Jared lives with his mom a few hours away, and this is the first time he’s met our dad.

I know he hates it here. I’m sure it’s not as pretty as his mom’s house. But I feel safe with him here. My dad’s friends haven’t bothered me since he showed up, and even though I know he can’t, I keep hoping that he’ll take me with him when he goes home. I don’t want to be alone again, and I know that he’ll protect me.

I let myself dream it, for a little while, anyway.

“When you come to visit me, you’ll get to play on the grass and climb trees right in your yard,” he tells me, ruffling my hair.

I nudge away, grinning. “Stop it. I’m not a baby.”

We rise to our feet, and he looks at me, shaking his head. “Does Dad have those parties a lot?” he asks me about all the noise last night.

I nod, leading the way back toward the house. “Yeah, but it’s best to stay out of the way.”

“Why?”

I shrug and stare off down the street. “Some of the people don’t like kids.” Or they like them too much.

I’m thirteen now, and even though I barely remember what it was like to live with my foster family, I know how bad things make me feel.

And what I feel now is a lot worse than what I felt when I was five. No one should have to see the dirty things I see going on at my house. I thought it was normal, but I don’t think it is. My friends at school don’t have dirty houses that smell bad.

During the parties, I usually leave and camp out on the wood chips underneath the playground. When I get home in the morning, everyone is passed out or too out of it to be bothered with me.

I see the old gray car coming down the road, and my stomach flips.

I turn to Jared. “Let’s go to the park,” I urge.

“It’s almost dinnertime,” he points out. “Plus, I wanted to see if I could use Dad’s phone to call my mom and Tate.”

My cheeks ache, because I’m trying not to cry, and I want to bury myself in his T-shirt. It’s such a stupid feeling, and I feel dumb, but it would make me feel better.

Jared is bigger, and he always wears black. If I can wrap my arms around him, I can dive into where it’s dark, and I feel as if maybe I can hide.

I see them get out of the car, my father’s friend Gordon and my father’s girlfriend, Sherilynn. I turn toward Jared, giving them my back.

“Jax!” Gordon calls, and I wince.

Jared’s eyes flash over my head, and then he looks down to me. “Who is that?”

I try to calm my breathing, but my stomach is lurching. “That’s Gordon. Dad’s friend.”

“Jax!” he calls again, and pain shoots through my stomach. I reach out, wrap my arms around my brother’s waist, squeezing the wind out of him as I bury my face in his shirt.

Jared’s here. Jared’s here. Jared’s here. He’ll protect me.

But Jared was only fourteen. He couldn’t help me.

It was then that I knew my days as a child were over. There was no one coming to save me, and I was simply a prisoner by choice. I was on my own, and I was done being helpless.

I punched the black bag, jabbing my fist at it again and again, swinging my right and then my left. My fists, wrapped in tape, threw blow after blow. Right, right, left. Right, right, left, rear back, kick, right fist again.

Sweat drenched my chest and back, and my hair stuck to my body as I whipped around and threw four uppercuts on the bag behind me and darted out my leg again, jabbing the bag to my right.

“I want you to be better.”

I growled, throwing punch after punch, blow after blow, until my knuckles burned.

“So, are you hiding?”

I jerked up and spun around to see Tate in the doorway.

My chest rose and fell as fast as my heartbeat. “Hello to you, too,” I mumbled sarcastically before turning to continue my attack on the bags.

We hadn’t seen each other in weeks, and I knew my brother’s girlfriend was going to start in on me about Juliet.

I knew it, because she’d tracked me down. After dropping Juliet off the other night, I’d come straight to Madoc’s house to stay awhile and get my head straight with some distance. After five days of being here, I was still working on that.

“Look, I’m not going to pry,” she continued. “K.C.’s not talking about it, but I saw you drop her off last weekend, and I know something is wrong. Katherine called, too. You haven’t returned her texts, and she was worried. I said I would check on you.”

I punched the bag, zoning in on the small tear in the leather. I hadn’t meant to worry Jared’s mom.

“I know you want to be alone, but Jared’s coming home this afternoon,” she said, “and I want you there.” She circled around to stand on the other side of the bag, holding it for me. “Please come home.”

I hesitated, blinking, and then continued lighter punches. Jared would kill me if I hurt her, after all.

“Her name’s Juliet,” I reminded her.

“I know.”

“I can’t come home, Tate.”

Her long blond hair swayed as I jabbed the bag harder and harder.

“Yes, you can,” she implored, grunting every time I hit the heavy bag. “You can always come home.”

I looked down at her. “She must hate me,” I whispered, more to myself. “I can just picture her nose turned up so high that she’s probably getting nosebleeds.” I punched the bag harder, feeling guilty at Tate’s wince.

But then she laughed. “Actually she hasn’t talked about you.”

I stopped and stood up straight. After what had happened at the fun house and at the Loop, I was sure she’d have to talk to somebody.

But she wasn’t talking about me? Like at all?

“Yeah.” Tate nodded. “She’s fine. Hasn’t said one word about you. She’s getting busy applying for her student loans. She’s thinking about changing her major to education to be a teacher, and she’s getting her job back at the movie theater for the summer.”

“Loans?” I pinched my eyebrows together. “Why would she have to do that?”

Tate folded her lips between her teeth, thinking. “Well, her mother has withdrawn her support. K.C.—” She shook her head. “Juliet, I mean, will probably have to get loans to finish school.”

I scowled, turning away and wiping the sweat off my forehead. What a vindictive bitch. Her mother was almost as bad as my father.

No mothers. No fathers. I couldn’t help the grin that escaped, remembering her words.

“She’s fine, Jax,” Tate said behind me as I grabbed a towel to wipe off. “In fact, I’ve never seen her so centered. Like she knows who she is and what she wants now.”

“That’s great, Tate,” I bit out, throwing the towel down. “Glad to hear it. I’ve got a workout to finish.”

Awesome. I was coming apart without her, and she was ready to take on the world without me.

I felt Tate move behind me, and I didn’t look at her as she made her way to the door.

But she stopped before she left the room. “She got a tattoo as well.” Tate’s eyes were on me, her voice light and inquiring. “Angel wings on the back of her neck. Both of them broken,” she said. “Underneath, it reads ‘Only Ever You.’ ”

I closed my eyes.

I wasn’t sure when Tate left the room. All I remember is lowering myself into the chair and burying my head in my hands, feeling as if I were falling and would never hit the ground.

“I don’t like having to chase you down,” Ciaran said.

I let out an aggravated sigh, ignoring my employer’s scowl across the computer screen. Pulling out a half dozen flash drives, I dumped them on my desk in my room at Madoc’s house. When Jared’s mom—my mom now, too—had married Madoc’s dad, she made sure I had a room of my own here, even though this was technically Madoc and Fallon’s house now, and my own home was only a twenty-minute drive away.

Thankfully she hadn’t insisted on decorating it. Still, it was convenient when Madoc had parties. I had a place of my own off-limits to guests.

“Relax, old man,” I griped. “I haven’t taken a day off since you hired me.”

“And I pay you to be available.”

I stopped and shot him a dark look. “Are you whining?” I accused. “Jesus, what’s her name?”

“Shut it,” he shot back with his heavy Irish accent.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Here.” And I punched a few buttons, starting to send files as they loaded from my flash drives. “As soon as you get this shit, leave me alone for a few days, okay?”

“Why?” He sipped coffee, starting to look more relaxed now that he was getting what he wanted.

“Nothing major.” I didn’t want my employer to see that I was distracted and lose faith in me. The less information, the better. “I just need to focus on a side project.”

“What’s her name?”

I heard the laughter in his voice as he repeated my words, and I glowered at the screen.

“Her name,” I started, “is none of your fucking business, and she hates me, okay?”

“I doubt it.”