Veils of Rivalry Chapter 74

Cole's POV

Burning pain seers up my ribs, warm blood seeping from my fingers as the car speeds out of the parking lot and onto the road. The trunk is large in the cop car, and I bounce around as he takes a sharp left, hitting my head on something hard.

I hiss through the pain. I don’t know if the bullet went right through, or if it went haywire inside me. All I know is that I feel dizzy and I’m lying in a pool of my own blood.

I can hear my dad talking, yelling, telling whoever is on the other end of the line to set something up. He shouts my name, but all I can do is tense everywhere and try to stay conscious. I can’t pass out. I can’t fucking close my eyes and let myself go. I need to fight through this somehow.

Rolling onto my left, I spit a curse through my teeth as I move onto the wound.

Sweat clings to my skin, or it’s blood. I don’t know. It’s sticky and warm, and my eyes sting as I force myself to stay awake. Feeling around the roof of the trunk, I hunt for a lever or a button, but my arm keeps getting tired, and my hand drops.

My breathing grows heavy, my eyes heavier, and when he goes over a bump, I try to snap out of the daze. I haven’t adjusted to the darkness. I can’t see shit, but I can hear him speeding up.

“Fuck,” I mutter. Each breath feels like I’m inhaling fire into my lungs. I think every time I move, the skin splits even more, and shit, it hurts.

Blinking through my dizziness, I use my free hand to feel around again as the car slows, turning right. Dad is yelling again, telling someone to be ready because I’m injured.

Who? Who is helping him?

Where are we going?

I wince as I roll onto my side again, holding my breath and counting until the extreme pain settles, but it only gets worse when I roll again, each time he turns the car.

The smoothness of the wheels on the ground changes. Bumpy. Gravel. We’re on a gravel road, or a dirt road?

He’s not yelling anymore.

The car slows to a sudden stop, and I hear the car door being thrown open and slammed. “Do you have what you need?” I hear my dad ask someone. They must nod or whisper a reply. “He’s in the trunk.”

Their footsteps grow close. Someone is standing right there, and I think I might be sick. My eyes are so damn heavy, but I need to fight. I need to get the fuck away from him.

As soon as that trunk opens, I’ll fucking dive on them, throw my fists and make sure I don’t let him win this time. He can’t use any weakness on me, because Blaise isn’t here, and my mom is⁠—

The trunk flies open to my mother’s worried, traitorous eyes.

Every atom of my being wants to ask her what the fuck she’s doing, and with my mind trying to fucking work against the darkness, my eyelids fall shut, their voices becoming an echo as I’m jostled and yanked from the car. My hand slips from the gunshot wound as I’m lifted in death’s arms, and although my heart is aching at her betrayal and desperate for answers, my fight leaves me.

***

“Woah, dude. What the fuck happened to your eye?”

I shoulder past my friend and head for my locker. He tries to catch up, getting in front of me again and pressing his hand to my chest.

“Don’t do that. Talk to me, Cole.”

Talking doesn’t help. It only makes things worse, because no one truly helps a deputy’s son from abuse. Not a soul in this town is going to report him, not even my school—four teachers know about my home life. And they only know because I opened my mouth to one teacher and they decided to run theirs.

But do any of them help me? No.

My dad getting his promotion was the worst day of my life, because since then, he’s been on a power trip. Only, he mainly takes it out on my mom. She accepts every shitty word. Every smack. Every time he comes home smelling like another woman. I walked in after school one day to some teenage girl who looked only a few years older than me with his shirt on, no pants, cooking breakfast while my mom was tending to my dying grandma.

She smiled at me, and my dad didn’t like that.

I had to listen to them for days before it stopped.

Then he came into my room and started talking to me about sex. How to be safe, ways to make sure I don’t get caught if I’m already with someone. He even went as far as telling me he’d make it easier for me by seeing if one of his girls would take my virginity.

I was thirteen.

Safe to say, I declined and told my mom. I think that was the first day he physically hurt her in a place the world could see, so she wasn’t allowed to leave the house and I was to keep my mouth shut.

It became a normality. My friends definitely know. I don’t even need to say anything. They take one look at my hand-me-down clothes that don’t fit me, the skin and bone of my frame, and the shaggy hair in desperate need of a cut, and they know my home-life is fucked up.

“You wanna hang out at my place after school? Some of the guys are coming over too. My parents are out of town until Monday and my babysitter is hot.”

I shake my head. “I need to go home.”

Or I’ll be the next missing kid on milk cartons and plastered all over the news.

I dodge any more questions and head to class. I’m just on time before the teacher walks in. I sit next to Georgina, my usual lab partner, and glance at everything she has set out. Fuck. We have a test today? I haven’t missed a single class in months. When were we told?

“It was posted on the school’s online board two days ago,” she tells me, seeing the worry all over my face. “Here. I printed extras for you.”

I’m not allowed on the internet. Social media, YouTube, gaming. All of it is cut off for me. Always has been. My parents are strict and think it will melt my brain or cause an addiction, and if I end up screwed in the head, I’ll never be able to be a provider for my future family.

Because I have no choice but to carry on the family name, so my full focus needs to be on my grades, and making sure I’m settled before I’m twenty-one.

My parents set the goal, not me.

Anyway, I’m sure the main reason we don’t have the internet in the house is because we’re borderline broke. Sure, Dad is a cop, but he doesn’t put food on the table or give my mom cash when she asks so she can buy groceries.

Honestly, I have no idea what he does with his money. Gambles, maybe. Or he pays for girls to sleep with him, which is something I’ve heard my mom scream at him for once.

I never want to be like my dad.

Georgina gives me a soft smile when the teacher tells us to begin. She’s cute, has blue eyes that you can’t help but stare at, and she’s nice to me. Maybe Dad will tell me to marry her one day.

An hour later, I hand in my test results and leave the classroom, my stomach growling when I walk by the canteen filled with students eating their lunch. I go to the bathroom, huddle in the stall, and lock it while I pull out the half-eaten sandwich from yesterday. I pull a hair from it, check the rest, then finish it in two bites.

By the time school ends, I’ve successfully swerved any questions about the swollen, bruised eye. Georgina did ask me if I was okay before the bell rang through the halls, so I was able to hide in the swarm of students and vanish out of the building.

Dad’s car is parked outside the house, and I can hear yelling. I take a deep breath, grip the frayed straps of my school bag, and stop at the front door.

“She was sixteen, Malcolm! Sixteen! You do know you’re going to jail, right? There isn’t a chance you can get away with this, you lying, cheating, piece of shit!”

“It’s her word against mine. Who are they going to believe? Some bratty teenager, or a full grown man with a badge?”

I hear a slap, and then there’s silence.