Page 193 of Revv

Travis’s face twists, and whatever restraint he had left finally drops.

“Fine. She didn’t lie.” His mouth curls. “I went into her room. I touched her. I hurt her. I knew exactly how scared she was, and I did it anyway.”

Everything inside me goes dead quiet.

He keeps going, almost sneering now.

“You wanna know the worst part? I knew nobody would believe her. Or you. You were foster kids. Angry, damaged, always causing problems. I knew exactly what I could get away with.”

My grip tightens.

“You raped her.”

Travis barely flinches.

“Call it whatever the fuck you want. Didn’t change anything then, did it?”

That’s the moment something in me snaps.

Not because he admits it.

Because all these years later, Lena is still just something he thinks he got away with.

My fist hits his face before he can say another word.

People scream somewhere behind me, but the sound barely registers. Travis stumbles into the shelving, blood already running over his mouth, and for one second I just stare at him while every fucking memory I’ve spent years trying to bury tears its way back to the surface.

Then he looks at me like I’m still that kid he used to scare.

Wrong fucking move.

I hit him again.

And again.

There’s no rhythm to it, no thought beyond the rage that has been sitting inside me since I was thirteen years old and too fucking small to do anything useful with it. I grab the front of his shirt when he starts to fold and slam him back against the shelving hard enough to rattle the whole aisle, cans crashing around our feet while people scatter and somebody starts yelling for security.

I don’t care.

All I can see is Lena.

Lena sitting on the bathroom floor with her knees pulled tight against her chest. Lena flinching when footsteps stopped outside her room. The dresser I helped shove against her door because we didn’t have a fucking lock.

Me sleeping with a kitchen knife under my pillow because every adult I told decided forms and interviews and waiting were somehow more important than making sure she survived another night in that house.

I was thirteen years old staying awake until two, three in the morning, listening for floorboards and trying to be a fucking guard dog when I was still just a kid too.

Travis tries to swing back, catches me across the cheek, and it barely fucking registers.

A laugh rips out of my chest.

Not that any of this bullshit is funny.

But because this is the man who used to fill entire doorways in my head.

The monster who made both of us scared to breathe too loudly, and now he’s bleeding on the floor beneath me.

Security finally gets there before I can hit him again.