: Chapter 20

Everything hurts. I barely made it home, sunglasses shielding the worst of my face in case I saw someone I knew. My uncle almost threatened to have me stay until I was presentable, but I begged off.

The Blacks are still out of town, handling a family emergency in Chicago. I didn’t mention that Eli decided to come back early. I can’t fathom why, besides maybe a certain junior girl who has his dick in a vise.

He didn’t see me this morning, though. I called him on my way back to Rose Hill, but he was already heading to school. I hinted at my situation.

I didn’t expect him to tell Margo.

Liam and Theo are the first in, turning on every damn light in the basement. I grimace and throw my shoe at them, not caring who it hits. Lucky me, I nail Liam in the chest.

He grunts, catching it before it drops.

“You had Margo freaked out,” Liam announces. He does a double take, though, and lets the shoe fall from his grasp instead of throwing it back.

“I know,” I say, ignoring the way both Theo and Liam are staring at me. “She showed up.”

I can’t say I’m mad about it. Not at her. It makes me actually happy that she came to me—a buzzing in my chest like a million wasps. But I am pissed at my friends for being so fucking transparent.

Eli shrugs. “She’s a feisty one. Riley stole my car for the expedition.”

“Margo interrogated all of us.” Theo flops on the couch. “Guess who gave in?”

“Eli,” Liam, Theo, and I all say at once.

I laugh, then groan in pain. I push myself up and relocate to the couch. My knee fucking hurts. I’ve never dislocated it before, but Uncle had a doctor in to set it. He blamed it on me. I can’t even remember what he said to him, but a lot of cash changed hands.

In theory, my knee should be fine. But I can’t put my full weight on it.

Eli follows me. “Look, man, she just was pouting, and then Riley was staring at me⁠—”

“Softie,” Liam says through a fake cough. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

I roll my eyes. “About the hell weekend? Not particularly.”

“My parents will be back soon,” Eli says. “This shit won’t fly.”

“It will until I’m eighteen. I want to see a single dime, I have to do what he says.”

“That doesn’t mean letting him treat you like a punching bag,” Theo murmurs.

“It’s in your name.” Eli glares at me like this beating was my fault. And honestly, it kind of is. I instigate my uncle’s behavior time and again. Push his buttons. Set fire to his carefully constructed plans with glee.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

Consequence.

Punishment.

It isn’t like he kept me locked in the basement, although I’m sure he’s considered it. Between teaching me lessons, he paraded me in front of my aunt and mother.

Mother is thinner than normal, makeup creased under her eyes in an attempt to hide the dark circles. She picked at her food, much to Aunt Iris’s disdain. I was surprised to even see Mother there. Usually she makes a quick appearance—a day, two—and then vanishes again. But maybe she’s back for good while she tracks down Amber Wolfe.

Something I didn’t even get a chance to ask her about.

Uncle David grilled me relentlessly, at any moment. I didn’t give him anything except hoarse wheezes between punches that stole my breath.

“Dude.” Eli waves his hand in front of my face.

I jerk back.

“Lost you for a second.”

Come back to me. Margo often goes down the rabbit hole of memories, and her face always goes blank. I must’ve looked the same.

“December twenty-seventh,” I say, shaking out my arms. My muscles scream, but I lean into the pain. Pain means I’m still alive. “I just have to make it until then.”

It’s not so long now.

I think that’s what’s making my uncle nervous.

“What was the ultimatum?” Theo asks.

I tilt my head. “Stay focused on hockey. Don’t fuck up. Get straight A’s, get into Harvard. Not a toe out of line.”

And forget about Margo. I can’t voice that part aloud. It doesn’t matter anyway: it isn’t happening.

Especially after her visit this afternoon.

If I wasn’t half out of my mind on painkillers, I might’ve done more to make her stay. But we’ve turned over a new leaf. She’s mine—she’ll always be mine—but she has to come to me.

She needs to learn to walk on her own again. And walk to me. She already is. That buzzing in my chest returns. It’s hard not to grab my phone, text her. Tell her to come back.

“Fuck,” Liam grunts.

“It’s fine. You bring home food?”

“We ordered pizza on the way,” Eli tells me. “How do you⁠—?”

“You’re not about to ask how I feel,” I interrupt. “I’d rather go back to my uncle’s than answer that.”

“Fine.” Eli crosses his arms.

“Fine.” I glare at him.

Still, I admit that the company is a nice change. I take my medication on time and eat as much pizza as I can, topping it off with ice-cold water that clears my head. They fill me in on everything that happened at school, the scrimmage on Friday, the party on Saturday that was a big fat bummer.

All in all, I didn’t miss much.

Except Margo. She admitted—or close to it—she wished I had come to her over the weekend. And even if she didn’t say it, I could see the hurt in her eyes.

We have a push-and-pull relationship. She shoves me away, I reel her back in. Always. Except now she’s the one doing the reeling, and my heart thumps extra-hard at that. She’s not getting rid of me, even if everyone wants to keep us apart.

Once my friends leave and Eli retreats to his room, I slip on a zip-up sweatshirt and shoes and grab my keys. I ignore the pain in my torso, the twinge in my knee climbing the stairs.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where I’m going.

I park outside Margo’s house and get out of the car. It’s barely seven o’clock, so I stroll up to their front door. Who’s going to be more upset by my presence—Lenora or Robert?

I ring the doorbell, tucking my hands in my pockets.

Lenora opens the door. Her eyes widen, and she goes to close the door in my face. I block it with my foot, trying not to smile. It’s a mother’s instinct—pure protection. Margo probably doesn’t see it, but I do. They care about her. It’s sweet.

My fucked-up face probably doesn’t help matters.

“What do you want?” she asks. Her gaze goes to my foot blocking the door.

“To talk,” I say. “To Margo.”

She stares at me for a moment. “You hurt her. Us. Tried to come between our family.”

“I did.” I roll my shoulders back, letting the pain radiate down my spine. It keeps me from getting distracted. “And I’m sorry.”

Her lips press into a thin line. “Tell me why I should let you in.”

“Who is it?” Robert calls.

She glances back and tells him, “Caleb Asher.”

She opens the door wider, revealing her husband.

He gapes. “What happened—? Are you okay?”

“Just got into a car accident,” I lie. “It’s why I missed school today. The airbags did a bit of damage.”

“Caleb?”

They both turn. Margo stands behind them, bare feet, sweatpants, one of my t-shirts. When did she take that? The day after the masquerade ball?

A lead weight falls into my stomach.

“Let him in,” she whispers.

Lenora frowns. “No⁠—”

“You don’t have to,” Robert finishes. “It’s unavoidable to see him at school, but here? This is your safe place.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “I know you don’t get it, but he…”

Push and pull.

“I regret it,” I tell them. “It was none of my business. Just because I suspected, didn’t mean I had to tell you. I did it to hurt Margo, not to help you.”

Lenora swipes at her cheek. “It was heartbreaking. But not for us. We’ve done our best to put Isabella’s death behind us. Our hearts broke for Margo, that she had⁠—”

She shakes her head, looking back at Margo. I wonder if they’ve had this heart to heart before, or if I’m the catalyst.

Robert steps out of the way, waving me inside. “No use letting the heat out. We can have this conversation inside.”

Lenora grudgingly moves aside, and I go straight to Margo. I cup her cheeks. Times like these, she wavers between fierce and ethereal. The girl I knew as a child lived up to her last name, but not now. I just need to pull her string until she unravels. Until she finds her center.

“Hold tight,” I say under my breath, and then I turn toward Lenora and Robert. They’re not going to like this. “I have something for you.”

They watch me warily.

I take the folded note out of my pocket, handing it to Lenora. “It was in the back of a picture frame.”

She shakes her head and doesn’t take it.

My hand hangs in the air, the note pinched between my fingertips, while I wait for her to move. “It’s a note from Isabella.”

I ignore Margo’s quiet exhale behind me.

Robert reaches out and snags it. “Give us a minute.”

I nod, taking Margo’s hand. I guide her away, up the stairs.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers. “I thought⁠—”

I tap the last picture before her bedroom. The smiling Bryans. “While you were missing, I snuck up here. I was going to take this picture and see if I…” There’s not a good way to explain this. “I was going to show it to your mother and see if she remembered Isabella.”

Her gasp is a knife between my ribcage.

“You know where my mother is?”

I look at her. “I did.”

Now I don’t.

“Where is she?”

“She was at a motel.” I herd her into her room, shutting the door behind us. “She’s not anymore.”

She goes straight to the window, holding herself. Is she searching for her mother out there? Wondering if she’s watching, waiting for the right chance to take her back?

I get angrier by the second. Amber doesn’t want Margo—far from it. She still holds resentment for her daughter. Gave her away when she was ten, before her dad even got arrested. She just woke up and decided, I’m out.

And now Margo thinks she’s come for her?

“Your mother is a drug addict,” I say. “She came for money and nothing else.”

She flinches like I hit her.

“She comes back every so often to beg at the shoes of the Asher family. Doesn’t matter who. Once we find out she’s in town, we do whatever we can to make her leave.”

She presses her hand to the windowpane. “Stop it.”

“I’m telling you the truth now, Margo. You asked for it, but I’ve been trying to save you from it.”

I’ve been trying to get her to remember. But this particular instance? Watching Lenora and Robert shaken over a note from the past, and then Margo’s instant grief at her mother being back in town?

Maybe I have a heart after all.

“What did the note say?” She glances over her shoulder at me. “I’m assuming you read it.”

“She wanted her parents to forgive her.”

Margo covers her mouth. “For what?”

“Drugs? Being a fuck-up? Does it matter?”

She goes quiet.

I step closer. “You want answers, don’t you?”

“Sometimes I’m afraid of the answers I’ll find,” she admits. She inches toward me, too, until we meet in the middle of the room.

I lift her hand.

She’s wearing the bracelet.

My heart screeches to a stop. I can’t breathe. When did she do that? Before or after she left my house this afternoon?

“Why did you put it back on?”

“Because I won’t let you go,” she answers, meeting my gaze. “Okay? Go ahead and do terrible things, and I’ll just hold on tighter. Sometimes I hate you, but I can’t help myself. You’re mine.”

Triumph floods through me, plus something else. A white noise in my ears.

Goosebumps.

I lean down and do what I’ve wanted to since I saw her this afternoon, pinned under me. I grab the back of her head and touch my lips to hers. She pushes up into me and deepens the kiss. I nip her lower lip. She groans, sliding her hands up my arms. Her fingernails scrape the nape of my neck, into my hair. The only safe part of me.

She walks me toward her bed, and we both go down without tearing our lips away from each other. I hover over her. All the pain in the world couldn’t deter me from this.

My dick hardens at her tongue stroking mine. I want to be inside her, foster parents be damned.

She lifts her hips, gasping into my mouth when she feels me. I shift, the head of my cock rubbing through our clothes. It’s too damn good, and it isn’t even the real thing. Her breathing changes, and I move against her. It takes all my willpower to stop myself from letting my dick take control. From tearing her sweatpants down and pounding into her.

I lean to one side and push my hand into her panties, sliding my finger through her wet folds. She arches into me, her head falling to the side. Her pussy squeezes around my fingers.

“My—”

“Hush,” I whisper, my teeth grazing her earlobe. It’s been too fucking long, but I’ll have to wait a bit more. I work her higher, alternating between thrusting my fingers into her and stroking her clit with my thumb.

She tucks her face into my neck, her whole body shuddering as she comes. She bites my shoulder, her fingers digging into my biceps. And then it’s over, and her body relaxes. She blinks up at me, frowning.

A fierce emotion goes through me—one that I’m not particularly familiar with—and it unnerves me. She’s dug her way under my skin, buried herself in my bones.

She reaches up and grips my chin, forcing me to look at her.

“Don’t do that,” she says. “Don’t hide.”

I watch her face. “I’m not.”

“You’re trying to hide,” she argues. “Don’t.”

I should’ve seen Margo’s transformation coming. I broke a follower—the lamb nickname I mock her with—and she turned into a wolf.

Her phone buzzes, and fear flashes across her face when she scans the screen.

“Who is it?” I ask.

She hands it to me.

Unknown What will you do now that Caleb’s out of the picture?

I stare down at the words, then slowly scroll through the rest of the messages that Coach looked through. They’re taunts, every single one of them. She replied occasionally, but never to any degree of success. I didn’t know they were this extreme.

She grabs the phone from me, reading the message again, then shuts off the screen.

“They seem to be operating on old information,” she says slowly. “Someone who thinks you’re going to leave me?”

I frown. “You’re right.”

Who would think that? Only someone who knew it would be in my family’s best interests… and there are a few contenders there.

I trace her jawline.

“It could be Amelie,” Margo says. “Or Savannah…”

I sit up, forcing her to move back. It could be either of them. Both of their mothers are very much into gossip, and my aunt is notorious, too. One of my uncle’s tirades about Margo Wolfe was at dinner. Would it be a stretch for her to have mentioned Margo to one of them?

“Have they threatened you? Physically?”

Her eyes widen. “No. Do you think they will?”

I have no idea.

“Tell me if the messages get worse. It could just be someone jealous at school, but if it isn’t…” It could be someone from my family. I wouldn’t put it past my mother or uncle to try to play mind games with her. But seeing the messages written out, those two drop on the suspect list.

It’s too sporadic. Late at night and early in the morning. Midway through school. Whoever saw Ian taking Margo across the field had to be at school that day, had to send the picture to Savannah, who sent it to me…

Whoever’s doing this is ruled by impulsivity.

“Margo? Caleb?” Lenora calls.

We scramble off the bed. She smooths it out and perches on the edge, and I move to the window, trying to cool my skin and calm my dick. I lick my fingers clean, and Margo gapes at me. Once they’re wet with my spit, I shove them into my pockets.

Lenora opens the door and steps in, glancing at me before focusing on her foster daughter. “Maybe keep this door open when you have a boy up here, Margo?” She smiles, but it’s shaky. “And Caleb…”

I straighten.

She blows out a breath. “Thank you for the note. Although I can’t imagine how you found it.”

“He was going to show my mother the picture,” Margo blurts out. “To find out the truth. But then… he found that behind the picture frame.”

Lenora comes in and sits beside Margo, wrapping her arm around her shoulder. “Honey, I’m so sorry. Robert and I talked, and we’re afraid that our past with Isabella has affected our relationship.”

“It has,” I cut in.

Lenora glares at me.

“But, you should feel safe and secure in this house,” she continues. “You’re not going anywhere. I wanted to reiterate that to you.”

Margo exhales. “Thank you.”

“Now, it’s late. And a school night. Caleb, I think it’s time for you to head out.” Lenora stands, brushing off invisible dust from her thighs. “Although I’m sorry to hear about your accident, and I hope you feel better.”

“Of course, Mrs. Bryan. I’m already on the mend.” I ignore Lenora’s burning stare and catch Margo’s hand, then press my lips to her knuckles.

Margo sucks in a breath, and it’s the last sound I hold in my mind as I walk back to my car. Even through the pain in my back and the heaviness in my chest. She’s worth it.