Chapter Fourteen - Anthony

I’m really worried about Brooke. I know whatever it is she’s not telling me is huge and dangerous. I don’t care about the money. I’d give Brooke millions if she asked, but there is no way whatever she is doing is safe. I can’t stand the thought of her going to meet some fucking creep with a check made to cash and no protection. I get in my car as soon as I hear hers pull off. I’m going to follow her. I can’t let her do something like this on her own. I don’t know what it is, but I know she shouldn’t be alone.

Brooke has always tried to solve problems on her own, determined not to burden other people. She’s an incredibly resourceful and clever woman, and often she can handle things on her own better than most people. But more than once I’ve seen it blow up in her face, overwhelming her and making things much worse. In high school, she’d been treasurer of student council when all the money collected at the annual bake sale had gone missing. Brooke blamed herself and tried to get all the money back herself before anyone had noticed. She’d put in her own money by selling things at the seedy pawn shop just outside of town. She’d pawned her own class ring and was still short over one hundred dollars. By then, people had started to suspect she was the one who had stolen the money. A rumor went around the high school that she was on drugs.

Eventually, I’d helped her form a committee to investigate the missing money, and we had the AV club search the school camera footage. It ended in an assistant football coach being fired, the money being returned, and me buying Brooke’s class ring back from the pawn shop for her.

I don’t know what’s happening now, but I suspect it’s a lot worse than a few hundred dollars missing from a high school. I drive after her, following close, worried. She parks her car at a rundown old house that looks abandoned. There’s a rusty motorcycle parked across the street that I assume belongs to whoever threatened her this morning. I get out of my car and stand on the front lawn, listening for trouble.

I hear Brooke scream a minute later, and I don’t hesitate. I rush into the house, yelling her name. I find her in what once must have been a living room, on the carpet, with a man I don’t know on top of her. He’s laughing and grabbing her thighs, and she looks terrified, pushing on his chest.

“You stupid bitch,” the man says. I grab him by the back of his shirt and pull him off of her, hard.

“Anthony!” she says, eyes going wide as I throw her attacker to the ground, away from her.

“What the fuck?” the guy starts. I don’t let him finish. I punch him, hard. Over and over, knocking him out. I feel like I can’t hit him hard enough for what he was trying to do to Brooke. When he’s passed out, I go over to Brooke and pull her into my arms. She’s shaking and crying. She buries her head in my neck. I pull out my phone, holding her as she cries, and I call the police. Brooke pulls back when I hang up, looking at me with terrified eyes.

“Are the police coming here?” she asks. Her voice sounds raw.

“They are,” I say. She looks miserable and terrified and almost broken. “What happened?”

“Shit,” she whispers, not answering my question. She looks at the unconscious man the floor and starts to cry again.

“Who is he?” I ask. She stands up.

“I can’t,” she says, and for the third time that day, she walks away from me without giving me answers. “I’m going to find the bathroom. I can’t be a mess like this when the police get here.”

I doubt there is even running water in here, but I let her go, thinking she might need it after having been through so much today. After being through something traumatic, it makes sense she would need a minute to catch her breath in peace, so I don’t follow her now that the danger has passed.

Her phone rings and Autumn’s name pops up. I grab for it, thinking that maybe what Brooke needs right now is her sister, especially since they’re so close.

“Autumn?” I say, answering the phone. There’s a pause on the other end, and then she answers. I haven’t seen Autumn since she was just a kid, barely thirteen.

“Who is this?” Autumn asks. “Why are you answering Brooke’s phone?”

“It’s Anthony,” I say, and I hear Autumn make a small sound on the other end of the phone. I can’t tell if it’s a surprised one or not. “Brooke is here with me. I don’t know if you know what’s been going on with her. I don’t really know, but she was delivering money to this guy I heard threatening her, and I found him on top of her, attacking her. He’s knocked out. I got him off of her, but she’s really shaken up.”

“Oh, god,” Autumn says, sounding a little sick.

“She’s safe now,” I say, trying to sound reassuring, even if I’m a little shaken myself by everything that’s happened today.

“Skinny guy? Ugly tattoo on his arm and drives an even uglier motorcycle?” Autumn asks. I look over at the man on the floor and nod, seeing the tattoo she must be referring to on his forearm.

“That’s the one,” I say. “The police are on their way. “

“Where are you two? I’m coming,” Autumn says.

I give her the address and assure her several more times that Brooke is safe and okay. Autumn is in the car when she hangs up. Brooke comes back a few minutes later, eyes red from crying.

“Your sister is on her way,” I say as Brooke sits down. She freezes, her skin gets pale and her eyes get wider.

“What?” she asks. “No. How?”

“Your phone rang. I saw it was her, and I thought you could use her support right now, so I told her what happened,” I say, confused by her reaction. Brooke pales, looking even sicker than before.

“No. She can’t,” Brooke says, and she grabs her phone and calls Autumn back, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I say. Despite the police being on their way and the man being passed out on the floor, she doesn’t look like she feels any better. In fact, she looks worse.

“I can’t. I can’t tell you, and Autumn can’t come here, and you shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have come. Shit,” Brooke says. I grab her hands.

“I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if I hadn’t been here,” I say firmly.

Brooke winces and shakes her head again. “I can’t tell you. I have to protect Autumn,” she says.

“I wrote you a check for fifty thousand dollars, and I knocked a guy out, so I think I deserve at least a few answers. You don’t have to tell me everything, but you can’t tell me nothing, either,” I say. Brooke pulls her hands out of mine again. She reaches for her phone.

“I have to protect Autumn,” she repeats. She calls Autumn but still doesn’t get an answer.

“Brooke,” I say. She looks up at me, and then down at her phone, and then at the man I knocked out, and then back at me again, and starts to cry. She collapses into me as she does, and I pull her close.

I hold her until the police arrive.