“Man, shit really changed,” Cayde says, his voice softer now as he runs his hands along Athena’s legs. “We thought things were going to be a lot different than they are.”
“And they’re going to be even more different still,” I tell him warningly. “We can’t let any of this stand, Cayde. Not the things that have happened to Athena, or what happened to her mother, not what happened to Natalie, or anyone else. We’re supposed to take care of this town. That’s the point of one of us inheriting it, right? To protect it, and the people who live here. But it seems like along the way, our families forgot that. So we’re going to make it right.”
I’m still cradling Athena as I speak, and I feel her shift in my arms, as if confirming what I already feel. “We’re going to change this town forever,” I tell Cayde with conviction. “And our fathers will either get in line, or get the fuck out.”
For a moment, I’m not sure what Cayde is going to say. But then a slow smile spreads across his face, and he nods.
“Now you’re starting to sound like me.”
6
CAYDE
Dean and I don’t sleep after we dry Athena off and help her into her bed. We cleaned her up, washing away all traces of what Jaxon did, making sure she was warm and in comfortable sleeping clothes, and then we left her in bed, going back downstairs to clean up there.
Neither of us really know what to do with the mess of photos and articles. Finally, we make a pile of each, and Dean finds a couple of manila files to stuff them in. The photos take up two; the articles, carefully folded, manage to fit in one. They look innocuous afterwards, sitting crisply on the coffee table, as if an entire history of horrors wasn’t contained inside.
“Are you going to bed?” Dean asks me when we finally finish cleaning up. He looks exhausted, his face drawn and pale, but I shake my head.
“No,” I tell him, feeling myself tense with anger all over again. “I’m going to fucking wait for Jaxon to come home.”
“Well.” Dean leans back, raising his arms above his head. “I guess I’ll wait up with you.”
It takes a long time. It’s well after two in the morning when we hear the slam of the front door. Both Dean and I stand up at the same time, striding out into the foyer before Jaxon can make it to the stairs.
“Stop right fucking there.” My voice carries across the room, but Jaxon doesn’t stop. He hardly even hesitates, still walking towards the staircase, and I rush towards him, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him backwards.
If I’m being honest, I didn’t mean for it to be as hard as it was. But my fingers dig into his shoulder, hauling him back so that he winds up sprawled on the hardwood floor with an undignified yelp as his ass hits the ground.
Jaxon almost immediately leaps back up, moving with the speed and surety of someone who spends a decent portion of his life in the gym, but I’m quick too. I spend a fuck ton of my time out on the rugby field, tackling men a lot fucking bigger than Jaxon, and he’s completely unprepared for me to lunge forward, driving my shoulder into him as I throw him backwards towards the wall.
“Fuck! What the fuck, Cayde—” he snarls, but I’m already on him, shoving him back, pinning him to the wall as my fist connects with his chin and sends him slumping sideways. For a brief second, I think I might have succeeded in knocking him out with one punch, but then Jaxon throws his weight into me, shoving me backwards and managing to get in a blow of his own.
Dean rushes in, grabbing Jaxon in an effort to get him off of me, but all that succeeds in doing is turning a fight into a brawl. Jaxon wheels around, his fist going into Dean’s stomach, and as I manage to get in another punch of my own on Jaxon, the three of us start going around and around, ducking and weaving and swinging in the foyer of our own home like three madmen.
Truthfully, I feel as if we’ve all gone a little crazy. And why not? This town seems made to make madmen out of us. Finding out everything we did tonight would be enough to push anyone over the edge, and I feel as if we’re there.
I feel as if we’ve been headed here for a long time.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jaxon shouts through a bloodied mouth, dodging my next blow and getting me hard in the arm.
“You fucked Athena,” I growl, lunging towards him again.
“So?” Jaxon sneers at me. “I’ve fucked her before. She’s not your property, Cayde, not even yours and Dean’s. We’re all sharing her now, isn’t that right? Sharing the little slut of a pet that our fathers gave us.”
“Don’t fucking talk about her like that!” I barrel towards him, using all of my weight to catch him slightly off balance and bring him down to the floor. We crash down together, the force of us both hitting the hardwood sending a tremor through the floor, and then I rear back, smashing my fist into his face hard enough that I’m sure it must loosen some teeth. If not, they’re well on their way.
“Cayde!” Dean’s voice cuts through the fog of my rage, and the next moment I feel him pulling me backwards, off of Jaxon. I stumble back, and this time Jaxon doesn’t immediately get up. His mouth and nose are bleeding, his jaw purpling where I struck him, and he looks a little dazed.
“Get him under fucking control,” he snarls at Dean, and that’s enough for me to lunge forward again, but Dean blocks me. I stagger back, and Dean squats down, reaching forward to grab a fistful of Jaxon’s shirt and haul the other man’s face up towards his.
“No one said you can’t fuck Athena,” Dean says coolly. “But you didn’t just fuck her, did you? You fucked her hard, with your hand around her throat, enough to leave marks. You fucked her in a rage, and then you left her outside, half-passed out, to freeze to death. That’s not how we treat what’s been entrusted to us. And it’s definitely not how we treat Athena.” He shakes Jaxon, hard, his fist tightening in the fabric as he glares down at the other man. “Youknowwhat she’s been through. And you still chose to treat her like that. How fuckingdareyou.”
“She deserved it.” Jaxon sneers, and there’s a bitterness and resentful anger in his face that I haven’t seen in a long time, not since Natalie died. “She seduced me knowing she was my ex’s half-sister. Knowing Natalie died, knowing how I felt about it all. She knewallof it, and she still wormed her way into my bed, just so she could fulfil her little plan of getting all of us so that none of us could win. She didn’t give a fuck about me, just like no one else in this fucking town ever has. That’s why we were going to leave, Natalie and I. But they took that away from me, too.”
His jaw is clenched, staring up at Dean, and I can see how angry he is. How hurt. I can even empathize with it, a little. But I can’t come to terms with how he treated Athena.
“You’re going to make this right with her,” Dean says, shaking him hard. “You’re going to find it in yourself to admit that you fucked up, and you’re going to fucking make it right. Do you understand me?”