Thunder Road: Walk The Edge Part 31

"Get her away," I growl, and Chevy maneuvers past me, catching the arm of the freshman and navigating her away with a smile and a daisy popping out of thin air. She's confused and amused, and she's officially out of the impact zone.

Like the moron he is, Kyle's dumbfounded as he regards Chevy's show and he doesn't see my fist until it makes contact with his face. A smack of flesh against flesh and Kyle falls sideways into the hood of his car.

Before he can recover, I grab him by the lapels of his football jacket and drag him to his feet. "You're a f.u.c.king dead man."

His eyes widen with fear, but his lips twitch like he's attempting to laugh. "Only sent the picture to her parents, but if she doesn't write that paper, it's going live." He puts his hands over my wrists. "I'm in control of this game now. We found the back door you placed on our phones and we won't be falling for your s.h.i.t anymore. Because you care for her, you won't do a thing to me. If you do, I'll make sure everyone knows that she's your wh.o.r.e."

I go cold on the inside and the world tilts. He's dead. The guy in front of me is inhaling air, but he's as good as dead.

My fingers curl tighter, but there're hands on my shoulders. The power of horses pulling me away and Chevy's in my face. "Not now. We'll take care of this, but not now."

Kyle is ripped from my grasp and the world is in fast-forward as the pieces on the board shift to his side. I promised Breanna I could save her from this. I promised I would protect her. Like everything else in life, it's completely f.u.c.ked-up.

The a.s.shole works his jaw. "I'm going to the office to get your a.s.s kicked out over this. Have fun working on your GED, a.s.shole."

My gut cramps and I circle to find Oz and Chevy acting as if they're ready to catch me when I fall.

"What's going down, brother?" Oz asks.

The world grows hazy on the edges, but my bike becomes clearer as I walk toward it. I mount it and Oz is in front of me with his arms stretched out wide. "What's going on?"

"Find me Pigpen," I say. "He's the only one that can help me."

Oz yanks out his phone and Chevy pats Oz's arm as the two of them head for their bikes. My motorcycle grumbles beneath me and I tear out of the parking lot as if I'm being chased by the flames of h.e.l.l.

Breanna MOM WENT TO WORK and so did Dad. Elsie, Zac, Paul and Joshua are off to school. Clara and Liam have been tasked with babysitting me, but like they did when I was younger, they suck at it and I'm sitting on the front porch.

I used to love autumn. The sound of the wind chimes tingling as the northern wind gently pushes through to the south. The way the leaves float to the ground and the constant chirping of crickets.

In essence, fall is the signal of everything dying, but I love how the world seems more vivid then. But today, I don't enjoy the subtle warmth of the air or the radiance of the leaves. I feel only empty and alone.

I overheard Mom and Dad this morning and Dad mumbled something about how he never thought I'd be a Terror wh.o.r.e. I lower my head as my heart hurts. He believes I'm a wh.o.r.e.

The front door opens and Clara yells, "She's out here sulking." Then to me, savoring her power trip, "We didn't give you permission to leave the house."

They didn't. "Why do you hate me?"

I expect myriad answers and excuses, but it's the silence that surprises me enough to glance over my shoulder.

"I don't hate you," she says quietly.

"Yes, you do."

Clara nibbles on her top lip, then closes the front door as she struts out. "I hate how everything comes easy for you, so sue me for enjoying something being hard for you for once."

I laugh and then laugh harder when I realize how crazy I sound. "You're mistaken on the easy."

She snorts and leans on the porch railing. "You have no idea what hard is. Do you know what it has been like to be your older sister? Everyone's like Look how smart Breanna is, Why can't you be more like her? and then there's my favorite pitied comment of Poor Clara, everything will always be a struggle for the poor dear because she's stupid."

I flinch. "You're not stupid. You're as smart as I am. In fact, you're smarter-"

"Save it," she spits. "Mom and Dad have been giving me the pep talk for years. You know what the world looks like to me? Chaos. My mind tries to merge letters together, it starts to do math problems from two years ago. I can't focus. Not like you. I'll never be you."

For years, this is the same conversation we've had. That somehow I'm responsible for her misery and I'm sick and tired of the guilt. "I'd switch brains with you if I could."

She chokes on a laugh. "Sure you would."

My throat runs dry and I swallow, but it doesn't help. "I don't sleep."

"What?"

"I don't sleep. In fact, I don't remember sleeping. I mean, I do and it's enough to get by on, but it's hard to fall asleep, and when I wake up, I can't go back because my mind starts working on things, but I didn't want you and Nora to know, so I would lie in bed for hours counting the plastered dots on the ceiling. There are four hundred and thirty-eight over my bed."

Clara sleeps. It's one thing she has been able to do. Her forehead wrinkles, but she quickly recovers from her shock. "So there's one drawback for you."

There is and there're so many others. "I'm like you...more than you know. When I'm not working on something, it's like a painful itch I can't reach. Sometimes my head hurts when I can't find the logic in the every day. There's a throb in the front of my head and it shifts to my temples and then I'll feel like I need to vomit because I don't understand how it doesn't make sense. And if none of that was annoying enough, I would freaking rip off my arms if, for thirty seconds, I could fit in with someone, somewhere." Like I have with Razor.

I briefly close my eyes as all of the taunts from my past pound me like a wave. "At school. At work. At home. With you. All I've ever wanted was to be a part of this stinking family, but all you have ever done is made me out to be the freak show and maybe I am. Maybe I am the weird girl who no one will ever like, but at least my family should love me. At least somewhere in the deep recesses of your soul you should like me."

A knot forms that cuts off my breathing. My eyes water and I try to blink the tears away, but more appear in the corners.

"Bre..." Clara starts but then stops.

"Home is supposed to be safe. Home is supposed to be the one place you can go and know that the horrible things people say to you won't be said to you there. It should be that place that forms a protective shield and it's okay to be quirky and messed up and...and...accepted."

Yes, I stood up in seventh grade and I explained how I made an operating telegraph. I smiled as I explained my experiment. I stumbled over my words as I attempted to chase the thoughts in my mind, and I even experienced a slight high when I saw several cla.s.smates' faces light up when they saw it truly worked.

My heart sinks when I recall the first insult and then nausea strikes me in the stomach when I recall the laughter. But if it's the truth that is to be told, it's when I walked into the house to find Clara crying alone in the kitchen over her ACT score that my life changed.

"You'll score higher than me. You could take it now and score higher than me. I know the answers. Everyone knows that I know the answers, but I can't focus. I lose my focus. I can remember all these things and it makes you smart and me stupid. Everyone is always better. Everyone knows that you're better. And I'm tired. I'm so tired of never measuring up."

It wasn't her words that shredded me, it was Clara hovering over the kitchen sink. It was her wrist poised over the basin. It was the knife that was being held at her wrist.

I loved her. Even though she blamed me. She was my older sister and I loved her.

Clara had looked over at me with wide eyes and she pleaded. Pleaded so much that it appeared her legs were about to give. "Can you try to not be you? Can you just try to be less?" She choked on the sobs and red-hot tears began to flow over my face as they ran over hers. "Maybe then I can keep up. Maybe if you pretend to be less, it won't be so bad."

And then she threatened to go through with killing herself if I told anyone what I saw and her burden became my burden. Her pain was my pain.

My head falls into my hands and the same tears I cried that day threaten to spill over now. "I tried, Clara. I tried to be less. I tried to be quiet and to be someone else and I'm sorry it wasn't enough for you, but I can't do this anymore. I did what you asked. I never told anyone what you were going to do. I never told anyone how I spent months terrified I'd come home and find you dead and I never told anyone that the reason I stopped being me was that you asked, but I can't do this anymore because I'm dying. I can't continue to kill myself in order to save you."

When I lift my head, Clara's completely pale and she holds on to her elbows like she's about to break. She gently rocks back and forth. "I didn't know that still haunted you."

Every second of every day. "There are some things I wish I could forget, but, like you, I'm cursed."

A rumble of a motorcycle and I stand. Razor pulls in front of my house, and when his gaze meets mine, I know the answer to his silent question.

Clara steps toward me. "No, Bre."

Unfortunately for her... "This isn't your decision to make."

RAZOR.

BREANNA GLANCES AROUND my house. It's the first time I've brought a girl home. This moment's huge, and I'd share how much this means to me, but we don't have time for my emotions. We have problems.

"You have a nice home." By her slight grin, I can tell she means it.

"It's small." But pride leaks out. I could never be ashamed of the place Mom loved.

"Bigger isn't better." It's a reference to her family, and I hate the sadness in her eyes.

I snag her hand and draw her forward. "Want to see my room?"

Breanna blushes as she threads her fingers with mine. I flip on the light, and Breanna takes in the narrow room with the Reign of Terror banner, the dresser and the mirror hanging over it. She touches the pictures taped on the wall. Most of them are of me, Chevy, Oz and Violet in various stages of life. There's two of me and Dad and at the top is one of me and Mom.

"She didn't commit suicide," she says.

It's a mixture of relief and anger. "No." I'm grateful that Breanna doesn't press for more, because she already knows more than she should.

"The code helped?" she asks.

"Yeah." A sickening sensation crawls along my insides. "It helped." And I haven't helped her. "This stuff with Kyle-we're going to figure it out."

Breanna's pursing her lips like she's about to disagree when the sound of a motorcycle gains our attention. She twists her fingers in her hair and her eyes shoot to the closet as if she's searching for a hiding place. "Am I allowed to be here? Holy c.r.a.p, you're cutting school. Your dad is going to freak. I did not mean to get you in trouble."

I slip into her personal s.p.a.ce, circle an arm around her waist and kiss the next string of worries from her lips. It startles her, and when I lick my tongue across her lips, she sucks in a breath and molds completely into me. Her sweet scent overwhelms me, and when she eases her soft curves into my body, I become very aware of the bed less than a foot from us.

A knock on the front door and I begrudgingly release her. "I'm not in trouble, you're fine in my house and stay here. I need to talk to Pigpen alone."

"How do you know it's him?"

Because I asked to see him and I don't ask anyone for anything. "I just do."

Breanna lowers herself to my bed, and I pause. d.a.m.n, she looks good there and leaving is the last thing I want to do, but in order to help her, I need Pigpen. He knocks again and I cross the room, open the door and step out onto the porch.

Pigpen leans against the railing and nails me with his stare. "This is the second time you've gone AWOL on the club. Let me tell you, that s.h.i.t got old the first time. Next time I f.u.c.king text you to see if you're alive, you text back."

h.e.l.l, I'm so caught up in Breanna's problems I forgot about Friday night. After the board laid it out for me in regards to Mom's death, I split as I needed time to digest.

"Do you hear me?" he demands.

"Loud and clear."

"Good. So what's this 911 Oz sent out on your behalf?"

"I'm against the ropes on a problem." Quick and to the point. Hopefully less painful.

"Knock and the door shall open..."

...ask and you shall receive. How many times has he said this to me? Breanna might consider this a betrayal, but it's one person, not the whole club. "Breanna's being blackmailed by some guys at school with a picture they took of me and her. I thought I could nail them and erase the picture by using the backdoor program, but they found it."

"Thought I taught you to move fast when you work with hacks like that."

He did. "I couldn't figure out one of the guys. I was waiting for them to slip his name in an email. If I moved before I had the last of the group, I would have tipped my hand."

Pigpen crosses his arms over his chest, clearly p.i.s.sed that I'm not following his set rules for hacking. "You should have come to me when you hit that snag."

"I f.u.c.ked up."

"You did, but now you're playing straight. What was your endgame?"

"Figure out who was involved. Go through their phones and computers, then wipe the picture clean in one swipe."

"It's a h.e.l.l of a risk to take that they haven't stored the picture someplace else. I taught you to never underestimate."

Until they found my hack, I was convinced they were minor-league players. I crack my neck as I do something I hate-repeat myself. "I f.u.c.ked up and Breanna's suffering for it. If you can't figure it out, I'm asking for help." And doing so is like offering a pound of my flesh.

"Give me what you know and we'll get it taken care of."

"I promised Breanna this would stay out of the club. I'm asking this as a personal favor."

Pigpen shoves off the railing and studies me like I got caught knocking over a liquor store. "I told you, no more personal favors. You have a problem, then you lean on your brothers. That's the point of the whole f.u.c.king club."

"I promised her-"

"You made a promise to us first," he cuts me off. "Here's the thing, I know the past couple of months have been tough. f.u.c.k, I'm not going to even pretend what the past couple of years have been like, but you have a family willing to take the same type of bullet that you did for us. You expect us to trust you, but it's a s.h.i.tty position to be in when we're the one giving all the blind faith. It's a two-way street with us. You either start trusting us or you need to give up your patch, because without trust, those colors on you don't mean s.h.i.t."

"That how it is?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says like it's simple addition. "That's how it is."

We glare at each other as it crawls under my skin that he won't look away.

"And another thing...you say you love her, then you better figure out quick if you can trust us, because if you want to get her out of this mess, you're going to need the club. Just so you know, brother, you think it's impossible to trust us with you, it'll probably kill you to trust us with what you love the most."

A muscle in my jaw twitches. "If you help her, I want in."

Pigpen shakes his head. "We offered that help the night you brought her to the club. We saw you weren't budging. This is it, kid. End of the road. The stakes are high everywhere and it's time for you to go all in or to f.u.c.king fold. Which one is it going to be?"

Breanna I'VE BEEN DRAWN to Razor-like a possessed moth to an inferno. So many reasons explain why: his beauty, his understanding, the way he protects, but it's not until my chat with Clara that I understood what attracted me to him emotionally...at least initially. He understood what it was like to feel as if you had possibly driven someone to take their own life.

The guilt.

The self-hate.

The feeling that your existence is absolutely worthless.

I saw it in his face the night outside of Shamrock's and I hurt for him because I still hurt for me. Clara pulled the knife away from her skin. She sank to the floor, tears streaming down her cheeks, telling me that she would do it if I ever told anyone what I saw.