Page 71 of Bound By Threads
I point to her, then make a fist with my free hand, thumb extended, and drag it down from my chin.“You good?”
She shakes her head, “No,” she mouths the word.
Archer blows out a breath beside her, his cheeks deflating, his arm tightening around her. I want to ask her what happened, but the feeling of her hand in mine right now is the only thing that’s stopping me from going and finding the three of them.
Lottie must read my mind because she flexes her fingers around mine. “They’re not going to stop.”
Archer’s body tenses, his jaw clenched, hard. My fingers flex around hers, wishing I could drag them all into the ocean and hold them under until they understood what drowning in your pain felt like.
“And what do you want to do?” Archer asks her, signing it too.
Lottie looks between us both, her eyes like wildfire—bright, wild, angry.Alive.
“I want revenge.” She mouths the words slowly so I can understand, her fingers tapping against my hand.
The words don’t shock me. It was inevitable, like a storm that had been building and was finally ready to break. I let go of her hand.“Are you sure?”
“I want them to feel it. All of them. Every moment I was humiliated, every night I would contemplate walking to the cliff’s edge just to finally get a breath of air because it felt like I was always suffocating under the pain of everyone else… They made me their punching bag for their entertainment. I want them to pay.”She looks between us, searching for judgment, but she won’t find any. Not from us.“I don’t want apologies from Crew. I don’t want demands from Elijah or anything from Roman because he still can’t see that what he did was wrong. I want them to know what it feels like to be brought to their knees.”
Her words have no hesitation or shame, only the bare, brutal truth. She delivers it like a weapon, sharpened by every scar they’ve left on her.
I study her face, the curve of her nose, and the slight crinkle at the side of her eyes. For a moment, all I can see is the girl I found curled in the alley. The way she shook. The way her eyes had gotten that faraway look. I remember kneeling beside her, not saying a word, and wanting nothing more than to fix it all for her.
That girl isn’t gone, I don’t think she ever will be… but she’s not who’s sitting in front of me now.
This version is a storm with a purpose.
“What’s the plan?”Archer asks.
Lottie leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees, eyes fixated on the water. Her fingers tighten into fists before she relaxes them again.“We start with Crew.”
“Because he drugged you.”It’s not a question, but a statement.
She nods.“He knew. We would spend hours as kids talking about the choices our parents made. He knew it was one of my biggest fears that I’d end up just like them…” She pauses. “It was his, too. Now look at him. He drugged me for his own selfish reasons, taking yet another thing from me.”
Archer shifts closer to her, resting his head against hers. I watch them for a beat, the way they move around each other like gravity. But then Lottie turns to me, tugging my hand into her lap like she needs both of us as much as the other.
The tide pulls in closer, and the wind picks up, cold and biting.“Shall we go home? Mom will be wondering where we are.”Archer stands, holding his hand out for Lottie, and helps her to stand.
We follow her back to the trucks, and I follow them home to Archer’s home, not ready to be away from her yet.
Archer pulls upto the house first, headlights sweeping across the front porch of his parents’ place. It’s familiar and warm, even in the dark.
A safe place. It always has been.
I park just behind them and kill the engine, stepping out into the cool night. Lottie’s already climbed out of Archer’s truck, arms wrapped around herself as the breeze tugs her hair from her ponytail.
“We should probably tell them,”she signs, glancing between us. Archer looks at her, confused.“Your parents. About us.”
Archer lifts a brow.“You sure?”
She nods.“I don’t want it to be a secret, like we’re doing something wrong… and I’m tired of feeling like everything good in my life has to be hidden.”
I don’t need to say anything. She already knows where I stand.
“Mom’s probably already guessed how we feel about you,”Archer says, but there’s a twitch of nerves in his jaw.
We enter the house, following the light still on in the kitchen, and sure enough, Archer’s mom appears in the doorway.
