She kept moving her face away from him, head jerking one way and then the other, trying to stop him from putting his gross mouth on her lips. “Stop.”
Sickness crawled through Ian’s belly.
Kisses are for who you love the most.
That man didn’t love his mother.
His mama flailed and kicked while the man tried to put his hand under her shirt, and his mother cried out, “Get off me, you sick prick. You disgust me. I told you we were over. Over!”
Ian flinched when he heard the crack.
He’d heard the same thing before, and he knew it was a strike across his mother’s face. That her cheek would be blue tomorrow, and she’d spend the day in bed crying.
It only took that flash of realization, and he was no longer afraid. He went barreling out into the other room, roaring at the top of his lungs, “Leave my mama alone!”
He might be skinny, but Jace told him he was a fighter.
A scrapper who was gonna take everyone by surprise.
He jumped on the back of the guy who had his mother pinned against the kitchen counter, climbing him like he was a jungle gym. He locked his arms around the man’s neck. He cinched down as tight as he could. “Run, Mama, run. Get out of here. I’ll save you.”
Horror streaked across her face, just as dark as the mascara that ran in messy lines down her cheeks. “Oh my God, Ian. Let him go. Get down. Let him go.”
Ian fought harder, tightening his arms until they were trembling with the force he was trying to exert.
But he guessed it didn’t matter all that much because the man growled and grabbed Ian by the wrist. He gripped him and swung at the same time, tossing Ian across the kitchen like he didn’t weigh anything at all.
Ian slammed into the refrigerator, hitting it like a rag doll, arms and legs flopping around like they weren’t attached. Pain splintered across his shoulder and the side of his head.
He slid down and slumped to the floor.
He tried not to cry from the pain.
But Ian realized he didn’t really know what pain was.
Not until the man ripped his belt from his pants and came for him.
An hour or a minute or a day. Ian didn’t know. All he knew was agony.
His mama was screaming. Begging for the man to stop. It only made the man hurt him more. That was the last thing Ian knew before everything went black.
* * *
Ian couldn’t move, everything hurt so bad. He tried to pry his eyes open, but they were too puffy and swollen, every part of his skin feeling like it might burst.
“Shh, baby, shh. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” His mama’s voice was right there at his ear, and he realized he was in her arms, and she was rocking him. “I won’t let nothin’ bad happen to you, not ever again.”
He drifted in and out, lulled by the sound of her singing softly in his ear. “Forever and ever.”
Her lips fell on his temple as she gave him a soft, soft kiss.
It stung.
But to Ian, it was the best thing he’d ever felt.
Twenty-Nine
Ian
I jolted awake where I’d fallen asleep in the driver’s seat of my car where I’d pulled it up to sit right in front of Grace’s house. Gasping for air and disoriented, my eyes darted around the shadows leaping through the darkened neighborhood. The trees were a bluster where the wind pummeled and pounded, clouds building in the starry-sky, a storm to bring on the winter.
Creeper mode.
Protector mode.
Wasn’t sure I even knew the difference any longer.
The only thing I knew was I hadn’t been able to force myself to drive away from the spot since I’d ran out her door hours upon hours earlier. I’d just . . . sat in my car.
Guarding.
Refusing to leave in case that weasel-dick showed his mangled face.
Grace’s grandmother had gotten home with the kids about an hour after I’d left, and I’d sat there, watching the lights come on at twilight before they’d finally dimmed at around ten-thirty.
The house going silent.
Didn’t mean I hadn’t been able to feel Grace. Her gaze searching for me from out the window. Her spirit nothing but worry, like I could feel it radiating out to gather me up.
Wasn’t sure when I’d drifted. But there I was at after one in the morning, gripping the steering wheel, sweating like a motherfucker. I might as well have been that twelve-year-old kid getting his ass beat to within an inch of his life rather than the man I’d become who refused to allow anyone or anything to touch him.
That man had just been another in the long line of men who had come in and out of our lives. Depraved and deranged.
I scrubbed a hand over my face to break up the exhaustion and grabbed my phone where I’d tossed it to the passenger seat.