Fighting for Rain - BB Easton Page 0,72

doesn’t let her go. He shakes her. He fucking shakes her, and her wide eyes asking me for help are the last thing I see before the darkness takes over.

The sound of Rain screaming is what filters in through my consciousness first. I blink—one, two, three times—and find myself kneeling on the ground. A mound of bloody flesh is gasping beneath me, spitting blood and teeth like a human volcano. I leap off of him and try to open my hands to reach for Rain, wherever she is, but my fists feel like they’ve been run through a meat grinder. There is more screaming as Mrs. Renshaw and Sophie drop to their knees beside the mangled man on the ground.

I watch their tears fall in slow motion, wondering if my bloody fists are the reason they’re crying, just before I hear Rain cry out, “Noooo!”

My head snaps in the direction of her voice a split second before her tiny body collides with mine, sending us both tumbling to the floor. The wall-rattling blast of a hunting rifle being fired indoors has me back on my feet and running, dragging Rain by the hand along with me. I don’t have to look behind us to know who fired the gun.

If somebody beat the shit out of my kid, I’d try to kill him too.

We pass the fountain without any other shots being fired and are in the home stretch toward the main entrance when Rain digs in her heels like we’re about to run off the edge of a cliff.

“Wes, what are you doing?” Her voice is shrill and terrified, and I know that I’m not done fighting yet.

I turn and level her with a commanding stare, my eyes shifting between her and the fountain every other second. “We have to leave. Now.”

“We can’t!”

“Goddamn it, Rain! Either you can run or I can fucking carry you, but we have to leave right the fuck now!”

Both of our heads jerk up as we hear the stomp, slide, stomp, slide of Mr. Renshaw’s limp coming down the hallway.

“So help me God, boy, if I catch you round here again, I’ma hang yer head on the wall like a twelve-point buck.”

The metallic clank of a rifle being cocked sends us both into motion again. I shove open the heavy exit door and pull my girl into the blinding spring sunlight. Instead of hauling ass straight across the parking lot, I head for the closest parked car, using it as a barricade until I’m sure the coast is clear. Rain is breathing heavily beside me, and I can’t tell if it’s from exertion or panic, but I don’t stop to find out.

I do what I do best.

I fucking run.

Rain

Carter’s face. I can’t get the image of Carter’s pulverized face out of my mind. The last time I saw a face that bloody …

I gasp and choke on a sob as the image of my mother lying in bed, never to wake up again, slams into my consciousness like a linebacker. It doesn’t flicker, and it doesn’t flash. It blocks out my vision like a gruesome bumper sticker over my eyes as Wes drags me up the exit ramp and into the woods. I count backward in my mind. I shake my head from side to side. I use my free hand to yank on my hair, but nothing’s working.

We stop running. Wes is talking to me, but I can’t hear him. I’m too busy trying to think of something else. Anything else. I open my eyes as wide as I can, looking all around us for a distraction, but everything reminds me of her. The woods, her motorcycle, the air in my lungs. It all reminds me that I’m alive and she’s not. Wes straddles the bike, his mouth moving like he’s giving me instructions, but I just blink at him. At his perfect face. Carter had a perfect face too, but Wes broke it. He broke it, just like my dad broke my mama’s face. Made it ugly and bloody and gone.

Wes guides me to sit on the motorcycle. I let him manipulate my body like a rag doll.

Is this what the Paramore girl sang about? Watching your parents destroy each other just to fall in love and make the same mistake? Will Wes do the same thing to me one day?

I watch him as he picks up Mama’s helmet. He shoves his wild hair behind one ear, black lashes fanning out across high