Battered Hearts 3: Crossing the line (15 page)

Wyatt turned around, and Tabitha could feel that his entire body was tight in fury. “What did you just say to her?” he growled in a voice that was so dangerous it startled her.

“Wyatt, don’t!” she said quickly and grabbed at his arm when he made a move toward the car. “Please.”

“Shit, it’s the sheriff’s kid!” she heard Brett say in the seat next to Vaughn before he held up his hands and gave her a look of complete disbelief out the front windshield.

Wyatt jerked his arm out of her hold and walked over to the car. He slammed his fist against the hood so hard they all jumped when the metal dented. “Call her a slut again.
I dare you
.”

“Drive!” Brett barked when Wyatt made a move toward the open window.

Vaughn slammed on the gas so hard, Tabitha screamed because they nearly ran Wyatt over. If he didn’t have such quick reflexes, he would’ve gotten hurt for sure. As it was, he jumped away and shouted, “Yeah, you better drive!”

“Oh my God,” Tabitha whispered as she stood there hyperventilating and choking on the dust from skidding tires. “This is bad.”

Wyatt turned on her with a wild, crazed look on his face. “Has that asshole been harassing you? Has he hurt you?”

She shook her frantically. “No.”

Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Tab—”

“He hasn’t, I swear,” she said quickly before she went to her bike. Her hands were shaking as she picked up her backpack and put it on. “I have to go home. He’s gonna tell my mama and—”

“You are
not
going home.”

“What?” Tabitha turned back to him when she heard the hard determination in his voice. “I have to. I have to stop Brett from saying something.”

“Heck, no.” Wyatt’s shoulders were still tight in fury, his light eyes blazing. “You are coming home with me. We’re gonna sit down and talk with my dad, and you’re gonna tell him
everything
that goes on in that house.”

“Are you insane?” A crazed sort of laughter burst out of her. “The state would pick me up for sure.”

“That’s the thing, Tab. The state isn’t the enemy,” Wyatt said slowly. “They’re there to protect you. I know you’re not safe there, and I’m not gonna—”

“No,” Tabitha said, this time more firmly. “I am not bouncing around foster homes like Clay. My mama’s doing good and—”

“She ain’t doing that good. I saw her walking into Carl’s bar the other day.”

“That’s only on weekends!” Tabitha’s voice was shrill with fear. “She has a job now and—”

“Tabitha,” Wyatt started again, this time more slowly as he took a deep breath. “If you got guys there you have to lock your door to keep out, that’s
not
good. What’s to stop them from—”

“I’m not going home with you,” Tabitha said just as forcefully. “And if you tell your daddy, I will never speak to you again.”

Wyatt folded his arms over his chest as he considered her sharply. Then he shrugged. “That may be a sacrifice I’m willing to make. ’Cause I surely ain’t gonna sit back and let something terrible happen to you. I’d rather you hate me.”

“Then fine.” Tabitha got on her bike before she could change her mind. “I can’t stop you, but I
will
deny all of it. I ain’t letting the state ruin my mama.”

Wyatt called out to her when she started riding away. “At least let me hang out until he leaves. Please. I won’t cause trouble.”

“No. I can take care of myself.” She blinked past the tears as she pedaled harder. She had to shout to make sure he heard her. “Just stay away from me!”

She turned back, making sure Wyatt wasn’t following her, and saw him standing where she’d left him with his arms folded over his chest. In that moment, he looked like his daddy, tall and imposing, expecting the world to bow to his will with just a look of disappointment.

Dear God, what had she been thinking?

Chapter Thirteen

Wyatt watched Tabitha ride off, and everything in him demanded he go after her. Yet he stood rooted to the spot instead. He knew if he did chase her down, he’d have to drag her kicking and screaming to his father, and that would make the effort pointless. She wouldn’t talk about what went on in that beaten-down house next to the trailer park, and he couldn’t make her.

Not for the first time, he thought of saying something to his father without Tabitha’s permission, to voice his suspicions that her brother hurt her, because sometimes she had bruises Wyatt was almost certain were caused by abuse. He didn’t spend all his spare time fighting Clay for nothing. He knew what marks caused by fists looked like.

But then what?

If his father couldn’t find anything to take her out of the house and she wasn’t willing to say anything, that would just make things worse for her. He’d heard his father bitch enough times about situations like that to know how tied a cop’s hands could be if a victim wasn’t willing to cooperate.

You couldn’t save people who didn’t want to be saved. His father said it all the time, and for the first time Wyatt truly understood his frustration.

He stood there for a long time after Tabitha disappeared. The fear for her was so all-encompassing, he was choking on it, and the horror of being powerless was nearly killing him.

But he didn’t do anything.

Finally he got on his bike and rode back home, deciding to talk with Clay instead of his father. Clay knew more about Tabitha’s situation than he let on. Wyatt had known it for years, but when he asked, Clay would just give him a hard look and keep silent. Not this time. He was going to make his best friend talk if he had to beat him to get it out.

* * * *

Tabitha had to stop and look at Vaughn’s car in the driveway. The fear made her vision spotted, but she knew she had to go into the house even if a part of her wanted to run back and take Wyatt up on his offer rather than deal with what she was about to face.

Her mother wasn’t home yet. That was both a blessing and a curse.

In the end, the decision was made for her when Brett jerked open the front door and demanded, “Get in this house right now, brat.”

Tabitha actually turned and looked down the road, thinking of Wyatt again. Everything in her wanted to flee.

As if reading her thoughts, Brett yelled, “Now!”

With her heart still beating hard, Tabitha hiked her backpack higher up on her shoulders and walked toward the steps of the house. Her body was tense with adrenaline, the way she imagined warriors were before battle.

A part of her tried to remember everything about this feeling, like marching to her own execution, so that in case she survived, she could write about it later. The front step creaked under her sneakers. She had the thought of it breaking and a black hole opening up beneath it.

Down the rabbit hole, just like in
Alice in Wonderland.

Maybe there was another Garnet down there where superheroes were real. An alternate reality. What if there were some sort of experiment that went horribly wrong, and the water supply was poisoned, but only on the nice side of town where the good guys lived? When bad things happened to people like that, they always seemed to come out on top.

Like Wyatt.

And Clay.

And Jules Conner.

What if that poisoned water made them more than human? What sorts of superpowers would they have? Would they fly? No, Tabitha couldn’t see any of them flying, but Clay would have to be superstrong, because he worked so hard at it. Tabitha would have to make sure Clay had the gift of invisibility too, because there were so many times when she knew he wanted people to stop seeing him.

Jules was so smart and so quick when she was in her karate classes. What if it made her
really
fast? What if her brain worked better than others? That’d be interesting, but that superpower would drive Wyatt crazy. His sister was already a know-it-all.

Tabitha would have to give Wyatt the best superpower of all to make it up to him. Tabitha knew it instinctively; she wanted him to be the quickest and the strongest, because he was
her hero
, even if she deflected him at every turn.

What if that water didn’t just make him strong like Clay and fast like Jules, but somehow made him invincible? Nothing could hurt him. He would be safe forever.

By the time Tabitha made it to the door, she was already lost in her wonder world. The weird defense mechanism kicked in the second she knew she was in a situation beyond her ability to mentally cope with.

When Brett grabbed her arm and tugged her past the entryway, she was half expecting Wyatt to burst in and rescue her, but of course, he didn’t. Heroes weren’t perfect. She’d learned that a long time ago, and they all had weaknesses. What sort of weakness could a man with superstrength and speed who was built like solid steel possibly have?

The door slammed. Brett pushed her into the living room so hard she tripped and hit her head on the sharp corner of the coffee table. The pain was white-hot, and she immediately put her hand to the injury. She pulled it away in shock when she felt the warm, sticky blood seep through her fingers.

She looked at the bright red against her scarred palm.

What if she was his weakness? His kryptonite? What if somehow his destiny was tied to a woman who was never more than ordinary and always ended up on her knees bleeding for the villains? What if she was one of the villains? But not by choice; she was just related to them.

“Fuck, Tab!” Brett cursed. “You’re the clumsiest chick in this whole dang town. It’s like you’re not even here most of the time. Now Mama’s gonna think it was my fault!”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, still caught up in her strange world.

“Have you been talking to Conner ’bout us? The sheriff’s been sniffing round here more than usual. Is it ’cause of your big mouth?”

She shook her head as she got to her knees, looking at the fresh stain of blood in the carpet. She would have to clean it before her mother got home.

“Are you fucking him?”

“No.” She looked up at him, forcing her head to clear. “He just rode me home.”

“Yeah, I bet he rode you home. We saw you making out with him.” Vaughn took a long drag off his cigarette as he looked down at her from his seat on the couch. “I know you’re giving it up.”

“I’m not,” Tabitha said, this time more forcefully because giving Vaughn even an inkling of the idea that she was interested in that sort of thing was just asking for problems. “It ain’t like that. He was just being nice.”

“Bullshit.” Vaughn snorted, his voice filled with malicious glee. “You like letting that big, stupid asshole fuck you?”

“No!” Tabitha got to her feet, feeling the violence threatening. “I need to wash up.”

She dropped her backpack and ran into the bathroom. Luckily they let her go. Her hands were shaking as she locked the door and then turned on the faucet. She looked at herself in the mirror, seeing the blood running down into her ear. She leaned in closer, studying the cut, trying to determine if it needed stitches. Not that it mattered. She’d never force her mother to pay for Dr. Philips when they didn’t have insurance.

She poked at it, feeling strangely detached from the throbbing as she listened to the voices in the other room.

“She’s giving it up to the sheriff’s kid. I’ll betcha a hundred bucks.”

“Fuck.” Brett cursed. “My mama is gonna freak out.”

“She probably told him we’ve been dealing.”

“You think?”

“Hell, yes. The sheriff’s been riding our asses for weeks now. He’s stopped us four times since school started,” Vaughn said with a bitter laugh. “You better figure out a way to shut her up, or I’m gonna do it for you.”

“I got it,” Brett said defensively. “She’s my sister.”

Tabitha grabbed toilet paper and held it to her head, willing the bleeding to stop. Her heart was still beating the hell out of her ribs, and she took slow, even breaths to try to still her panic. She tossed the toilet paper in the toilet when it became soaked with blood and unrolled more. She pressed harder, desperate to have this problem solved so she could deal with the larger issue.

When the doorknob started to jiggle, tears filled her eyes as she reduced herself to begging. “Please just leave me alone. I didn’t say anything to him about the drugs.”

“Open the door, Tab.”

“No,” she whispered as she tears rolled down her cheeks. “Just gimme a little bit.”

“We need to talk.”

She scrunched up her eyes, trying to hide from her reality as her mind slipped back to another reality, but this one wasn’t much improved. She imagined a world crumbling under the rule of an evil overlord. There would be a battle between the light and darkness. She felt trapped in the middle, the ultimate Achilles’ heel to the one person who was supposed to save them all from a horrible reality ruled by greed and indulgence.

What if somehow their souls were linked and whenever they connected it drained Wyatt’s power a little more until he was almost human? Every touch, every time she ran her fingers through his silky hair, it just dragged him down into the darkness until it consumed both of them.

Wouldn’t it be tragic for the hero to be in love with the one girl who could ruin him? What if one kiss was the end of the world? One sweet indulgence, a ray of light in her darkness, and all it did was bring on the ruin.

That was what it felt like as the scrap of metal told her Brett was using a knife to unlock the bathroom door. She screeched when it burst open.

“I didn’t tell him,” she chanted in blind panic. “I didn’t!”

“Come here.”

Brett stormed in after her, looking bigger than Wyatt at that moment, even if she knew it wasn’t true. Terrified, she pressed herself back in the small gap in the corner between the wall and the toilet. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her out from her hiding spot, but she fought him, kicking out, trying to hit him in the balls because that was what Wyatt and Clay told her to aim for. She slashed with her free hand, going for his eyes, another soft spot they had told her about, but she was still trying to stop the bleeding, and eventually she opted to make her body limp and leaden. She slipped out of his grasp and fell into the tiny space next to the toilet, her small frame finally serving well. She kicked every time he got near her.