I push the door open. “Bear!”
“Over here,” comes his grunted reply, and I don’t know what to expect based on the carefully contained anger I hear in his voice.
Darting swiftly down the hall to the main area of the locker room, I come around the corner and my eyes widen at the scene in front of me. Bear’s half out of his game gear and has Lennon securely in his arms, but it’s very clear that she’s passed the fuck out. Completely unconscious. My gaze darts to the floor beside him where some sort of sack is lying, then to the locker that’s open beside them. With my stomach lurching violently and my eyes glued to the locker, I grit out, “She was in there?”
Just then, Mason races into the room, but stops dead when he sees us, or more to the point, Lennon. “Whoa. What—?” He doesn’t even get the question out as he looks to me for answers with wild, disturbed eyes before they drop back to Lennon. I shake my head, looking to Bear to fill us in.
He takes a couple of deep breaths, glancing to the side like it pains him to do so. “Jimenez’s locker. She was trapped inside there.” He juts his chin toward the bag that I’d noticed on the floor. “That was tied over her head so she couldn’t get it off.” His chest heaves, and his jaw works to the side as he meets our eyes with his stony stare. “The other day, we discussed her reaction to being locked in the bathroom, and she specifically mentioned that among other small spaces, she can’t stand closets. I don’t know what the fuck is up with that—she gave no details—but I got the sense something may have happened to her when she was younger. She didn’t want to talk about it.”
I exhale in a steady stream as I rub my hand over my jaw. “And what’s a locker but a teeny motherfucking closet.” I blink, trying to figure out how this happened. Was it a random attack? Because it sure as fuck doesn’t feel like it.
Mason pushes past me and crouches beside Bear and Lennon. “Kintsukoroi, don’t do this to me.” His voice is gritty and rough. He’s barely hanging on. He pats her cheek—not too hard—trying to bring her around, but the girl is out cold.
I can’t imagine what that was like for her. “She must have been terrified,” I mumble. Swallowing, I fight to contain emotions that threaten to spill out that I can’t show. My heart squeezes dangerously hard in my chest, and I raise my hand to that exact spot and claw at myself as I watch their efforts to rouse her.
Mason’s hands shake as he hesitantly smooths his fingers over the skin of her upper arm. It’s odd to see Mason react this way, usually he’s all piss and fire when he’s angry or upset. But with Lennon, he’s different. He pulls his hands away and scrubs them through his hair instead. He heaves out, “She’s all banged up.”
With no warning, he shoots up from his crouched position and whirls around to punch the wall behind him with bone-chilling speed and intensity. I suck in a breath.Okay, I was wrong. The rage I expected is still there, like I’d assumed it would be; it simply took a second for it to come out.Now that he’s started this cycle, I know for a fact he’ll have trouble stopping himself. He and I are exact opposites in that way. He has zero control when it comes to shit like this. And me? I almost have too fucking much.
He swings and swings, busting the shit out of his knuckles with each hit into the wall. His breath gasps from him. Fury coats his features. The emotion is so raw, it hurts me to watch him like this. I exchange a quick glance with Bear, his expression totally readable:This one’s on you.
Fuck.Bear’s got his hands full already with Lennon. I step in and just miss getting nailed by Mason’s elbow as his frantic pounding of the wall continues. “Mason. Fuck. Stop.” I press my lips together, watching for an opportune moment, and finally see it when he takes a second to breathe. I duck in, grasping him by the hinge of his arm, and wrap my other arm around his back. I yank him away from where he’d been beating on the wall before spinning him around and slamming his back against it, caging him. I use most of my body weight pressed against him to hold him in place but have also managed to catch one wrist and have that pinned next to his head.
As expected, he struggles, bucking his body against mine in a way I’m positive he thinks will get me to back up.Not this time.“Lemme go. Get the fuck off me, Duke.” His body smacks against the wall with each attempt at escape, his dark eyes boring into mine with frightful ferocity.
Leaning in, I forcefully grip him by the jaw, steering his face so we’re nose to nose, prepared to do whatever it takes to get him to stop. Our chests rise and fall as one, and his eyes positively burn into mine. Whether it’s temper, madness, or something else entirely, I couldn’t say. “No, Mason. I’ll let you go when you’re calm. She doesn’t need to wake up to this.”
He swings at me with his free hand and catches me in the side of the head. My head rings with the pain of it.
“Fuck. I’m trying to help you, you fuckin’ maniac. She needsyouright now, not your rage.”
“Mason!” Bear shouts. “Put your crazy away. I think she’s coming around.”
I remain pushed up against his body for several measured, agonizing breaths. He finally stops, exhaling hard through his nose. He relaxes in my hold, wetting his lower lip before he nods. “I’m good.”
“Yeah?” My brows hike high on my forehead because I don’t know if I can trust him to tell me the truth.
He grimaces and nods, though I know it probably irks him to do so.
I release him and back up, watching him carefully for any sign he’s going to turn around and whale on the wall again. I glance at his hands. They took a vicious, ugly beating during his tirade, that’s for fucking sure.
He pushes away from the wall, returning to Lennon and Bear, where he drops into the seat adjacent to Jimenez’s locker space, his forearms propped on his thighs with his busted-up knuckles dangling between his legs, blood dripping. He’ll regret that later when it hurts to draw for the next week, but at least he got it out.
A moment later, Lennon’s lashes flutter, and never have I felt such intense gratitude in my life. Breath gusts from my lungs and I drop my head back on my shoulders, staring at the ceiling for a quick second.Thank fuck.
“Lennon. It’s okay. You’re safe,” Bear murmurs near her ear. “We’ve got you. I promise.”
“Bear? Where am I?” Her voice is shaky as she cautiously takes in her surroundings.
“Locker room,” he grunts. “Mason and Duke are here, too. We don’t know how you got here. Do you remember anything?”
She looks up at me and slowly shakes her head at first, her brow knitting together in confusion. But only a moment later, she freezes, like maybe it’s all coming back to her. “I-I was wandering around, needed some time alone. Some guys grabbed me.” Her breath stutters from her as she tries to sit up. “They didn’t say a damn thing, just threw that sack over my head and manhandled me in here. I didn’t know where I was or what was going to happen to me.” She stares at me, dazed. “I thought I was going to die in there.” Her gaze flicks to the locker, her skin taking on an ashen tone, before moving to each one of us in turn. “I really did.”
Wrath rips its way through my veins. “Motherfucker,” I hiss under my breath, clenching my fists. If I ever get my hands on who did it, it’ll be all over. I’ll make sure of it. No one messes with us and doesn’t regret it.
* * *
Back at the house,Lennon had to make no fewer than ten promises to us that she really is going to be fucking okay—her words—before we allowed her to leave our sight and go to her room. She’d sworn she only needed to sleep it off, and everything would look better in the morning.
