Page 55 of Grace

“Are you snitching on us to that asshole?”

I shook my head, my chest full of rage. Cyrus is not an asshole!

“You’d better not, because if you do, your sister could get in trouble.”

My body tensed.

“For example, I could cut her pretty little throat.”

Bo towered over me, making me back away until my back pressed against the wall. Whiskers jumped out of my hands and ran back into my room.

“I’ve always hated stupid bitches like you,” he sneered into my face, spittle spraying onto my skin, then grabbed my chin. Fear made my legs go numb. “You think your cunt’s worth more than the other cunts.” He licked his upper lip. “Let me tell you something, Grace. While I do hate girls like you, I still like to fuck them in the ass. Just to give them a taste of Bo and make them know their place.”

He pressed his hard dick against me and kissed me.

In my mind’s eye, Chase appeared, his possessive eyes glowing with feral darkness. I imagined him stepping behind Bo, tearing him off me and killing him as mercilessly as he had Mr. Miller.

However, this was only a fever dream. He wasn’t there. He couldn’t help me. He only existed in my mind. Only I could hear his voice in my head. Fight back, Grace! Don’t let him take what isn’t his!

While the thought of expecting help from him scared me to death, it gave me power, too. I filled with courage and flailed like a lunatic, hitting Bo’s bare, hairy chest.

The commotion woke Jamie. He stepped out of his room bleary-eyed, his hands adjusting his morning erection.

“Bo, what are you doing?” he asked in a thin, scratchy voice. “Nikky wouldn’t be happy about this.”

Bo let me go and stepped back. I instantly wiped his spittle from my face and gasped for air, tears streaming down my burning skin.

Jamie looked me up and down, then at Bo, who was also clutching his erection. My brother ran his fingers through his hair and cleared his throat. He knew exactly what Bo wanted to do—still, he didn’t do what a brother should have done in this situation.

He backed down. He was afraid of Bo, too. Because even though the gang had taken him in, Bo was the alpha. Even the fact that the asshole sometimes fucked his sister didn’t help.

Bo stood in front of Jamie and straightened up. My brother shrank back from the disgusting filth that emanated from Bo. The asshole patted Jamie’s face and went back to Nikky’s room.

My brother was shaking. His fingers raked through his dirty blond hair, then he looked at me with an accusing look I didn’t deserve.

“Nikky was right. You only bring trouble on our heads, Grace.”

“You can’t be serious, Jamie.”

“Why? Nikky had a crush on Chase. Then you… kissed him. And now Bo… Nikky’s gonna be fucking pissed if she hears about this.”

“He forced himself on me.”

“Whatever happens, don’t draw me into this. You should stay away from Bo—Nikky’s gonna tear you apart if she finds out what’s going on behind her back. She’s not the girl you knew. She’s crazy now.”

My hand clenched into a fist by my side. I wanted to punch Jamie, because I had never wanted Chase to kiss me that day. I fought him. I was dating Billy Ray and avoided the white van.

Sometimes we don’t really know what a certain word means. Or we simply don’t want to look beneath the surface. We don’t want to imagine or discover what’s behind it. When Jamie told me Nikky was crazy…

The loss of our parents affected all of us deeply. My sister had already been behaving strangely even when they were still alive, but everyone explained it by saying that the teenage years are full of ups and downs.

So when I thought about Nikky being “crazy,” I imagined her losing her mind completely, shouting, breaking a few things, and yelling in my face how much she hated me.

Even though I hadn’t done anything to deserve it, this would have been… something I could have gotten over. However, this was not what happened. Nikky really went batshit crazy, making me reconsider what this short word could mean when it came to her.

“Grace. Your brother’s calling,” Abigail shouted to me.

I cut a thorn off a rose, then wiped my hand, sticky with sap, on my apron. Fortunately, our phone had such a long cord it could stretch over half the shop. I pressed the handset between my shoulder and my ear. I didn’t have my own phone. My expenses ate up my salary—and I had to buy a sturdy bike because our farmhouse was far from town. Also, fixing my teeth had been horribly expensive.