Page 58 of They Call Me Wicked

I listen to her story in silence, but I don’t feel sympathy or fear or sadness…nothing that would be appropriate if it were coming from someone else. No. All I feel is disgust and horror. Because I know she’s lying. It’s playing like a movie reel in her brain and what I went through recently makes my absolute horror at her real truth all the more powerful.

You can’t lie to Wicked.

She never warned Tina away from Billy. She seduced him. She convinced him Tina was cheating on him and she started fucking him whenever her friend’s back was turned. Tina was there that night my mother brought out the drugs, offering them to everyone. She started blowing the guy right in front of her supposed best friend and roommate while she was high as shit. When Tina realized what was going on, she got angry and my mother pushed Billy into beating the hell out of her.

She was right about Tina being beaten unconscious, but Billy didn’t rape her. My mom rode his nasty dick right next to her bloody friend, doing lines of coke off of her barely moving chest when their high started to abate. Laughing as she drew in shaky ragged breaths and pressed a loaded gun to her head every time she tried to move. They partied all night long, until all the drugs were gone and the sun was high in the sky. Billy didn’t steal shit.

“No.” The word is icy as it leaves my lips, a jagged frozen weapon as it slices through the air. I’m so fucking done with her. In fact, maybe I’ll just tell the guys and have them send a car over to her place and be done with it.

I’ve covered for her for many years, letting her use and abuse me, leech off me and then blame me for her problems. But this time, she’s gone way too fucking far. She’s a goddamn psychopath, and she needs to be stopped.

“What do you mean no?” Her sickly sweet cadence flips to anger before switching right back to fake despair. “You would really tell your own mom no after she was assaulted and robbed? I thought I raised you better than that?” She starts to cry, her sobs as fake as the bleached ends of her hair.

“You didn’t raise me. Dad and Nana did. If it were up to you, I’d be just as much of a strung out piece of shit as you.”

I don’t usually fight back like this, but I keep picturing the labored breaths of Tina as they laughed at her suffering and did drugs on her broken form. The only woman who stayed by my mother’s side and helped her through shit, no matter how badly she treated her. Tina wasn’t perfect, she was a drug addict too, but she had a good relationship with her own adult daughter and her grandkids, never letting them see that side of her. She was always nice to me too. And I’m furious on her behalf.

I hope she’s okay.

“You little-” My mother screeches like a crazed animal before a blast of pain shoots up my face. My head skips pulsing and goes straight to pounding as she strikes me again, leaving me woozy for a moment. A massive roar pierces my ears and there’s a scuffle around me as my mother is snatched off me violently.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Nic growls, his words deep and rough.

Kai and Ezra’s hands move around me as they pull me to my feet, but my knees buckle, forcing Ezra to sweep his arms under me and cradle me to his chest. Kai strokes my hair out of my face and examines my injuries gently, his fingers barely stroking over my busted lip and pressing on the back of my head. I wince, but I think I’m otherwise fine. Mydoting mother’sblows just irritated my already present injuries.

If I keep going like this, I might actually end up with brain damage.

A choking, strangled sound reaches my ears and I grab Kai’s hand to try to get out of Ezra’s arms, but he holds me tight. “Nic! Nic! Stop it! You’re killing her!” I scream the words out, my voice tight.

“She deserves it…” His aura has grown dark, a stifling dangerous sort of dark, causing panic to shoot through me.

“Yes, she does. Butyou don’t. You don’t need that on your conscience. Let her go, baby, please. For me?” A moment passes as I hold my breath. The only sound breaching the silence of the night is my mother struggling to breathe around the hold Nic must have on her neck.

Suddenly letting her go, he shoves her down the front steps. She falls to the ground with a slap of skin against concrete that leaves her gasping for air and dry heaving on the sidewalk before she tries to stumble to her feet.

“You ungrateful little-” She coughs once, her voice raspy and broken. “I always knew you were a fucking useless little whore. I should have aborted you when I had the chance!”

A sudden burst of wind clues me in to Nic charging for her, but luckily I feel Kai rush by me to intercept him and pull him back. My mother shrieks with fear before backing further away from us, her voice lowering in volume the further she gets as she continues to yell insults and expletives in our direction, until it’s gone quiet once more.

“Ezra?” I mumble, my head pounding behind my temples, my face burning from the hit it took.

“What do you need?” His voice is slightly worried, his control slipping, so I rub his chest in reassurance.

“Can you call Alan and tell him what happened? Tell him my mother is here and needs to be arrested. Also tell him to send a car out to my mother’s place for a welfare check on Christina Abernathy. That it’s urgent. And tell him to send out an APB for a William Bartell, aka Billy B. He’s armed and violent. He can call me if he has any questions.”

“Of course.”

“Wicked…” Kai’s tone is worried as he returns to me. “Are you sure you’re okay? How’s your head?”

“I’m fine, Kai. She hits like a bitch.” I force a smile to my face and he sighs before grunting as he’s shoved away from me.

“¡Mi vida!” Nic’s voice is thunderous as his hand grips my chin, forcing my face to angle towards him as he inspects me. That’s the second time he’s said that word in reference to me and I make a mental note to look it up when I can.

“I’m okay, Nic.” I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me move. His face is impossibly close to mine, his warmth on my lips, the smell of his mint toothpaste on his breath. Sparks shoot up my spine as he lingers, his aura entirely transfixed on me…until it’s not.

He pulls away as suddenly as he came, cold sweeping through the heat he was pulling from me only moments ago and I blow out a breath, frustration swelling in my gut.

He is infuriating.

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