Autumn arrived quickly, urged on by Deeks who’d been with her at their home. I’d left Sloane with Kenny in my room. He was sitting on the bed, and whether it complicated matters or not, she was curled in his lap, her face buried in his chest, intermittent weeping in waves while I paced the hall outside in agitation. This was the first time I’d seen Sloane this broken since Tate had brought her into our lives. She hadn’t been happy when Howard had first married Maisey. I doubted anyone would be, but there had never been an emotional break like the one she was currently in the throes of, and I was unprepared and under qualified to help her.

I was out of my depth, and I was grateful to Drew for recognizing that fact. I’d been through some crap in my life, but this… I had no kind of experience to draw from to ever begin to make this right, let alone make Sloane feel better about the traumatic experience. Drew had left to find Sutton, which gave us some time to fix our attention on Sloane and maybe even attempt to get some more answers from her before she completely clammed up.

I stepped into Autumn’s embrace the moment she was away from the main room, and she reciprocated in turn, a maternal sigh falling from her mouth as she held me close and offered that reassurance only someone who had really lived could give you.

“How bad?” she asked, pushing her cheek out for Deeks to kiss as he squeezed my hand.

“I’m pretty sure it’s worse than she’s told us, but not as bad as it could have been.” I stepped away and nodded to Deeks in thanks before he went to help put fires out in other areas. I was pretty sure we’d have to keep an eye on Kenny if he had any idea of who was behind all this shit.

“Jesus.” Autumn nodded and looped her arm through mine, stopping at the door to watch the interaction between Kenny and Sloane. If she thought anything of it, she never said a word, and her face gave away nothing. Then again, when you’d been in the club life as long as she had, I was pretty sure that nothing really surprised you anymore.

“What do you need?” I asked in a whisper.

“We need to get Kenny away for now. As much as she’s clinging to him, she needs to feel safe if she’s going to talk. Sloane isn’t a stupid kid. She knows the consequences if she tells any of these boys what they want to know. You get him out and come back with a shot of the best scotch they have. Not whiskey, or gut rot—scotch.”

When I gave her a strange look, her eyes lit with sad humor.

“Trust me. You’re gonna want to give Kenny some, too. He looks like he needs it.”

I nodded in comprehension and pushed the door fully open, smiling sadly at Kenny as his eyes lifted to meet mine. I could see the resistance to abandon his post behind his brown eyes. This was going to be a battle, but one I would have to win because that was what was best for Sloane.

“Kenny.”

“Ayda,” he challenged, eyes still burning with impotent rage.

“Can I see you outside for a moment?”

“But—”

I shook my head the smallest amount and gave him the look I’d been giving Tate to let him know I wasn’t fucking around.

He shifted Sloane in his arms, but her small, sleepy whimper made him freeze again. He hadn’t been moving to follow me out, but her reaction hadn’t endeared him to my request either. “Can’t it wait?”

“No. It can’t. Do you honestly think I would do anything that would hurt her more than she already has been?”

Kenny raised one of his odd brows and shook his head with a sigh of resignation. The battle had, thankfully, been a short one, and from Autumn’s squeeze on my forearm, I’d said the right thing with my reassurances. Whether or not we liked this new relationship, he cared, and that wasn’t a bad thing.

Kenny waited for Autumn to enter the room and gently slid Sloane to the bed as he relinquished his spot to the older woman. He watched as her hands calmly ran through the strands of Sloane’s tangled hair where it was now spread out on the pillow. After a last lingering look, Kenny balled his fists and followed me out of the room and toward the almost empty bar.

I wasn’t sure why The Hut was so quiet today, but it was almost like the Hounds had sensed the mood and stayed away. The quiet was unsettling, but I, for one, was grateful for the idle atmosphere. There were fewer ears to hear, fewer eyes to watch, and fewer mouths to spread this already impossible news.

Stepping behind the bar, I pulled two of the tumblers out from beneath the counter before dragging one of the bottles of Glenfiddich from the top shelf and filling both glasses with an inch of the amber liquid. I slid one to Kenny before replacing the bottle and watched him knock it back with a nod of satisfaction.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked quietly, spinning the glass on the counter, barely able to contain his explosive mood. I could see the pressure building as his eyes darkened. I’d seen the same thing in Tate and Drew too much not to recognize it.

“She didn’t talk?”

Kenny shook his head and dropped his chin to his chest, infuriated eyes on the alcohol sliding down the walls of the glass. “She wouldn’t say anything, just wrapped herself around me and held on tight. I’ve never seen anyone that broken before, Ayda, and in this life, with some of the shit we do, that fucking scares me.”

I leaned on the bar, my forearms holding me up as I watched his despondency accumulate. Everything had happened so quickly in that room once Slater and the others had rushed in, I hadn’t even thought about how little Kenny knew about the situation. With another moment’s thought, I pushed from the bar and grabbed the bottle again, this time half filling Kenny’s glass and leaving the bottle out.

“All we know right now is that Sloane was attacked and some things went down without her consent.”

The smack of the stool hitting the floor of the bar echoed through the empty room, making the sound harsh and brutal. The thud of Kenny’s fists on the counter top didn’t help my sudden jumpiness either. I admonished myself for the delivery before covering his fists with my hands and letting the weight of them hold him in place.

“We don’t know all of the details. That’s why Autumn’s here. She’s good with people. We don’t know who did this, or how bad it is, and your anger is not going to help the situation. Please, Kenny, be the person who is safe for her to be with. If she thinks for a second you’re going to react, that any of us will go out there and make matters worse, she will lock down and we will lose the person she is.”

“You can’t ask me to just ignore this. I… I care about her.”

“I know.” I squeezed his hands and released them, smiling when his head jerked up in an attempt to read my response. “We’ve all seen it happening. All I’m gonna say about that is remember who her daddy is and be smart.”

“It’s not—”

“It will be. But for now, just be the friend you have been.”

“I can’t promise not to kill the fucker when we have his name, Ayda. I’m a fucking Hound. We take care of what’s ours.”

“We’ll climb that hill when we come to it. For now, we have to make that girl feel loved and safe again. Her whole world has been shaken.”

Kenny nodded, but his knuckles cracked as he flexed his fists in agitation. I hadn’t appeased him, but then I hadn’t expected to. All I needed from him was to keep his head on his shoulders until we knew more. I needed him to support Sloane and Sutton, and the only way I could get that assurance from him was to give him one of my own.

“Please, hold onto your head. I promise you that as soon as we know something, you will know, too. You will be in the loop. You just can’t go off half-cocked without any real information. You know Drew won’t let this go. None of us will.”

Kenny nodded tightly, but his shoulders fell in defeat. “I promise. We keep this in the pack.”

I nodded in agreement and picked up the other glass. I wasn’t sure if I should be leaving him alone, but when I saw Deeks stroll out from the back of the bar, I left Kenny and approached Deeks with another sad smile that hopefully relayed how happy I was to see him.

“You have amazing timing.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not,” Deeks replied with his own sad smile.

“Kenny’s not taking this well.”

“And you want me to babysit?”

“Nothing that insulting,” I replied quietly. “Just keep him company. I don’t want him heading to the school and tearing the damn place apart looking for something he won’t ever find. We have to trust Sloane to give us the details, Deeks.”

He sucked in a deep breath and looked over at Kenny who was pouring himself another drink.

“It’s the top shelf stuff. I’m sure I can force myself to drink with the kid.”

Kissing him on the cheek earned me a huff of indignation before Deeks headed toward the bar and the despondent Kenny, leaving me feeling less guilty about my own exit.

I slipped back into my room and pushed the door closed behind me, already feeling exhausted. Autumn was still on the bed, her back against the headrest, but Sloane was now sat cross-legged facing her. I could tell that her hands were wringing in her lap and her back straightened as she heard me approach.

“It’s just Ayda, darlin’.”

Sloane relaxed and glanced over her shoulder at me. Her eyes were so red and swollen they looked like someone had punched her. It was only the lack of bruising that gave me any reassurance that the swelling was the effects of her tears. I joined the two already on the bed and handed Sloane the glass at Autumn’s nod, watching as Sloane drank the scotch down in one gulp, spluttering as the fire probably scarred and burned its way to her gut.

“What the hell was that?” She hacked, the back of her hand pressing to her mouth, only to wince when she disturbed a tiny cut on her bottom lip.

“Something to take the edge off,” Autumn answered, crossing her ankles. “Sometimes a little liquid courage is needed to get things done.”

Sloane laughed maniacally, her hand moving to her throat and squeezing as though the pain would make everything better. The sound was disturbing but better than the sobbing that had been shaking her since Drew found her on the side of the road going who the fuck knew where. I looked to Autumn, but her eyes were on Sloane, watching the emotions roll around her like she was the eye of a hurricane. Nothing stuck, just more emotions and reactions all piling and spinning with more force until I felt my own anxiety rising to meet hers.

“Sloane,” Autumn said in that serene way of hers. Sloane rocked like someone had slammed on the brakes too hard, her wild eyes meeting the older woman’s. “Breathe, baby.”

“I… I can’t.”

“Yes, sweetheart, you can. Same as always. Breathe in and let it go.”

“I just—”

“No talking yet. Just you find your breath. The rest we can deal with later.”

The breaths started roughly at first, the oxygen inhaled with rattles as it filled her anxiety-narrowed lungs. The release wasn’t much better, but they improved the more she forced herself to concentrate on the vital task. As the seconds ticked by, the wild panic in her eyes started to regress, and sadness and guilt replaced it. My heart burned for this young girl. Everything she’d known and been sure of had just been replaced with a harsh reality and uncertainty of the world that now surrounded her. It didn’t matter that she’d been sexually active for a while with my younger brother. Her innocence had still been taken away. Gone was the reassurance that she was safe in the places most familiar to her. Her world had crumbled down around her, narrowed in one violent interaction.

I wanted to castrate the fucker who had done this to her.

“Better?” Autumn asked, her eyes flicking to me, a silent request for me to keep my shit together and back her up.

Sloane nodded, her hands rubbing her thighs before she flexed her fingers and dragged in yet another breath.

“That’s a girl.”

“Thank you,” Sloane whispered. “I just…”

“Panicked?” Autumn said with a warm smile. “That’s completely normal. There’s no right or wrong way to deal with this kind of thing, Sloane. You have to figure this out your own way. Unfortunately, you do need to explain what happened still. This guy, whoever he was, we need to stop him before he can try again or try on somebody else.”

The edge of lunacy flared to life in her young eyes, making Sloane look older than her years. Autumn managed to knock the panic back once again by gripping both of Sloane’s hands in hers and holding them tightly.

“Breathe, sugar.”

“Ana was supposed to be there. She’s smaller than me. If he’d overpowered her—”

“No what ifs. What happened is done now.”

“But he could try again.”

“That’s why we need you to tell us who he is,” I said gently.

“I can’t, but I know if I don’t…” Her breathing became ragged again, escalating to that thin, rattling sound. She was clearly torn. “I have a meet tomorrow. I have to go to Abilene for the regionals. I can’t, Ayda. I can’t miss them. I need to go.”

“Sloane.” My voice was quiet, but cut through her rambling like a hot knife through butter. Her eyes met mine.

“Ayda, I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this.” Her sobs came again and she fell into Autumn’s open arms, this time allowing herself to be looked after, leaving Autumn and me to look at one another with concern.

There was a reason Sloane was hiding the identity of her attacker. At first, when Drew and I had spoken to her, I thought she’d been disorientated and just didn’t want to face what had happened, like anyone in that situation would have been. Now it felt like she was purposefully withholding the information on who had attacked her like this. If this was just one of the kids in her school, why would she feel the need to protect him? Was he a footballer? Someone on the baseball team? Why would she feel the need to shelter this person?

“If I could take this from you, I would,” I said quietly, leaning into the two of them and rubbing circles into her back. “God knows, I would. You should never have to feel this, honey. This asshole, he did something he had no right to do. You don’t need to protect him. Nothing in the world is worth protecting this asshole for.”

“I can’t, Ayda.” She sat up and wiped her eyes, her hands dropping to her lap and scrubbing at her uniform like she’d just realized how dirty it was. When the mess didn’t move, she glanced back up at me, her eyes hard and set. “I just want to forget this happened and move on with my life. He scared me, that’s all. I just need a minute to get past this. You’ve been amazing. All of you have, but I’m done talking about this. I don’t even want my dad—”

No sooner than she’d said his name, Howard Sutton burst into the room, ignoring the smash of the door as it hit the drywall and left a dent there. Just one look at his face and I knew he wasn’t taking the news well. I hadn’t expected him to. I just hadn’t been prepared for the feral look in his eyes that matched his daughter’s, and the ache of my heart that knew exactly what had put it there.