Better When He's Brave

“I was in class and I got a call saying the school was evacuated and they needed me to come get Karsen. Where is she and why are you here?”

“The students are all with the teachers over there but I haven’t seen Karsen with them.” I wasn’t ready to tell her that her little sister was currently a pawn in a very dangerous game and that I had no idea how to help her.

Booker lifted an eyebrow at me. His look downright menacing with that scar distorting his face. “Why don’t you tell me why you aren’t in there looking for the girl because we both know she isn’t over there with those teachers.”

I let out a long breath and lifted my hand to rub the back of my neck. I looked down at the tip of my boots in shame and defeat. “Roark just called me. He said if I go in the school after Karsen, he’ll kill her. He told me to keep all of law enforcement out of the building or there will be fatalities. I’m just trying to buy time until the bomb squad gets here so we can get eyes inside and I can see what we’re dealing with.”

Brysen lifted shaking hands to her mouth and I saw her eyes pop to an unnaturally large size. “You think he’s in there with her?”

I didn’t want to think anything, but if this was another one of Roark’s salvos then anything was possible. I was going to open my mouth to give the pretty young woman my typical platitudes when Booker stepped around me and took a striding step toward the front of the school. I reached out a hand to grab him and got pulled off balance as he jerked to a stop. The guy was built like a mountain and it wasn’t often someone could match me in the physicality department.

“Where do you think you’re going? I told you no one goes in until the building is clear. We can’t risk it.”

He shook me off and his eyes went flat and hard. I knew the look well. It was the same look Bax got when he was getting ready to tell me to go fuck myself because he was going to do something I didn’t like.

“I’m not a cop and all Roark said was keep the cops out. Race pays me to take care of those girls, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

There was no point in arguing any further because aside from tasing him or putting a bullet in him, the guy was going to do whatever he wanted anyway. And honestly, I wished I was the one that was just saying to hell with it all and storming inside the building to look for the missing teenager. Booker flipped off a couple more cops that tried to stop him and even pushed one over that was stupid enough to get directly in his path. I sighed because now he was looking at charges for assaulting an officer even if he skated around whatever charges I could find to throw at him for ignoring a direct police order.

“What if she’s hurt or something worse? How can I live with that? It’s my job to keep her safe.” Brysen’s voice was weak but she was holding herself together surprisingly well. She wasn’t crying, at least not yet, and she was wrong. The safety of Karsen and the rest of the kids that hadn’t been tainted by the city yet was my job.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. So heavy and hard it almost took me to my knees. Roark had been going after the thing that mattered most to me from the very beginning. I cared about the people that still had a shot at making it out of the Point. I fought for the innocent and the young because I often felt like no one else was going to. Every person that Roark had hurt, had twisted, had infected in his quest to exact his revenge had been someone I’d sworn I would protect and keep safe.

It started with the kid whose neck he snapped and ditched outside of the Pit. Just some dumb jock barely in his twenties that liked to gamble, but he was just a kid and deserved a better end. Then it was the club. Before it burned to the ground, Nassir had been deliberately lured away and all the victims were just kids out looking for some trouble and fun. They lost their lives doing what kids all across the country did every single day. After that it was the girl on the dock and the armed stripper at Spanky’s. Two girls too young to be caught up in that kind of life and too young to be dead. Two girls I should’ve been able to keep safe. And lastly there was my brother. Sure, Bax was far from innocent, far from having a shot at a good and law-abiding life, but he was still my only family, my blood, and even if I had let him down in the past, I took my duty to keep him safe and keep him out of trouble to heart now. Killing Bax would have served the dual purpose of exacting revenge on the man who Roark thought was responsible for his father’s death and rubbing salt into the wound I would suffer for being unable to protect him.

The realization of how insidious and malicious as well as how fucking brilliant in his evil machinations Roark was had me shaking so hard I almost missed Brysen’s words as she whispered “Someone needs to stop him; he can’t be allowed to go after anyone anymore.”

I blew out a breath and tried to steady myself. “I’m trying.”

She narrowed her very blue eyes. “Try harder.”

No wonder Race was sprung on her. She looked like a doll but had the bite of a barracuda. She was his perfect match in that way—all golden and glossy on the outside but made of stronger, more resilient stuff on the inside. If Roark did have Karsen, I sure hoped the younger Carter was as tough as Brysen.

Just as the big, black utility vehicles with SWAT team members and the bomb technicians rolled up to the scene, the metal front doors at the front of the school clanked open and Booker came striding through with his arm wrapped around an obviously shaken and upset Karsen. The teen looked so tiny and fragile next to the giant man that it had murderous rage toward Roark thumping heavy not just through my heart but the heart of the beast that was wide awake in my chest and hungry for retribution.