“You stupid, little shit.” The man grabbed a shard of glass, and before Brendan could react Bunny’s father brought the shard toward him, slicing Brendan’s forearm. Blood immediately welled, and Bunny cried out.
“What have you done?” she screamed at her father.
“Fuck off, both of you. Get out of my house.”
Brendan stared at that blood for a long moment, and the feeling of heat and murderous rage filled him. He lifted his gaze to the asshole, and gathering all of his strength he brought his fist forward and slammed it into the side of Bunny’s father’s face. The man spun back and fell onto the couch.
“Brendan, your arm.” Bunny was crying now, her voice small, shocked. Brendan felt the rage move through him, controlling him, consuming him.
Brendan was on Bunny’s father a second later, slamming his fist into the side of his head over and over again, blood coming from Brendan’s forearm and Bunny’s father’s nose and mouth. Only when he felt Bunny pulling him off of her father did Brendan finally move away. He breathed hard, and stared in the swollen eyes of the motherfucker hurting the girl he cared about, who was like family to him.
“Touch her again and I’ll come back here and fucking kill you,” Brendan said slowly, making sure the threat was clear. Brendan would make sure Bunny’s father knew he wasn’t weak, that he’d carry out the promise by any means necessary.
Brendan came back to the present, felt sweat cover his forehead, and wanted to see Bunny so fucking badly. Bunny had only been seventeen at that time, and although he’d been ten years older, she was friends with Lila, best friends, in fact. She was also close to both of them, and therefore like family. He protected her, watched over her, and he wasn’t about to let any motherfucker hurt what he cared about
He had needed stitches, and after he’d gone to the ER and gotten them, Bunny had stayed with him the whole time. Her father hadn’t touched her again, not after that night, but he knew the damage had already been done to her, that pain and brokenness she carried with her like another skin.
“I won’t let you get hurt again, Bunny,” he said to himself, focused on getting to her and making sure she was safe. “I will kill to make sure you’re safe, even after all this time.”
****
Bunny sat at the kitchen table, the house smelling, looking … feeling the same as it had all those years ago. She looked down at the yogurt cup and can of fruit in front of her, the same dinner she’d been eating for the last three days. Her appetite had been shit, her mind focused on everything she’d lost, left behind, and missed.
She thought she’d been doing well with her emotions, with how she handled things. She’d blocked them, buried them deep, but once she’d come back to Thorne, had seen Lila again, all those feelings rushed through her like a tsunami.
As she leaned back in the chair, the squeak from the wood came through loudly. The brown stained wallpaper, the yellowing Formica counter top, and the beige floral patterned linoleum were a disgusting display of memories of what she hated about her life.
The silence stretched on, and the sound of the clock above the sink ticked down the seconds. When she’d come back to Thorne a year ago she’d had no plans to stay, but now twelve months had passed and she was still here. Her job was shit, but the house was paid for, and what she did make working at the coffee shop made her just enough for groceries and to pay utilities. But she couldn’t stay in Thorne, couldn’t stay here.
You don’t have a choice until you save money.
She’d been away for years, and after losing job after job because she wouldn’t put up with anyone’s shit, her emotions shattered because of her past, and because of what she wished she had was now gone, she found herself back in her nightmare. She might be broken, but she wouldn’t allow anyone to shit on her, not again.
And your anger and attitude makes you not even able to hold down a job for more than a year.
Her thoughts were broken up by the sound of gavel crunching in the driveway. Standing, her heart beating hard and fast, she walked over to the living room window. The lights were off aside from the kitchen one, which gave her enough of a glow to see two large and dark SUVs pulling in front of the house. Her heart stopped. There shouldn’t be anyone even coming here, because she didn’t know anyone, didn’t have anyone that gave a shit about her.
One of the SUVs cut the lights and engine, and with the glare on the window, and the lights from the second vehicle shining right in her direction, she couldn’t see who got out of the SUV. All she could make out was a large body … a really big body, in fact. She saw his shadow as he moved over to the driver’s side door of the other vehicle, and after several moments of him standing there, presumably talking, the other SUV backed out of the driveway and drove off. And then, as she held her breath, not sure what in the hell was going on, the man turned. The moon was high, full, and there was a very soft glow cast over everything. With the headlights of the other car no longer in her face, she could see him more clearly, but he was still shrouded in darkness.