Anita
Sixteen years old
People always hid the good shit in their bedrooms.
It was like they believed that some invisible force field kept others from finding the huge dildo or the small stash of weed in their top dresser drawer. Wrong. The only things that kept me from snooping were padlocks and Dobermans—and even those could be bypassed.
I never looked for the expensive things. Most of the foster homes I’d lived in didn’t have expensive things, and even if they did, I had no use for them. What was I going to do, try and pawn stolen jewelry? I wasn’t that stupid.
I also wasn’t planning on living on the streets. I’d tried that once.
A fourteen-year-old girl who was a little over five feet tall and less than a hundred pounds didn’t have a chance living out there without getting the shit kicked out of her by other homeless people who were bigger, stronger, and had been doing it a lot longer than she had. I didn’t even want to remember the others, the ones who’d been a little too nice to me.
No, I’d stay in foster care. For the most part, the families I’d lived with weren’t so bad. Sure, a lot of them were in it for the money the state gave them for my upkeep, and there might have been the occasional drinking problem or porn addiction, but in the seven houses I’d lived in, there was only one that I’d left on purpose. I’d felt no guilt over calling the police when I found the overly handsy foster dad’s stash of heroin. Boom—new foster home for me.
One guess where I’d found that little nugget of escape. Yep, the bedroom.
I smirked to myself as I pulled open the drawer in the nightstand that sat to the right of my newest foster parents’ king-sized bed. A pair of glasses, a string of condoms, a broken necklace, a few buttons, a romance novel, and lube greeted my eyes. I shuddered but slammed the drawer closed. Gross, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I’d already searched through the dresser and the matching nightstand and hadn’t found anything. Where did they hide the juicy stuff? I needed leverage, dammit.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” a deep voice said from behind me as I took a step toward the closet.
Shit.
“Looking for the bathroom?” I replied in an overly innocent tone.
I spun slowly to meet the eyes of the guy standing in the bedroom doorway. Jesus, it was Bram. It was just my luck that the jackass adopted twin son of my foster parents had to be the one who’d caught me. The other twin, Alex, would have laughed, put me in a headlock that I was far too old for, and dragged me out of the room.
This brother, on the other hand, was going to be a problem. The two were so different it was amazing that they were brothers, not to mention identical twins. Not that anyone would ever mistake one for the other. Where Alex was fun and happy and smiling, Bram was a total asshole. And I meant that in the nicest possible way.
He was angry and scowling all the time. It was as if the entire world had let him down, and he no longer had the time to pretend to enjoy anything. Yeah, join the club, dude.
I stared at his face for a few seconds, wondering if I’d be able to talk myself out of the mess I’d gotten into, when Bram took one fast step forward and grabbed ahold of my wrist, jerking me back out of the bedroom.
Nope. I wasn’t getting out of it.
“What did you take?” he hissed, glaring at me as he shoved me back a couple steps down the hallway.
“Nothing,” I said back, rubbing my wrist.
I considered myself pretty street savvy, and I didn’t think Bram was going to hurt me or anything, but the guy was really freaking intimidating. He was almost a foot taller than I was, with broad shoulders and a five-o’clock shadow that highlighted the fact that he was grown. At nineteen, neither of the boys lived in the house with us, but they shared an apartment in the detached garage, which meant I saw them pretty often.
Too often.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, turning away from him to move toward the living room. Nervousness would look like guilt, and since I wasn’t fucking guilty of anything but taking a quick look around, I wasn’t going to let him know he intimidated me. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work or something?”
I knew he was supposed to be at work. I knew everyone’s schedule; that’s why I’d thought it was safe to get the lay of the land. I’d only been in the Evans house for a little over two weeks, but everything seemed a bit too good to be true. So when my foster mom Liz took her daughter Katie into town for some Christmas shopping and the guys were at the logging office for the day, I’d thought I was in the clear.
I’d barely gotten to the living room entrance before hands were gripping me once again, halting my movement.
“What the hell did you take?” Bram asked again as I tried to pull away.
He gave me a little shake and jerked me around to face him, and all of my earlier bravado vanished in an instant.
“I didn’t take anything,” I whispered hoarsely, lifting my chin as I slapped at his hands.
“You think you’re the first kid to pull this shit?” he asked harshly through clenched teeth. “My parents took you in, buy you shit, feed you—and you steal from them?”
“I didn’t fucking take anything!” I repeated, swallowing hard.
I froze completely as one of Bram’s hands dropped from my shoulder and slid down the front of my stomach, sliding around the edge of my hip and across my back. I didn’t move away when he dropped to his knees and lifted up each pant leg to check the inside of my ratty dollar store socks, and I barely breathed as he wiggled his fingers into the front pockets of my jeans and then the back pockets.
When his hands moved back up, my eyesight began to grow hazy from lack of oxygen, and just as his palm slid down between my breasts, I took in a large gasp of air that turned into a loud sob.
“Anita?” Bram asked in confusion, dropping his hands as he took a frantic step backward, his hands in the air.
“I told you I didn’t take anything,” I murmured, staring at him through tear-blurred eyes. “I told you.”
“I’m sorry. I—you were in my parents’ room,” he stuttered, his expression softer than I’d ever seen it before.
I wiped my face with the long sleeves of my T-shirt and moved backward, watching him closely for any indication that he would try and stop me. Then, when I’d finally gotten my breathing under control, I spoke. “If you ever touch me again, I’ll kill you.”
I turned and ran toward my room, never slowing even though I couldn’t hear him following me.
Later, we pretended that nothing happened. He didn’t rat me out, and I didn’t tell his parents that he’d felt me up. Our silence wasn’t a truce though; it was battle lines clearly drawn.