Page 38 of Clubs

It looked like home. Every home I’d lived in when I was growing up had looked like some variation of this place.

When I was a kid, watching my dad nod off on a sofa not much different than this one, I swore to myself that as soon as I was grown, I would never walk into a place like this again. I would get out of this shit. I would have pretty bookshelves, and clean floors, and beautiful knickknacks. It would always smell like flowers, or apples, or cinnamon, or honey, or anything else. Anything but weed and cigarettes and stale beer.

Yet here I was. Standing in a house exactly like the hell I’d grown up in.

I’d done everything right. I’d gone to school. I’d gotten a good job. I had the pretty bookshelves, and the clean floors, and the nice knickknacks. My house always smelled like honey and flowers. But here I was.

The chaos of substance abuse was like a cat, and I was a mouse. No matter how far I ran from it, no matter how careful I was, its claws dug through my flesh all the way to my heart. It stayed there, lodged deep in the muscle that kept me alive, because if I tried to pull away, I’d bleed out. It was all I knew, it was my normal, and there was nothing I wanted more than to escape it, but I was stuck in its claws, and I didn’t know how to free myself from that violent grasp.

Declan was already at the door when I swung it open. He said something, but I paid him no mind. Couldn’t pay him any mind.

There was a baseball bat propped against the wall by the door. Almost thoughtless, I grabbed it.

Before I could even think, I slammed it into a blue bong on the coffee table. Then a clear two-footer on the old, grime covered end table. Then another that stood on the floor.

I smashed the glass of the few framed photos around the room. There weren’t people in them, just old artwork, likely purchased at a thrift store. Maybe they were here when they got the house.

I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

They wrecked my house, so I was wrecking theirs. They wanted to make my life hell? Frame Declan for something he hadn’t done? Ruin his life? Rip everything out from under him when he’d never done anything to anyone?

I didn’t know for absolute certain that they’d done that part, but I knew my life was fine at this time last week. Then Alicia was murdered and dumped at Declan’s, and someone who hung out here trashed my house? There was no way in hell those events weren’t connected.

Thrashing the baseball bat into the coffee table, it only shook everything that sat on its top. I slammed it down again, and again, and again. The center caved, and everything on its top plummeted to the ground. But I didn’t stop there. On the fifth—or maybe tenth—bash, a hand curled around my wrist.

In my ear, Declan said, “You got it, sweetheart. Next hit’s gonna drop us into the basement.”

Only then, with his breath on my neck and his skin on mine, did I fall from my red-rage haze back into reality. Only then did I see the mess I’d made.

What Oliver did to my place was nothing compared to what I did here.

It was shitty when I had begun, but it was in shambles now. Destroyed. I’d busted every lamp, each piece of furniture aside from the couch and recliner. Even the TV had a hole in its center. I didn’t remember doing that, but it felt good to look at.

Maybe the claws of this life were in the center of my heart, but I would thrash and fight like hell to keep my pretty bookshelves, and my nice floors, and my beautiful knickknacks.

Trailing his fingers up my arm slowly, Declan kissed my cheek. “Let’s sit down.”

14

DECLAN

As we sat on the sofa, I searched for the words.

Part of me wanted to hash out what I’d gathered. This place smelled a hell of a lot like Oliver, telling me that Davey—or whoever the hell he really was—likely came from the same race. Vampire. Meaning the fight we were in for when he got home wouldn’t last long. Vampires thought they were tough shit, but they stood next to no chance against a Werewolf. Let alone a Werewolf and a Witch, Guardian hybrid.

But that wasn’t what I cared about right now.

While I watched Brooke demolish this room, I’d feared for her. I feared for what this meant, because I didn’t understand.

What was it about Oliver trashing her house that sent her on this rampage? Sure, nobody wanted something like this to occur, but it had to have been deeper than her messy house. It had to have been deeper than her safety. She took care of Oliver in heartbeats, even made him clean up the house, so what was this about?

Watching her trash this place was like watching a tornado unleashed on a city. She’d tortured a man with precision this morning, but this was what sent her over the edge? Why?

Sitting beside her, I watched deep breaths pant in and out of her chest. Her jaw was taut, eyes narrowed, lips curled. Disgusted.

I broke the silence with, “You okay?”

She spared me a glance but continued eyeing the damage. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

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