Page 129 of Slaughter

“They went outside.” A girl by the name of Brandie answers me without looking up from her shot at the pool table.

“Motherfucker …” I slam the door shut and run down the stairs two at a time. Grabbing the banister at the bottom, I leap over the last three. Pushing drunk kids out of my way, I make it to the back door and onto the terrace. More drunk kids litter the backyard. Some already passed out on the lawn furniture. Others playing basketball on the courts. Some standing by the bonfire that we started earlier. “Bunny?” I yell.

“Over on the side of the house,” Scott, a guy who’s friends with my older brother, Vaughn, calls out with a nod of his head.

I take off to the side of the terrace and hear her voice. “Oh God,” she cries out.

“Presleigh …”

“What the fuck is going on over here?” I interrupt Mitch, jumping over the railing and landing next to them. Before they can answer, I grab the collar of his shirt and yank him back from her, shoving him to the ground.

“What the hell?” he asks, looking up at me.

“Bunny …?”

She leans over, vomiting into the bushes. Walking up behind her, I grab her blond hair and pull it off her face. “What the hell happened?” I demand.

He throws his hands up in the air. “You deal with her.” Then he walks away.

She falls to her knees, and I go with her while she dry heaves. “Hey, it’s okay. Let it out.” I rub her back. She had too much to drink. I knew I shouldn’t have let her friend make her drinks. Bunny never drinks to begin with, but she wanted to tonight. I should have never left her alone.

When she’s finished, she leans back on her heels and looks at me. “Sorry.”

I smile at her. “It’s okay. If I remember correctly, you have taken care of me plenty of times on nights like this.” She laughs softly. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed.” I stand up and lift her into my arms. She cuddles against my chest.

“I tried to find you,” she whispers, “but when I saw you in the kitchen talking to your brother, I didn’t wanna bother you.”

“You’re never bothering me.” I make my way through the crowd of people and get her up to my room. After she uses the bathroom and brushes her teeth, I help her undress. I lay her down in the bed, and she opens up her arms, inviting me to join her. Removing my shirt, I do so without thought.

She sighs, closing her eyes when I snuggle up to her. “Why did you sound so mad?” she asks me with a yawn.

“I thought …” My words trail off at how stupid it sounds now.

“What?” she asks, her heavy blue eyes open staring up at me.

I run my hand through her blond hair. “Nothing.”

“Tell me,” she urges.

“It doesn’t matter.”

She sits up, the covers falling to her waist, showing me her bare chest, and I instantly get hard. “I would never hurt you, Avery.”

I smile up at her. “It’s not you I worry about.”

She lets out a long sigh. “But you don’t trust me.”

I sit up as well. “That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?”

“Men … things I’ve seen …” I pause. Her father may do just as much damage as mine, but Bunny has never seen it firsthand. Thank God. Women aren’t allowed down in my father’s cellar unless they are naked and cuffed. And I would never let anyone hurt her like that. Over my dead body. Letting out a sigh, I cup her warm cheek, and she leans into it. “I just wanna protect you.”

She smiles at me. It’s lopsided, but it’s the most adorable smile I’ve ever seen. She wraps her arms around my neck and moves to straddles my hips. My hands run up and down her bare back. “Know what I want?” she whispers against my lips. “You to make love to me.”

I take another drink from the bottle of scotch and fall onto the end of the bed. That was the night she got pregnant. We were always careful, but that night, we weren’t careful enough. Her parents had already passed. She and Preston were living with us to finish out school before we all went on to college. I had this thought in the back of my head that someone was going to take her from me. And in a sick and twisted way, I thought it was going to be Mitch. He liked her. Wanted her. He watched her at school. When he came over. Every time he was in a room with her, his eyes were on her. And I was jealous. I wanted to show them that she was mine even though everyone already knew it.

But I lost her anyway soon after that. I believed what my father and Lance told me because it was my biggest fear come true. And I think they knew that.

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