Page 52 of The Guilty One

“He’ll be here.”

“Go unload our car,” Bradley tells one of the few underclassmen we invited, patting him on the shoulder.

“Sure thing, boss.” The boy jumps up without question, rushing toward the parking lot where my car waits, filled with alcohol I scored earlier.

“Are you sure about this?” Dakota asks, pulling me aside. “It feels extreme.”

“Are you questioning me?”

“I’m just saying that Matteo is our friend. I don’t know what’s up with him lately, but embarrassing him in front of everyone isn’t cool.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize you’d had a change of heart, madam.” I clutch my hands to my chest like a little housewife on the prairie. Then I drop them, glaring at him. “Maybe you’d rather I embarrassed you in his place.”

His jaw twitches. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Tatum. We all know it. We used to have fun, you know? What happened to those days?”

“Oh, right. Gee, I forgot. It was so much fun when our foster dad twisted my arm just to see how long it would take until it broke.” I fake a laugh. “Wasn’t that a blast?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Oh! Oh! And what about the time…yeah, maybe you were talking about the time he burned the shit out of my shoulder for letting you go outside during the summer when we weren’t supposed to leave the house. What about all the fun we had that day?”

“Point made, dude,” he grumbles.

“No, I want to know. Was that the fun you meant? Or was it when they used to film us and sell it to fucking pedos on the internet? Wasn’t that shit fun? Some of my best memories, personally. The really heartfelt stuff that you embroider on pillows and put in a scrapbook.” I wrinkle my chin with mock nostalgia. “Or what about the other houses, like the one where they’d lock us in our rooms without dinner? Or make us clean their fucking houses like we were little government-provided servants. Tell me more about all the fun we had, Dakota. I’m having trouble remembering it all, and I really don’t want to forget a thing.”

“I get it,” he grumbles, eyes distant. “Enough.”

I jab my finger into his chest. “I was the one who protected you back then, wasn’t I?”

His Adam’s apple bobs.

“Wasn’t I?”

“Yes, of course you were.”

“And we made a pact back then to stick together, didn’t we?”

“Yes.”

Again, I stab him in the chest with my finger. This time it’s so hard he winces. “Then we stick together, plain and simple.”

He nods, but he doesn’t say anything as his eyes find something over my shoulder. “He’s here.”

I turn around to see Matteo standing just behind me. He looks ready to kill me, which is a surprising turn of events given how long he’s had to calm down. I expected him to have come crawling back by now, but I have to admire his strength to hold out. I wave for the boys to follow me and lead them into the woods to our usual spot.

Whether they want to or not, they do exactly as I say, stopping only when I stop. I tease them, stopping abruptly, then taking giant steps and then short, quick ones, and they follow suit, growing more annoyed by the minute. They really do make this too easy.

Finally, when we’ve reached the clearing where we have our bonfires, I turn around, holding up a hand that tells them to listen.

“I think some of you have forgotten who I am. Am I not the brother who protected you all those years? Am I not the brother who took countless beatings for each and every one of you? Am I not the one who made sure the bullies didn’t pick on you when your clothes smelled like ass and were two sizes too small?”

There are a few mumbles of acknowledgment, but it’s not enough.

“Am I not?” I shout, my voice echoing through the woods, though not loud enough to be heard over the blaring music at the party.

“Yes,” they all chime in, voices in unison.

I blink rapidly. “Then perhaps someone wants to tell me why the fuck I’ve been getting so much resistance.” I narrow my gaze at them, pointing at each individual one. “Because I thought the deal was that I say, ‘Jump,’ and you say, ‘How high?’” I cock a brow, then cross my arms. “Let’s test it, shall we? Jump.”

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