pinning my legs and torso, with his knee driven deeper into my kidney, causing terrible pain.

“Captain of the high school wrestling team,” he crows proudly.

Why do people take in kids if they hate them? The government doesn’t hand out that much fucking money.

I can’t take in a good breath. As Bitch is holding my head down and the knife against the back of my neck, I’m smothered within the filthy cloth of the cushion.

The most frightening part is that, as I’m sucking through the fabric for air and feeling the weight of Dick on my back, my mind begins to dredge up the darkest waters of my soul.

I start to thrash. I know I’m in trouble.

“That’s not going to help,” Bitch says. “You need to learn a lesson.”

The next sensation I feel is a thick, hard rubber tubing being lashed with terrible force across my exposed back. At the end of it is a piece of metal or something, and it feels like it’s flaying open my flesh.

It hurts like nothing I know, and my scream is caught in the cushion.

I jerk my body up, more calculated this time. I almost throw Dick off, when the whip comes down again, three times, fast and violent.

My body crumples against the couch in agony.

“Stay down! You piece of shit! We’d be doing the world a favor, snuffing out your pitiful existence.”

I hear a crash above me.

“What the fuck!?” Dick shouts.

I realize I don’t feel the knife on my neck anymore. I use the moment of surprise and lift up with every ounce of strength I’ve got and manage to throw Dick off of my back. He goes over, but takes me with him. We crash down against the coffee table, which snaps under our combined weight.

Dick’s breath is pushed out of his lungs as he cushions my fall.

“LIAM!” Quinn is yanking me to my feet. “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay!” She’s crying.

Between my oxygen deprived brain, the resurrected monster in my thoughts and the stinging fury of my back, my mind is too addled to think coherently. I stumble back a few steps, but catch myself.

What’s the damage?

Bitch is lying on the floor, motionless. “Did you kill her?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Quinn yells, a frying pan dangling from her hand. “They were beating you with a piece of hose! They were going to kill you!”

Her eyes trail to the floor, where in the melee, a cut piece of thick green garden hose about twelve inches long lays like a dead snake. The metal screw-like connector is still attached.

“LIAM!” Quinn screams and points behind me.

My foster dad is back on his feet.

But so am I. And I’m hungry for blood.

My first blow cracks over his jaw, and I can hear the pop as it dislocates. As he tries to catch himself from falling, I pull him across me, knee him hard in the gut and push him away. He falls forward and sprawls across the floor.

“Make sure they stay down! We got to get the fuck out of here, now!” I race back to the room, pick up our shoes and coats and my backpack.

Running through the living room, I tell Quinn to follow me.

“You’ll pay for this,” the Bitch hisses.

Guess she’s not dead. Pity.

I lead us out the side door and down the alley so we stay out of the streetlights.

We run full-on until we’re far enough from the townhouse that I feel safe enough for us to take a minute to get on our shoes and coats.

“Are you okay?” I check Quinn over.

She shoves my hands away. “Of course I’m okay! Are
you
okay?”

Her soft fingers pad the swell of my lip and eye. She’s trembling. I take both her hands in mine to calm her down.

“They were going to kill you!” Tears spill down her face.

“It’s not the first time, Quinn.” If she only knew how many times the adults in my world had threatened my life.

She wriggles out of my hands and throws her arms around my neck, pressing against me in a full body hug.

What if they’d succeeded?

I shudder and wrap my arms around Quinn’s waist. Then, I lift a hand and sink it into her beautiful, comforting, golden hair.

“Maybe you saved my life.”

*****

2015

Liam

“You make no sense!” Talon chastises me as I aim a dart into the red center of the target. “You’ve been pining away for a decade. Here she is, and you’re going to be a douche?”

“Leave me the fuck alone, Tal.” I throw the dart, but I’m off and it hits the wall; its tip sinks into the plaster.
Goddamnit!

“Jesus Christ, man,
she’s here
!” he implores. “Don’t bite the hand of fate.”

“Fate doesn’t give you anything but agony and heartache! It makes you believe in something good, or even great, and then it rips it away and watches while you bleed.”

“You don’t believe that shit you’re shoveling, and you know it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I believe now or what I believed then, that’s just reality,” I say finally and fist my jacket off the chair. “I’ve got to let Bailey out before he destroys the house. We also have blind dates to get ready for.”

“About that …” Talon says. “Ryder canceled it.”

“Why the hell did he do that?” I growl.

He just answers me with a stare, like I’m an idiot.

“You know she has a life we know nothing about! Nada! She could be fucking
married
for all we know! She could have kids!” I shake my head. “I don’t know who that Quinn is!”

“Bullshit! You know exactly who that Quinn is. Her life may have changed and her circumstances altered, but she’s still Quinn! Beautiful, amazing, intelligent, demanding—”

“I KNOW!” I hurl the words at him. “Do you think I don’t know!? What am I, fucking blind?! I saw her! I saw the pain she’s going through about her mom and the pain
I
instantly caused her merely by my presence! And don’t tell me you know what you’d do if you were me—you have no fucking clue!”

“Dude, you’re a smart guy, always have been, a born leader. You’re closer to me than any brother could be. And when it’s about Quinn, you always think with your heart first. When it comes to her, you’ve always had a sixth sense or some kind of direct line to her psychic energy. I don’t care what people believe in—God, the Universe, themselves—you have a connection to her that’s unexplainable. You’re soul mates, you and Quinn.”

I hate Talon.

“Right now, asshole, you’re thinking with your brain—the injured, sore, unforgiving part. It won’t tell you the truth. It will nurture your pain by feeding it pity.”