Page 153 of Did They Break You

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

CORTLAND

As I pull awayfrom Remi’s cabin, I turn to Storm, in the front seat with me, Brinklin in the back. “What did you mean, about Chase?” I ask him as we head the mile back to our place. “And how the fuck did you know where we were?”

Storm is drumming his fingers on his thighs, listening to Dermot Kennedy playing through my speakers that Remi insisted on putting on from my new phone when she rode next to me. He turns to glance at me, his baby blue eyes holding mine a second, the light reflecting off his matching nose ring. “You’ll see,” he says, ignoring my second question completely.

“Is he there?” I press. “At our rental?” I don’t even know why the fuck he came in the first place, but ever since Maya texted him to meet up with all of us before fall semester started, he’s been on my ass.

I know it probably has little to do with me.

And everything to do with Remi.

I clench my fingers tighter on the steering wheel and think about his arm around her throat.

“Yeah,” Storm answers me, running his hand along his jaw before dropping it and leaning back in his seat.

“And Maya is too,” Brinklin adds from the back.

I nearly slam on the brakes as I meet his gaze in the rear-view mirror. “I beg your fucking pardon?” I ask the two of them as our cabin comes into view, Chase’s red Mercedes taking up most of the goddamn driveway.

I pull off onto the side of the road, letting cars pass if they need to, but I’m not so sure I’m going back inside there. Not ifMayais there.

I undo my seatbelt and twist in my seat, one arm thrown along the back as I look at both Storm and Brinklin. “Why the fuck is she here?”

Storm stares at the log cabin out the window, but he answers first. “Chase invited her.”

My pulse pounds. “Why?” I insist.

Brinklin tips his head back, staring up at nothing, hands jammed into his army jacket. “Why do you think, Cort?”

I grind my teeth together, glance at the glove compartment and think about that gun in my hand moments ago. I wonder if I should bring it inside.

“I told you this wouldn’t work,” Storm says without looking at me. “He thinks you need an intervention.” He whispers the last word as he turns to me, seeming to be coming down from his bump. He doesn’t do many drugs, but sometimes… well, sometimes he does. There’s dried blood on his face, around his mouth, and he doesn’t seem to give much of a fuck about that. It’s on my knuckles, too, and I think about adding Chase’s to the mix.Blood brothers.

“I think we should bury his body in the woods.” I say that. Not Storm.

Brinklin sighs in the back and I turn to face him, his angular jaw tight as he dips his chin to meet my gaze. “Don’t be stupid, Cort,” he says evenly. “You’ve got this invented shit in your head that you and Remi can actually be something.”

I clench my hands into fists.

“But we both know you can’t. She fucked that up when she went to the police?—”

“I don’t thinkshefucked it up, buddy,” I cut him off, working at controlling my temper.

Storm is quiet in the passenger seat, staring at both of us.

“I think we did that just fine all on our own.”

Brinklin’s jaw clenches. “I’m not a fucking rapist.”

I shrug. “She was crying.”

“She didn’t say no.”

My heart races, because these are all the same things I’ve said.I’m not a rapist. She didn’t say no. She didn’t fight back. She didn’t tell us to stop.All the same shit I’ve used in my own defense, but hearing it come from Brinklin after the day I spent with her, I don’t like it.

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