Page 46 of Chaos at Westbrook High

“No.” I follow her to the balcony. “She died when I was one.”

“What happened?”

“She was killed in an accident. Or so we were told,” I mutter, taking a seat on the couch next to her. “Now I’m not so sure it was an accident.”

“What?”

“She cheated on my uncle with her bodyguard, had his baby, and both she and the guard are dead. That’s a hell of a coincidence.”

“Yeah…” Callie frowns. “What are you getting at?”

“I think my uncle might have killed them.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Have you met Maverick?”

“No,” she says, her brows lowering as she lights her joint. “All I know is that he hates you all because your dad inherited almost everything when your grandparents died.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the only reason. My dad was the legitimate son. The golden boy. Maverick was the housekeeper’s son. The outsider. My grandfather didn’t hate him, ‘cause he wouldn’t have kept him if he did. He just ignored him while treating my dad like a prince. My grandmother was the one who hated him. She did everything she could to make sure Mav knew he was trash in her house.”

“Grandma sounds lovely,” Callie deadpans.

I laugh lightly, accepting the joint she offers me. “Anyway, my dad tried to be a brother to him, tried to include him or whatever, but Maverick hated him all the same. When my dad pushed him too hard, he’d take it out on his own wife. He—” I stop, knowing the shit I was about to let slip isn’t something you say to a girl who was abused I don’t know how many times, by I don’t know how many different men. I’ve never dared to ask her straight up, but I’ve heard her scream in the middle of the night. I’ve witnessed the nightmares she has about the sick fucks who took what wasn’t theirs to take from her.

My nostrils flare at the thought. I wrap my arm around her and pull her into me protectively, digging my nails into my palm while I resist the urge to hit something.

“He what?” she asks, glaring up at me when she realizes why I’m holding back. “Do you think I’m fragile?”

“No,” I say honestly. “You’re a little scary.”

“Tell me what he did,” she demands. Then, softer, she adds, “It’s okay. I can handle it.”

I sigh and pass her joint back. She lays her head on my shoulder, and I rest my cheek on the top of her head. “He called it a game,” I say quietly, still playing with the phone in my free hand. “He’d invite a few friends over and parade her around in front of them, drag her around to make himself feel like a big man. He’d throw her at them and tell them they could take turns doing what they wanted, and they all would make bets on who could make her scream the loudest. And then when they were done, he’d make her sit there in the middle of the room while they carried on partying.”

Callie curses, clearing her throat as she flicks her ash into the ashtray on the coffee table. “Kai, who told you all that?”

“Derek. Back when we were tight, he used to come over here all worked up and shit, pace around and fume about all the horror stories Maverick told him just to fuck with his head.”

“He bragged about it.”

I frown. “Derek?”

“Maverick,” she corrects me. “I know because Jason used to do the same thing to me.”

Jason, her dad, though I haven’t heard her call him that since before we found out what he did to her. After that, she only referred to him as Jason.

“I loved my mom up until I was thirteen,” she says. “Not Katherine, just…the idea of my mother, whoever she was. He used to tell me she was dead. Did you know that?” she asks, and I nod. She shrugs as if it’s no big deal, lifting her feet up to tuck them underneath her. “After he’d get done with me, he used to tell me all the things he used to do to my mom when she was pregnant with me.” She stares at her hands as she speaks, slowly twisting the joint around between her thumb and forefinger. “How he used to beat her. Burn her with cigarettes. Fuck her mouth until she threw up, trying to starve her and me. Kick her in the stomach to try to kill me. All these awful things I believed because I knew no better.”

Bile rises up my throat as my blood runs hot with rage. That fucker’s lucky he’s already nothing but ash. I wouldn’t have been so kind as to put a bullet in his temple. I’d have made it hurt.

“Why would he tell you all that?” I ask.

“You want the truth?”

“Yeah.”

“Because people like Jason and Maverick get off on it. Fucking with our heads. Hitting us where it hurts. Hearing that stuff…it’s a different kind of pain than getting your ass kicked, but it hurts all the same. Sometimes more.”

---