Page 131 of Break Away
“You’re done talking,” I said. “You’re done saying her name. You’re done coming into the Sin Bin. When this is over, I don’t even know if you’ll be able to walk across campus safely. You’re done pretending you were telling some high school story instead of admitting you’re a fucking rapist.”
Maddox’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
“I’m going to check on her now, and you are going to stay right here.”
He gave a hard, nervous laugh. “Fuck you, man. You think I’m gonna wait around for you? You want to do this, we can do it now.”
I looked over my shoulder at Briggs and Rider.
Neither of them looked calm anymore.
Briggs’s face had gone dark in a way I had never seen on him, all the ridiculous light stripped away until nothing remained except a goalie built like a wall and twice as willing to take a hit. Rider’s jaw was locked, his eyes flat, his body angled between Maddox and the door.
Briggs nodded once. “Go.”
Rider’s hand dropped from my chest. “We’ve got this.”
Maddox looked toward the front entrance.
Three football players stepped into his path without anyone telling them to.
I turned back toward him and let every part of the thing inside me show on my face. “Don’t run.”
Then I went after Aura.
The back hallway was narrow and dim, the air colder away from the packed heat of the bar. The noise dulled behind me, swallowed by old walls, stacked beer boxes, and the industrial hum of the kitchen. The smell changed too, fried food and beer giving way to bleach, wet mats, and the metallic bite of the dish station.
Hannah shouted something from behind the swinging kitchen door, but I didn’t stop. I followed the sound I never thought I would hear from Aura.
Crying.
Not the pretty, controlled kind. Not a single tear she could wipe away before punishing someone for noticing. This was broken and muffled, dragged from her like she hated every second of it but couldn’t force it back inside.
I found her in the narrow employee hall beside the storage room, wedged between a stack of soda crates and the wall. One hand was clamped over her mouth while the other gripped the edge of the metal shelving hard enough to turn her knuckles pale. Her shoulders shook. Her braids had fallen forward, hiding half her face, and the girl who had stood in front of Maddox with a blade in her smile was gone.
This was the part underneath, the thing I had always known existed but never imagined was this bad. This was the price I was paying for loving a broken girl, the one I had spent seven months punishing because I had mistaken her armor for cruelty and her silence for indifference.
I stopped so hard my boots skidded against the tile.
Aura heard me and jerked backward like the sound of my steps had struck her skin. Her head snapped up, and the fear in her eyes nearly brought me to my knees.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice wrecked. “Don’t come back here and look at me like that.”
I moved anyway.
“Easton, don’t.”
I crouched in front of her before she could scramble away, lowering myself until I wasn’t towering over her and my body stood between her and the hallway, between her and every piece of that bar that had just watched Maddox tear into her.
My hands wanted to go everywhere. Her face, her arms, the back of her neck, anywhere that proved she was real and here and breathing. I forced myself to slow down before I frightened her worse.
“Aura.”
She shook her head hard, tears cutting down her cheeks. “No. No, don’t say my name like that. Don’t you dare come back here and feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you.”
“Liar.”
