Page 142 of The Pact

I want to take her mind off of the assault and I’m a little curious about how she stopped him. “What did you do?”

She turns her head to look at me. “I bit his fucking lip until he was bleeding everywhere.” Pride swells in my chest. Thea’s a fighter. I’m so proud of my girl.

Damian beats me to it. “Good girl,” he praises darkly. I can tell he’s thinking the same thing as me. She has the potential to be ruthless…with the right motivation.

We’ve all been nervous that our particular desires might make her turn from us, yet that’s only the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much more to us that Thea doesn’t know. Most of it’s in our past. That is, until tonight. Old memories resurface and I wonder if we’ve been focusing on the wrong things that might drive her away.

Thea’s voice pulls me from those dark thoughts. “I’m not a good girl.” Her voice cracks. Jesus, they fucking broke her. Sutton twists in the front seat to face her, putting a hand on her knee.

“Don’t say that. You did nothing wrong. Do you hear me?” Thea hangs her head—she won’t look at any of us. “Thea?”

I watch as her lip quivers. I hope my brothers made those fuckers suffer. “It was my fault,” she whispers.

“No,” Coles fumes, “It wasn’t.”

Thea finally lifts her head and stares at him. “But it was. Tonight’s not the first time I’ve seen him. He wasn’t a stranger.” I feel the air still as all of us go tense in confusion. “I’ve met him before.”

“Explain,” Damian commands. In the mirror, I see his eyes ice over.

She fidgets with the hem of her dress. “Before I met you…” She looks at Cole again. “I used to do this thing. It was idiotic. I felt so horrible after my breakup and I don’t know. I guess it made me feel like I was wanted after so many years of being rejected.” Her eyes fall to her knees. “I would go to bars and find guys to flirt with. I made sure they were pretty drunk and I would…” Thea pauses and even in the darkness of the car, I see her face redden. “I would see how far I could take it. They would buy me drinks, touch me, sometimes even kiss me. Then, when they thought they were going to take me home, I’d ditch them.”

She sneaks a peek up, assessing our reactions. I’m sure she expects disgust or confusion. We don’t give that to her. So Thea continues. “In Atlanta, I could get away with it and not worry about running into the same people twice. When I moved here, I went to that bar once before realizing I would likely run into these men around town, so I started driving to other towns where I wouldn’t be recognized.”

“Thea…” Sutton’s hand squeezes her knee. “You don’t have to be ashamed of that. You did nothing wrong,” He repeats, then adds, “A little devious, yes, but not even close to deserving of what they tried to do to you.” She doesn’t seem comforted by his words.

“But I put all of you in danger. They could have had a knife or a gun. I don’t know what I’d do—” Damian’s rough laugh interrupts her.

“Princess, we were never in danger.” She looks at all of us. I can see the wheels turning in her head. We’ve all worn black to conceal as much of the evidence as possible. Still, there are some signs of what we’ve done.

“What happened to them? Did they run off when you guys got there?” She waits expectantly for an answer. We only give her silence. “Damian, what happened to them?”

Gravity settles over all of us as he answers her finally. “You don’t need to worry about them anymore. That’s all you need to know.” Her eyes search his in the mirror. I see the exact moment when she puts the pieces together.

Fear pulses through me. This might be what drives her away.

Her gaze travels over Damian and I see Thea’s mouth part when she stops at his knuckles gripping the steering wheel. I see the same thing she does. They are red and raw. Her breath comes out faster when she sees droplets of red on his neck.

Thea’s eyes move to Sutton. I’m sitting behind him so I don’t see what she does, but I feel her body go rigid. Then she turns to Cole. His hair is disheveled. Her eyes sweep down to find his hands resting on the tops of his thighs. Something dark is embedded under his nails. I already know it’s blood.

She swallows and looks straight ahead, staring into the darkness. I can practically hear her thoughts. What had we done? Why? I don’t expect her to understand, although to be fair, we didn’t exactly hide what we’re capable of.

After her landlord sent her a picture of the note stuffed down her drain by Gavin, Damian revealed his threat he made to her ex at the carnival. “…he’ll find our teeth at his throat and we won’t let up until we feel the blood stop pumping through his veins.” This didn’t extend just to Gavin. Anyone who threatens our girl will feel our wrath.

“Hey.” I try to bring her back to me. “That’s not something for you to concern yourself with.” I soften my expression, wanting her to know that what happened to those pricks is on us—not her. Thea glances away, but finds Damian’s hard stare in the mirror.

I can see the challenge in his eyes. He can tell she knows what’s been done, even without saying it. He wants her to embrace this darker side of us. I do too. Although he has no tact sometimes. Damian’s too fucking impatient with her. He wants all of her darkest parts and to share all of his with her. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing.

COLE

No one touches the things I love. No one touches Thea.

I’m itching to get to Wolf Creek to finish what we started. An hour only bought us enough time to drop those two pricks off and get back to Thea. With her and Wes at home, Sutton, Damian, and I are headed there now.

Damian turns off on the dirt road that’ll lead us deep into the woods. It’s private property, but we know the old man that owns it—we go way back.

The headlights bounce over the ground until we find the familiar reflector attached to a tree, our signal that the rest of the journey will be on foot. Hopping out of the car, I grab the duffle bag and shovels from the trunk. It’s going to be a long fucking night.

“Never thought we’d be doing this shit again,” Sutton grumbles. He’s always been the one who hates this kind of stuff the most, although this is certainly much less complaining than I anticipated. Probably because he’s justifying doing this to protect Thea—that’s understandable.

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