Page 16 of Outlawed

“It’s like you said. I felt something for you the second your eyes locked on mine. And I hated myself for it. It made me feel more like my father than I cared to admit. But I swear to you I never planned on touching you. I really did just want to figure out a way to keep you safe.”

“The birthmark changed things.”

He leans his forehead against mine, tears in his voice that shock me. “The birthmark changed everything,” he agrees.

“You drugged me.”

“Yes. I knew you’d leave otherwise. Of course you would. I needed more time to figure things out. If your father saw your birthmark, I had no doubt he’d forget you were his daughter and he’d take what wasn’t his to take.”

Shepard leaps up at that, and now he’s the one pacing, hissing at Austin’s words.

“But I fucked up. I forgot about Andy.”

I let what he’s saying turn in my head, trying to make sense of it, but it’s like trying to see an image through a dirty window. “He had the missing pages. He gave them to me, so he knew everything. But it wasn’t him who raped me…he proved that.”

“I have no idea where he got the pages from, but it was never about you for him. It was about me. Shit, I’m not explaining this well.” He scrubs his hand over his face. “He must have seen my interest in you that day. He sure as hell didn’t like me beating his ass and taking your side.” He goes quiet as Shepard sits back down.

He swallows and then forces the rest from his lips. “When he came home that evening, we argued, and I eventually told him the truth about everything. Mom, Dad, our history, and yours. Honestly, it was a relief. I thought he would understand. I thought he’d feel the same way as me, but he’s more like our father than I gave him credit for.

“He told me he wouldn’t stay in the house while you were there, but that he’d help me come up with a plan over dinner before he left to stay at a friend’s.”

“And did he?” Riggs asks

“I don’t remember. I fell asleep. I had this weird dream about you and me, and when I woke up, I felt so fucking ashamed of myself. I climbed into a cold shower and puked my guts up.”

“Wait…” Shepard looks at me before turning back to Austin.

“Andy drugged me,” he huffs. “And I gave him the fucking idea by drugging Calliope. I didn’t know, though. I’d been drinking whiskey. I thought I’d overdone it while I’d been distracted and trying to figure out a plan for you. When I came down and realized you were gone, I was worried sick. But then it was all over town that Martin was dead, and you’d been arrested for murder.”

Chapter Six

Icrawl off the bed, needing a minute. I walk to the bathroom and close the door, sliding down it until my ass hits the floor. To say my head is ready to explode is an understatement.

I can hear the guys quietly talking, but I can’t make out the words through the thick oak door. I give myself another minute before I get to my feet and stumble to the sink. I wince at my image in the mirror. My skin is as pale as a sheet of paper, and I have dried blood smeared everywhere. I glance down and notice for the first time that the clothes I’d been wearing have been stripped off me, and I’m wearing a black button-down shirt, presumably one of Austin’s.

Slowly, I unfasten the buttons and take in my naked body beneath. My eyes fill with tears once more when I see the streaks of blood, because that blood’s not mine. It’s Dawn’s, and none of this is just a bad dream that I’ll eventually wake up from.

I fight the urge to climb into the shower for all of five seconds before I climb in fully clothed and turn the water on. I don’t care that the water’s freezing. I need to get the blood off me.

I tear the shirt from my body and scrub my skin until it’s red and painful, sobbing my heart out until the door bursts open and Riggs steps in. He takes a look at me and climbs into the shower fully clothed and wraps himself around me.

“Oh, Poppy.” I hear Shepard whisper before the water shuts off. Riggs lifts me into Shepard’s waiting arms as he strips off his now-wet clothes. Austin walks in with a handful of towels. He offers one to Riggs, then places all but one on the counter. He opens it and waits for Shepard to decide. They stare at each other in a silent standoff for a moment before Shepard relents and hands me to Austin, who wraps the towel around my naked body and carries me back to the bedroom.

I stare at the comforter as he sits me on the bed. Shepard slides in behind me with a towel and gently rubs my hair dry. Riggs takes a pair of sweats that Austin throws his way.

“I didn’t know.”

I lift my head at Austin’s words.

“I thought I dreamed you. Even when I heard what had happened to you, I thought it was your father who did it, and that my drugging you had made everything worse.”

“When did you know?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.

“I felt your power under your skin the day I met you. Like a vibration that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. When I came to the pasture that day and took you by surprise, you had electricity rippling over you, enough to kill a man if they touched you. But I didn’t feel anything. I told myself there was a logical explanation. My father used to call my momma a cheating whore, and I wondered if there was some truth in that. I looked nothing like my father, perhaps for a reason. It got me thinking that perhaps I had some witch blood in me too.”

“And males born from witches can be immune to their powers,” Riggs says. He and I went over this. It’s what we assumed, too, in the beginning.

“I mean, it had to be that. Your father raped you, and you killed him. But then that day on your porch, you told me it wasn’t him, it was Andy, and then I knew it really was my fucking fault. Parts of that night started coming back to me. His anger and hatred of you, for starters.”