Make My Move (Hannaford Prep #5) - J. Bree Page 0,69

I need her to want me back right now?

I groan and lean forward until my elbows hit my knees and my face is cradled in my hands. How fucking badly have I misjudged her all along and now it's back to bite me in the fucking ass.

“Fuck, how can you even stand to look at me? I look just like that fucking monster. We're all the spitting fucking image of our father.” The bitterness I feel leaks through into the laugh I choke out. “Harley looks like my mom. He gets to look like the only good we ever had in our lives and I get to stare in the mirror at the demons who own us. Fuck, now I sound like Morrison. Someone get me another fucking drink before I start singing.”

It's quiet in the room for a minute, only Avery's shower making any noise and then she speaks, her voice quiet but firm. “I don't think you look like Joey. I think you look like Avery and she's one of the very best humans on this earth. So yeah, looking like your mom, like Harley, would have been great but looking like Avery is pretty fucking good, too. Stop having a meltdown over shit that doesn’t matter.”

And in four sentences she grants me the absolution I do not deserve but so desperately crave.

“Where the fuck did you come from?”

She snorts at me and pats my leg like I'm a fucking child. “A drug addict. Or a meth lab, depending on which specific you were looking for.”

I try to stay away from Joey.

I try and I fail. Miserably, because when I wake up at 4 in the morning to a rambling text from him about how good the Mounty's blood will look on his dick when he fucks her bleeding corpse, it hits a little too fucking close to home for me, and I get out of bed to hunt the fuck down and end him.

I don't have to go far, he's waiting for me out in the sitting area in the boys’ dorms, off his fucking head and rambling to himself about sluts and whores like he always does. His eyes are bloodshot and glassy, the liquid way they get when he's so fucking far out of his mind. I wonder if he's moved on from the cocaine and gone to heroin or meth; I wonder if he's going to burn himself out finally and I won't have to fucking deal with him anymore?

Even off his head he can read me like a book.

"You raise a hand to me and I'll tell Father all about her, your dirty little secret."

I hesitate and it's the fucking worst thing I could do because he takes the action in and digs deeper. "Some little slum pussy from the Bay, no one would even notice if she disappeared. Avery is already on borrowed time, do you really want the little slut to die too?"

So I don't raise a hand to him.

And when he flies at me fists first, I let him. I stand there and I let him burn out some of his own rage against me and it's only when he has me on the ground, kicking at my ribs like he wants every last one of them broken, that Harley's shitty sleeping habits come in handy and he tackles Joey to get him off of me. It only takes one sharp hit to the face to knock Joey out, but Harley hits him a few more times just to be sure.

Or because he wishes he could kill the asshole.

Blaise looks fucking murderous as he helps me up, ducking under my arm to help me hobble back to our room even as my ribs scream at the stretch. "What the fuck are you doing? If he corners you then fine, take the fucking beating to keep Aves safe, but you were safe in our room. For fuck's sake, Ash, you're getting reckless."

I shrug because it's easier to keep my mouth shut than to explain the intricacies of how fucked I am when it comes to my brother. I could just tell him that he'd threatened the Mounty, then he'd probably drop me and go back after Joey, but I can't let that happen either.

We're all fucking doomed.

I take a shower, slowly and fucking excruciatingly, but at least the pain puts a dampener on my dick for once and I don't find myself jerking off over the Mounty. Any other girl I