Page 79 of The Unruly

Her eyes grow wider than I’ve ever seen them before. Owlish. Young. Horrified. But I see the truth gleaming in them. “Ronan, that’s enough.”

“I think I can speak for Raegan and Ryder,” I clip out. “Your worries are unwarranted, way off base, and, frankly, ill-timed. We’re tired of your bullshit.”

“Ronan!” Ryder and Mom both cry out at once.

“Whatever,” I grumble. “Be mad at me for being the one to state the truth. I don’t fucking care anymore.” I wave a finger at Mom. “But do not accuse me or Ryder of taking advantage of Raegan. It’s insulting as fuck, especially after the hell we just endured.”

With those words, I storm out of the cabin.

Tears burn at my eyes as I run barefoot toward the orchard where I can have a moment to breathe and calm down. I’m sick to my stomach. Not once have I ever disrespected my mother as I did just now. Dad will be furious.

Logan fucked up my life and I’m not sure I’ll ever get it back to the way it used to be.

Our family is broken.

I didn’t know it when I set off on my journey to find my siblings, but I certainly know it now. Mom is paranoid, Dad is physically barely holding on, Destiny is a shell of the person she once was.

And Ronan?

He’s not well. I can’t pinpoint exactly what’s wrong with him, but it’s there. Always brewing and simmering just below the surface. Fear flickers in his eyes when no one’s looking, but anger lives there too. I still can’t believe he blew up on Mom a few days ago. Everything has been so tense since then.

With each passing day, I feel Ronan slipping from my grasp. He’s withdrawing to a place I don’t know how to get to. Every attempt to make him smile feels like a wasted effort. All he does is sleep, sit in the orchard alone, or vacillate between scowling and fearfully jumping at every shadow.

At night, his nightmares take over.

Logan, though most likely dead, continues to torment my poor brother from deep inside his mind. He must’ve tortured him or beat him to the point of insanity because Ronan is just not the same.

So, yeah, our family is broken, and Ronan’s the sharpest, most jagged piece.

Every time I find myself accidentally pressed against him in the middle of the night, I wake to an elbow to my face or punches to any available body part. For someone who, weeks ago, was desperate for my touch, he’s now easily agitated if I do it while he sleeps.

What did Logan do?

Disgusting images tease at my mind, but I refuse to think about them. If something that bad happened, Ronan will tell me when he’s ready. All I can do is protect him the best I can and respect his boundaries.

Raegan doesn’t come over early in the morning anymore in case Mom wakes up and catches her. But she does slip out for an hour or two in the middle of the night. We can whisper, just the two of us, and cuddle.

Cuddling with her feels good. Andsafe. We haven’t kissed anymore or touched like when we spent the night in the tent after her rescue. I’ve jerked off every day in the shower, though, at the memory. Jerking off issafe. Kissing and touching under the clothes is not.

My mind drifts to the day we made it back home and I can’t help but smile. I’d stolen a moment alone with Raegan to give her something I knew she desperately wanted.

“I got you a present,” I say to Raegan, motioning for my backpack that sits on the floor in my cabin. “Ready?”

She grins, eyes sparkling with delight. “What is it?”

I unzip the bag and before I can pull it out, she reaches her hand inside, too impatient to wait. When she pulls out her ponytail, she scrunches her nose and gapes at me.

“Creeper, why do you have my hair? That’s not a gift! That’s a weird shrine of me you’re carrying around!”

I snatch the bound hair away from her and toss it back in the bag, mock scowling at her. “That’s not your present. It’s mine. Close your eyes.”

She narrows them at me. “I don’t know if I should trust you. What’s next? A bag of my toenails?”

“Close. Your. Eyes.” Finally, she obeys me. I pull out the knife Rowdy retrieved from Jace and set it in her waiting palms. “Now you can open them.”

Her ecstatic shriek pierces my ears. She beams, overly thrilled with getting the knife back, and then practically tackles me with a bear hug.

When she pulls back, still smiling, she asks, “Are we going to talk about the hair?”