Page 4 of Psycho

It’s a good thing I was going into the family business after Hillcrest, because I had the feeling that if I didn’t, I’d only end up in prison. Or worse. Maybe dead. Tempering the urge was difficult, but the family had taught me to focus my cravings, turn them into something else.

Obsession.

Obsession ran rampant in my family, among other things.

“Why?” Sawyer muttered, his face drawn back in a mixture of pain and annoyance.

I stared down at him, not feeling sorry at all for how shitty he’d feel in the morning. “Because you fucked up, buddy. You fucked up bad. You slept with Ash’s friend, and now Ash is with her ex, who’s a fucking psychopath.” I set the garbage can down, thinking. “I mean, I know I’m a little…unsteady, but I like to think I’m not that bad—”

Sawyer rolled onto his side, giving me his back.

Fine. I didn’t want to talk to the fucking brat anyway.

I finished cleaning his room, and then I did the rest of the house. Room by room, making sure there were no little baggies, no more of whatever pills Sawyer’s new favorite drug was. I was in the kitchen, going through the drawers, when Declan returned. He didn’t look happy, to which I wanted to say: join the fucking club, friend.

Tonight, no one was happy. Not me, not him, not Ash, and not even Sawyer. Sawyer might’ve gotten his dick wet, but that wasn’t any consolation for what happened because of it.

Fucking Ray Ruiz had her, and I didn’t know where she was. I wouldn’t be able to track her, to find her, because she’d tossed her phone. It made me wonder if Ash didn’t want to be found, if she ran away with him with the intent of never returning.

I couldn’t live without her. I needed her to come back. I needed to find her, to fight for her, to show her that I would be there for her, even during the bleakness and the fuck-ups. I didn’t care how dark her past was, didn’t care about her ex.

Ray…I’d get him out of the picture, even if I had to get Markus’s help to do it.

“Kelsey’s gone,” Declan muttered, crossing his arms when he noticed what I was doing. He knew what Sawyer got into, but he’d always steered clear of it. The only thing I remembered Declan doing was the occasional drink, and even then, he never got plastered. He never got wasted because once we were older, he spent a lot of his time with Sabrina, and Sabrina was two years younger than us.

“Good,” I told him, leaning on the counter. “That’s one less thing we have to deal with right now.” I stared at him, eyeing him up. He seemed…different than he used to, or maybe that was simply because he and I had been spending more time together lately, thanks to Ash. She was our common denominator, the one thing keeping us together. She was the reason we were in this house.

Ash was also the reason we were faced with a problem I wasn’t quite sure how to solve, but something would come to me. It had to. I couldn’t just let Ash slip through my fingers like something intangible, like air itself.

“So now you’re going to tell me what happened,” Declan said, giving me a frown. Declan wasn’t the toughest guy around, but I could respect him. A little. A huge change from how I felt about him months ago, but Ash had the habit of changing things.

Changing how I felt, what I thought, what I was willing to do. Ash was my life, and I wasn’t about to let Ray fucking Ruiz have that life.

“I assume you already know what happened at the party, or at least part of it,” I said.

Declan nodded. “Kelsey slept with Sawyer. She didn’t know who he was.”

“Yes, but before that I found Ash in the basement, about to be raped by some lumbering fucktard,” I said, watching as Declan’s eyes widened. “And that lumbering fucktard was egged on by Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn?” Declan could hardly get the word out.

“The girl Sawyer made dye her hair pink,” I clarified. “The girl he wanted to be Ash, to use to get over Ash.” I shook my head, feeling annoyed. Clearly Sawyer’s plan backfired. “If I wasn’t there…” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence out loud.

If I wasn’t there, silently watching from the shadows, Ash would’ve been raped. Brooklyn and that lard in the Batman suit would’ve done it, and I would’ve wreaked hellish vengeance on them both. I left them passed out in the basement, although Brooklyn was Ash’s doing. They weren’t dead…

Yet.

“So you saved her,” Declan whispered.

“I did, but…but not for long. I fought with the wannabe rapist for too long. By the time I left the basement, she was already out of the house. I followed her, but I was too far away.” I closed my eyes, picturing the way Ray reached out to her. “She went home with someone, and I was too far away to stop her.”

I didn’t know whether I should tell Declan the whole truth. At this rate, I might as well, since there was little point in lying. He knew everything else already, but that…Ray was a type of problem I could handle, but Declan…Declan was different. Declan wasn’t me. Declan had been lost in depression until Ash came onto the scene. How much could one girl really change him?

For the answer to that question, all I had to do was take an inward look at myself.

“How’d you get her phone?” Declan asked.

“I found it on the side of the road,” I told him, feeling the phone’s heavy weight in my pocket. “She threw it out of the car.”

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