Page 66 of Malice and Surrender
As I suspected, it was seventeen hours of hell before we reached the campsite.
“Alex, help your cousin set up her tent,” Mom said, but Courtney glared at me. You couldn’t find two more opposite people, and for reasons I’d never figured out, Courtney hated me.
Doing as I was asked, I wandered over to Courtney. “Hey, did you want help with your tent?”
“If I wanted help, I would ask for it,” she bit back.
I went to turn away but stopped and instead took a step closer. My voice lowered so only she could hear. “What the hell is your problem with me? I rarely see you, and I’ve never done anything to you, so why the fuck are you like this?”
Courtney looked around, making sure that the adults were engrossed in their own conversation. “I may only see you three times a year, but I can’t get out from under your shadow. When we were little, all my parents talked about was you and how much they wished they had a boy, a boy just like Alex. Then it was how academically smart you are and how you’ll get a full scholarship to whatever school you want. You couldn’t stop there, though. Nope, the one thing I had was soccer, and I was amazing, but the moment you picked up a basketball and made the senior team, I lost that too.” Courtney took a step closer. “How many games do you think my dad made after that? None. Why? ‘Cause he was too busy going to your games to support you.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared at me, her eyes narrowed into slits. “All I hear is how amazing you are and how they wished I could be more like you. If he weren’t my dad, I’d say he fucking likes you.”
“First, how is any of that my fault? Second, that’s fucking disgusting, like I’d want to fuck your dad, and lastly, all it says is your parents are jerks,” I said and realized that it was louder than I intended. I looked over my shoulder, and four sets of eyes stared at us. Shit.
“Huh, looks like you might have just dropped down a peg there, Alex. Thanks,” Courtney whispered and walked away.
The rest of the week was awkward. It was obvious that everyone had heard, and yet in our family, you didn’t ‘air your grievances,’ as my mother would say. My aunt and uncle took turns glaring at me, but Courtney was miraculously much nicer. Fuck, I hated camping.
Thankfully, we’d reached the last day, and because it was storming so hard, it gave me the perfect excuse to remain in my tent while the others took turns hanging out. The storm was getting nasty, and my tent blew around me like a tarp. The rain that drowned out everything continued without any end in sight. We would’ve floated away by now if we’d still been back home.
J: You back tomorrow?
A: Yeah, thank god.
J: You wanna hang out when you get back?
A: Not sure what time I’ll be back, but I’ll text you.
J: Cool. Check ya later.
A: Night.
I turned off the phone and placed it in my bag for safekeeping and realized just how dark it had gotten. I didn’t know what time it was when I was woken up. It was still dark outside, and the thunder rumbled with the driving rain.
I hadn’t heard my tent flap opening or registered the blanket disappearing until hands gripped my sleeping pants and tugged them down. My half-asleep, muddled mind made me think it was Jace until a hand gripped the back of my neck.
All the sleepy fuzz dissipated, and my eyes snapped open, but I couldn’t see who had me.
“Get off me,” I said and tried to push myself up off the ground.
A heavy weight pressed down on my back, and hot breath fanned my ear. I was fit for my age, but as hard as I tried, I couldn’t move. My heart was racing wildly, and I wanted to yell for help, but something was stuffed into my mouth when I opened it to scream.
“You’re a disrespectful little prick.” I froze at the sound of my uncle’s voice. This wasn’t some stranger that had wandered into our campsite. This was someone I knew.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, but he didn’t listen. “Courtney made me angry. I didn’t mean to…”
“Shut the fuck up, and before you go squealing to your parents, they’ll never believe you. They’ll throw you out of the house, disown you for making trouble, and make sure that all your friends and family know exactly what you are…a cock lover.”
I gulped down the panic of what his words meant, and my body trembled with the spike of adrenaline. He held me down harder, my face painfully pressing into the pillow so that I could feel the rough ground beneath the thin tarp bottom. I struggled to breathe and kicked out, thrashing around, trying to break free of his grip. At six-five, he was a big man, but I’d never seen my uncle as a threat until this moment. As he forced my legs apart, all I could see was his glare from earlier in the day.
How had I missed the malice in his eyes?
I whimpered as his naked cock pressed down on my ass. I knew what was coming. My brain had revolted against the idea that this could happen, but it was hard to deny when you felt the reality against your skin.
The reality was that someone I loved and trusted could do this to me. That someone I thought was family would hurt me like this. But as he took what he wanted, and the tears fell, I didn’t know if I could ever trust anyone again.
Thunder crashed and made me jump from my seat. I looked down at my shaking hands and then toward the plane as the lights flashed. There was only one person I learned to trust with my whole being after that day. Well, now two, but only one of them was here.
