Page 130 of That Sik Luv

Smell the pungent leather of his jacket and the stark sulfur of the infamous matches he held between his teeth, ready to set my world on fire by allowing me the strength to strike them.

Feel the coarseness of the masculine calluses built up on his hands as they firmly grip my soft flesh.

Hear the soft reluctant sigh slip through his lips as he trails your fingers along his tattered and torn skin, finally learning to embrace the loving touch.

With my heart rate slowed and the drool spilling down my chin, I open my eyes to the darkness of the trunk, utilizing every available sense I have.

After swallowing the pill in the bathroom at our family home, I walked out to find Callum’s security already zip-tying Baret as he screamed into the duct tape silencing him. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but lucky for me, Aero was ahead of the game. He’d already taught me what to do.

They drove wildly, throwing our bodies around in the back of some blacked-out trunk together. I panicked alongside Baret, who was thrashing around violently, screaming muffled obscenities into his tape. When the vehicle finally stopped, I inhaled a deep, calming breath, and my mind went to him.

Those days spent with Aero alone at his cabin were nothing short of an educational experience set to bring me to this moment. We wasted not a minute of time spent together. I’d learned a lifetime of information crammed into a single week. Everything was a game to him, or so I’d thought. The chase into the woods, being tied up and used at his mercy, being cared for afterwards as everything I’d learned during our lessons was broken down. From the flick of my wrist throwing the blades to the ability to escape his traps, here I sit, contorted into the back of this trunk, sitting on a gold mine of skills set to free us. To free him.

He’d always known it’d come to this moment.

The moment he’d finally let go and watch as his bud bloomed into his savage rose, bleeding nothing but strength and courage from her petals. The stem, built with the most destructive thorns of empowerment they’d ever known. A warrior arising from the soiled dirt of the institution meant to choke me dry.

They were always wrong about him. He’d always maintained his faith.

His faith in me.

I’d left my wrists side by side while they zip-tied me together at the house, ensuring that whenever they were taking us, I’d be able to get out of them, just as he’d shown me. Sure enough, turning my palms together, I was able to create a little bit of wiggle room in order to shimmy my way out of them, one hand at a time. Ripping the tape from my mouth, I face Baret.

“Shhh, calm your breathing.” I place my hand on his face beside me as he thrashes and confused mumbles leave his throat.

He finally does as I ask before I rip the tape off his face, swallowing his pain while I feel around him for the trunk latch.

“Fuck, Briony! How did you...?”

“We’re going to get out of here,” I interrupt, determined as ever.

“Wait,” he says, sounding breathless. He sighs heavily, and I can practically feel the guilt lacing his pause. “I’m sorry.”

Something washes over me. It’s not anger for a past I’ve yet to learn. It’s understanding.

“I’m so fucking sorry. I should’ve told you what I’d discovered. That you and I weren’t really...”

“We are.” I stop him. “You’re more my family than anyone I’ve ever known.”

He shakes his head, not wanting to face me, remorse clearly overtaking him.

“You’ve protected me, despite the truths that were held from me. You’ve remained a constant for me in a world that you yourself didn’t wish to be a part of.”

Baret left The Covenant Academy as soon as he could, pursuing his own goals at the nearby university. Our parents reluctantly allowed it after he’d been caught sleeping around and drinking, doing things most normal teenage boys did. To them, he wasn’t the chosen one. I was. They planned my entire life in order for me to be the beacon of faith for our family. To continue the mission of falling silently in line. But what they hadn’t realized was that my mission wasn’t meant for them. My mission had always been to unveil the broken nature of the system built on lies, unearthing the horrors within. Given the throat through which I was allowed to scream.

“There’s so much you don’t understand,” he begins. “He’s always watched over you...from afar, while I’ve watched from within.”

Baret’s known of Aero’s existence. To what extent, I haven’t discovered. The only reasoning I can imagine is that Aero wanted it that way. I’ve always been protected, the truths surfacing in their own time, when I was strong enough to accept them. To believe them as facts.

Luckily, the car they’ve put us in is a newer model, as I suspected, leaving me to feel out the dark space with my free hand until the tips of my fingers sweep over the safety latch. This wasn’t a lesson from Aero, this was from my own little arsenal of knowledge.

“It truly pays to have an older brother growing up,” I whisper to myself as I pull the cord, popping the lock on the trunk.

Not the first trunk I’ve been locked in.Thank you, Baret.

Baret laughs beside me in disbelief. “Who’d have thought my asshole-ish ways would pay off one day?”

The lock opens when I pull the latch, but the trunk itself doesn’t.

---