Page 56 of Lost
“Absolutely not,” I grunt, pushing the door open.
“Fuck,” he frowns, jumping out to walk around to help me out. With so much snow and the freezing temperatures, the last thing I need is to fall on black ice. “I’m too pretty to get any more gray hair, Hollis.”
“You’d still be pretty,” I tease him, allowing him to lift me out of the SUV. “I need to get to the bottom of why Caleb and Lars are being dicks to my sister or she’s going to reject them, Malcolm. I wouldn’t even blame her because the fact that he’s inthere wiping down tables instead of having a conversation with her is?—”
“Cowardly,” Malcolm grunts. “I would tell you that you can’t fight all of her battles, but I know exactly who I’m talking to. You’ve been fighting for her from the fucking womb, Baby Girl.”
Nodding tightly, I’m glad to see that he gets me. Caleb and Lars chose the wrong omega to fuck over.
My long legs carry me up onto the sidewalk and up the stairs to the bar. We all have the keys to each other’s homes and businesses, so it isn’t difficult to unlock the door and invite myself in.
“Hey, dicknoodle!”
I close and lock the door behind me like a good little criminal before pulling off my coat and tossing it onto a table. My bat firmly in hand, I use it to push chairs off a high top.
“Hollis,” Caleb says, looking pained as he comes out of the back room. There’s a keg in his arms, which means he’s prepping for his staff coming in tonight. While that’s commendable, I’m still pissed off at him. “Am I your first stop?”
“I try not to scare the public,” I say with my lip curled. “What the fuck happened?”
“Nova is so…soft and sweet,” he says, putting down the keg before he straightens. “I don’t know how to relate to that, Holls. I feel like I’m going to break her. Tyde is kind of a dom in the bedroom, I never saw that coming.”
“That doesn’t seem like it’s related,” I say. “Do you like him?”
“I should only like Nova,” he grunts. “I don’t know how to be nice to her. Isn’t that fucked up? I have to be careful what to say so I don’t accidentally throw her into a post traumatic event, and that’s really difficult when I know fuck all about her.”
“So try harder!” I scream. “Caleb, I spoke to her and she’s the world's easiest person to speak to. Seriously, even when she didn’t want to respond to a question, the slightest pressure hadher telling me what I needed to hear. Why do you insist on poking at her every pretend flaw?”
“Pretend?” he asks. “What do you mean?”
“Being sweet isn’t a flaw,” I growl. “Not growing up to be a killer isn’t one either. If you want to teach her how to protect herself, then fucking do it. Nova isn’t a blushing virgin?—”
“She’s not because the man she called her father raped her!” Caleb roars back. Good, fucking yell at me, twatwaffle. “She went to a clinic another time, and said that was a good experience. Honestly, she drops bits of trauma and her life into conversation that crush my soul and I don’t know how to handle it.”
“You just do,” I say. “You know she’s been through hell and back. Why are you making her life worse? I hope it’s not on my behalf, because you know how I feel about her. It doesn’t matter what name she goes by, she’s mine first. Tyde is playing happy family with your omega.”
“I thought she was yours,” he says weakly.
“You know I didn’t mean like that,” I say, rolling my eyes. “Tyde is the only one who is thinking about what she wants and needs.”
“She bit his dick and that’s how they bonded. Did she tell you that?” he asks.
“Are you jealous?” I shoot back. “Come on, Caleb. Dig deep. Why are you acting like this? Is it because my sister isn’t shiny and perfect?”
“No, fuck. Hollis, why are you doing this?” he asks.
“You made her cry,” I gasp to keep from screaming. “Have you hit your head or are you pretending to be dumb? No one escapes this life all shiny and perfect. There’s too many variables, too many bad people in the world. They stole Nova from her cradle on an inside job and then tried to destroy her. Are you going to throw her away because you don’t think you’regood enough or you don’t know how to speak to her? Tyde admitted he doesn’t either.”
“He does so much better than Lars or I,” he grumbles. “All I do is make her cry, Hollis. Lars is heavy handed because he wants to keep her safe, which means he talks down to her and pisses her off. We’re the reasons that she left. I got into her face about why she was hurting so much and I didn’t believe her when she said that she’d have to drive out of town in order to escape the pain she was feeling.”
“So you're upset because you almost killed her?” I ask bluntly. Caleb cringes, and I continue to poke the beast. Now that I’m here, I can’t bring myself to hit him with the bat, but my words can cut just as deeply. “She told me that maybe you and Lars would be better off if she rejected you.”
Caleb stops breathing and I nod slowly to allow that to sink in.
“Can you imagine how much easier it would be though?” I ask, really digging in the knife. “You’d never feel the pain that I cause my own sister when I’m hurting again. Won’t that be grand? You’ll also miss every good moment too. Building a life with an omega isn’t easy. You know that I had a rough time with Pack Ledger?—”
“I suppose they figured out their shit,” he says. “Nova seems so innocent. Even though Lars and I live outside most of the mafia scene, our lives aren’t all sunshine and rainbows.”
“Nova isn’t innocent,” I whisper, the anger beginning to bleed out of me. I’m going to need another pain pill after this, but since Nova isn’t coming back today, I’ll let it ride. “Do you know how many times she’s had her bones broken, or how often she was locked away when she was too badly beaten to be seen? Louisa and Turbis told me so many things.”
