Page 76 of Surrender
“We might as well make the most of having a look around before he comes back with buddies and has everything taken away and dumped,” I announced, and Darcy stepped to the side as I moved to help Callan lift and pull at the fence, just enough for us to fit through. “Ladies.”
The girls pushed through first, with us right behind them.
Darcy retook my hand as we walked up the path that would usually lead to the front porch. She kept close, her breathing a little heavier than normal, but for the first time, I didn’t try to calm her. Didn’t tell her to breathe. She didn’t need peace right now. She needed to feel the angry flames swirling inside her and us to have her back and stand beside her while that fire burned.
She squeezed my hand and pulled her body in tight to mine as we reached the top of the path and looked over the destruction. The house, if you could still call it that, looked like it had been dragged through hell backward and left for dead. Glass and dirt crunched under our shoes as we navigated around the wreckage with night quickly descending on us.
Everything had been torn apart, then pushed into one bigfucking pile in the middle of the lot. There was the odd wall that was still intact, one in the kitchen still standing upright, while others lay flat. Thankfully, it hadn’t been full of furniture or personal items, but the old carpets, cabinets, and worn wooden floors told the story of someone’s life.
Of Darcy’s life.
Of James’ life.
And my life too.
I may have lived next door, but the home that sat destroyed at our feet was where I grew up. It was where I learned about family and loyalty. And it’s where I became the man I am today, a man I could be fucking proud of.
Darcy’s eyes scanned over the rubble as we walked down the fence line and around to the backyard. “I bet he was cackling like a damn super villain the whole time he was doing this,” she rasped, letting out a breath that sounded more like a sigh than a laugh. “And not a cool super villain. More like one of those ones from oldBatmanmovies.”
“The Penguin,” Callan offered with a smile. “That dude was crazy.”
I shook my head. “Nah. He gives me Riddler vibes.”
Darcy turned to me with her nose scrunched. “Oh my God, he does. He looks like Jim Carey.”
Lucy shuddered. “Whoa, that’s a revelation I could have done without. But look on the bright side,” she announced with a positive, but forced smile. “The villain never wins.”
Darcy grinned, walking over and wrapping her arms around her best friend, the two girls hugging tightly and rocking back and forth.
With the sun completely set, it was hard to make out anything within the shadows. The only light left came from the streetlights, and when they shone on the mangled, almost unrecognizable mess, long shadows were cast out across theyard and the fence.
It was eerie.
“We used to joke a lot about your house being haunted,” I announced, the four of us finally trudging back down the path to the street. “But now, I sure hope it was, and that they haunt Carrington for the rest of his very short life.”
Darcy grabbed my hand, pulling me to a stop. “Nate. You’re not gonna—”
I cut her off by tugging her in and wrapping my arm around her shoulder. “What I am or am not going to do is nothing you need to be concerned with,” I whispered, pressing my lips to the top of her head. “That way, if someone asks, you don’t have to lie.”
I stepped forward and held the fence open, waiting for her to slip through.
But she didn’t. Instead, she folded her arms and narrowed her eyes. “Nathaniel Brooks.”
There was silence for a breath.
You could hear the cars on the interstate and a couple of dogs barking a few streets over.
“Oh shit. She full-named him,” Lucy interrupted with a giggle. Callan and she used that moment to squeeze through the gap and hurry to his truck.
With a sigh, I walked back to Darcy, meeting her face-to-face in the exact place we’d stood hundreds of times before. The background was a little different then, but the splintered pile of wood sitting in the dark behind her was probably the perfect addition to the conversation we were about to have.
Her chin was tipped up just slightly, that stubborn streak in her refusing to stand down.
It was kind of fucking sexy if I were being honest—the scrunched brow and pursed lips with the hip popped a little to the side.Damn. But I’d have to make her reenact it later, ’causethere was such a thing as a time and place.
And this was neither.
“I can’t just let you do something stupid,” she whispered sharply. “Parker is dangerous.”
