Chapter
Everett
Brynn was supposed to meet me in the town square, but she was late. I looked down at my phone again. Almost ten whole minutes late, actually. That wasn't like her.
I grinned. She was definitely going to get a spanking for this.
I briskly walked the perimeter of the town square one more time, keeping an eye out for her shimmering blond hair. She usually sat on the park bench right there in the northwest corner across from the daycare. But today that spot was occupied by an older couple wearing matching souvenir sweatshirts in the nearly ninety-degree heat.
As I circled the park once more, the wail of sirens suddenly filled my ears. There was shouting, and I looked over to see Brynn's golden head, shining like a beacon amidst a crowd of people across the street.
Instantly I broke out into a print.
When I reached the other side of the street, I saw that she was standing next to a police officer I didn't recognize, a little girl in her arms. Brynn lifted her head and spotted me in the crowd, and the lift of her lips into a small, reassuring smile made me slow and exhale sharply.
Just then a car screeched up to the curb, and a woman came flying out of the driver's seat, not even bothering to close the door. Confused, I stepped aside as the waitress from the country club, the one who had been a bitch to Brynn way back in the beginning of the summer, blew past me. She rushed right up to Brynn, who readily handed over the little girl in her arms.
The woman dropped to her knees, clutching the little girl tightly, when two other cops walked past, holding a tall guy in handcuffs. I pressed my lips together, seeing the resemblance between him and the little girl on the ground. Her father, it was clear.
What the hell had this asshole done? And what was Brynn doing involved in it?
But there was no time for questions, because all at once he wrenched himself from the cops' arms and lunged for the waitress as she knelt on the ground. She shriveled into a protective crouch around the little girl, shielding her with her body as the man shouted abuse at her.
"Cut that shit out!" one of the cops called, yanking him back, but the man was a wild thing, spitting and cursing in red-faced rage. "I'll kill you, you bitch, you know that?" he sputtered, spit flying from his mouth. "I know where you live now! I fucking found you, bitch. You know what I'll do to you, right?"
I was just about to punch him in the face myself when one of the cops swept his legs out from under him, and threw him to the ground. "Grace!" the man shrieked. "Grace, come help daddy!"
"You leave her alone!" the waitress cried holding her daughter more tightly. The little girl turned away, burying her face in her mother's neck and the two of them knelt on the ground as the cops fought with her father.
Brynn looked up at me helplessly. I rushed over, already swiping through my phone.
"Hi Grace," I whispered as I knelt down beside her. "Miss Reese is your teacher, right?" I said, putting the pieces together. "I'm her friend, Rett. Hey, do you like horses?"
The little girl looked up at me with her tear-stained face, but nodded, wide-eyed. "Here, I have some pictures of them on my phone, do you want to see Shimmer? He's an Arabian," I ad-libbed. "They're a special kind of horse, isn't he beautiful?"
I moved the phone at an angle away, and her mother caught my gaze over her head and nodded to me. We both twisted our bodies to shield her from the sight of her father finally being led away in handcuffs, still calling for his daughter to come with him.
Grace was swiping though the image search, pulling my phone towards her with each photo. "Sure, sweetheart," I said, handing over my phone. "Just swipe right, just like that." Grace sat back, crossing her legs underneath her like a good little kindergartner, like Brynn had probably taught her, and quietly swiped through the pictures.
"Adelina, are you okay?" Brynn asked gently, kneeling down in the dirt next to Grace's mother.
Adelina took a deep shuddering breath. "Thank you," she exhaled, and there was none of that hard edge to her voice anymore. Hardness I now recognized as fear. "He broke the restraining order," she said her voice shaking with relief. "There were witnesses, cops heard him threaten me. He finally did it out in the open," she breathed, shuddering. "He's finally, finally going to jail."
Brynn reached out and rested her hand on Adelina's shoulder. "I'm glad," she said simply, and my heart slid sideways in my chest because I knew what it must have cost Brynn to stand up to that man. How scared she must have been.
I reached over and gently brushed her hair away from her face. "Come with me?" I asked carefully.
She nodded, swallowed, and accepted my help as I lifted us both to our feet. Gently, I led her away from Adelina who was now hovering over her daughter, arms wrapped around her little body as Grace swiped through pictures of horses on my phone.
Brynn took a few steps with her head held high, a reflective look in her eyes. "I wonder," she said softly. "If my mother showed up like that." She swallowed. "Would I be strong enough not to go with her?" She shook her head. "I don't think I would be."
"Yes," I told her. "You would be. No one can make you do anything you don't want to do, Brynn."
All at once, she started shivering. Her hands started shaking. She looked down almost in shock, and suddenly her whole body was trembling. I pulled her close and she hid her face against my chest as her tears soaked my shirt. And I wasn't sure if she was crying for Grace. Or for herself. Maybe for both of them.