Chapter 18
Trix
I finished cleaning up after lunch and sat down at my parents’ kitchen table with a sigh. I wanted coffee. Badly.
I was trying not to drink any, but I’d already decided that morning that a little cup wouldn’t hurt anything. I couldn’t have another. The blessed caffeine almost wasn’t worth the guilt I’d felt as I drank it.
Cameron would have been pissed if he’d caught me.
I rubbed my hands over my face and tried not to cry.
Everything was so messed up. We were all so preoccupied with taking care of the living that none of us had been given the chance to mourn yet. My mom was walking around like a zombie, her usually happy face drawn tight, Pop’s eyes had dark circles under them and he was talking even less than usual, which pretty much meant he was completely silent, and Leo was sleeping most of the time and not because he needed the rest.
And I was, well, just trying to keep my shit together and avoiding Cam.
I knew he was hurting, and I knew it was fucked up—but I didn’t want to be around him. It was as if he’d forgotten everything that had happened before our families were attacked. I couldn’t. Every single night, I laid down in bed and ran over and over the fight we’d had that week. The way he’d looked at me in disgust. The way he’d spoken to me.
The way he’d ignored how I’d been falling apart at the seams.
If I’d been afraid then, it was nothing compared to how I felt after I began remembering bits and pieces of the years my mom and I had lived with her first husband. The fights. The crying. The things she’d thought I didn’t hear, but I hadn’t been able to escape from.
I knew my mom thought she’d shielded me from the abuse she’d suffered, but she was wrong. I’d noticed every time she had to move slowly and carefully, the way she’d go quiet when her husband, Tony, was in the house, the way she’d taught me to protect myself.
I remembered it all.
And with those memories came a fear that was so overpowering, it was almost debilitating.
She’d married him. She hadn’t loved him. She’d been pregnant and scared and young, and she’d made what she thought was the best decision at the time.
Later, she’d known it was wrong and we’d escaped, but that didn’t erase the bad choices she’d made.
Not for her, or for me.
I couldn’t let that happen to me.
Someone knocked at the door and I startled. Leo was asleep on the couch and my mom and pop had gone to see Callie in the hospital, so I stood from my chair and made my way to the front of the house.
“Hey, Will,” I said in surprise as I swung open the door.
“Hey, beautiful.” He stepped inside and gave me a kiss on the top of my head before moving around me. “Leo here?”
“Yeah,” I tilted my head toward the couch. “He’s sleeping.”
Will nodded and moved forward, circling the couch before kicking it hard.
Leo jerked awake. “What the hell?” he slurred.
“Wake up, fucker,” Will ordered, smacking Leo’s legs off the couch.
My baby brother’s eyes went wide and then he scrambled into a sitting position. “Will!”
I turned away and left them alone as Will chuckled. They didn’t need me hovering, even though I wanted to.
“Hey, Trix,” Will called to my back as I entered the kitchen. “Might wanna go check on Cam.”
“Okay, thanks,” I called back.
I went out the back door and sat down on the concrete stairs leading into the yard. I wasn’t going to go check on Cam. Hopefully, I wouldn’t even see him for the rest of the day.
My hand went instinctively to my belly and I left it there as I looked out over the large field behind our house.
I was so glad Will had come to visit, though I didn’t know if he should be moving around so much. A part of me wished he had stayed home, though. Leo’s face had become familiar, a problem to be solved, but seeing Will had brought the terror of the attack right back to me.
The screams. The sounds of the guns and bullets hitting bodies and other things around the yard. The way Leo had looked at me, then began to run toward me before he was completely knocked off his feet. The way Gramps had jolted when the bullet hit his thigh, but he stayed upright, firing back like he was at the fucking OK Corral or something.
The way Cam had thrown me toward the wall to keep me safe, and Farrah had wrapped herself around me to keep me still.
I closed my eyes and let tears roll down my face. I missed my aunt and uncle. I missed Gram. I missed Mick and his awkward attempts at conversation.