“Drive!” Brett barked when Wyatt made a move toward the open window.
Vaughn slammed on the gas so hard, Tabitha screamed because they nearly ran Wyatt over. If he didn’t have such quick reflexes, he would’ve gotten hurt for sure. As it was, he jumped away and shouted, “Yeah, you better drive!”
“Oh my God,” Tabitha whispered as she stood there hyperventilating and choking on the dust from skidding tires. “This is bad.”
Wyatt turned on her with a wild, crazed look on his face. “Has that asshole been harassing you? Has he hurt you?”
She shook her frantically. “No.”
Wyatt narrowed his eyes. “Tab—”
“He hasn’t, I swear,” she said quickly before she went to her bike. Her hands were shaking as she picked up her backpack and put it on. “I have to go home. He’s gonna tell my mama and—”
“You are not going home.”
“What?” Tabitha turned back to him when she heard the hard determination in his voice. “I have to. I have to stop Brett from saying something.”
“Heck, no.” Wyatt’s shoulders were still tight in fury, his light eyes blazing. “You are coming home with me. We’re gonna sit down and talk with my dad, and you’re gonna tell him everything that goes on in that house.”
“Are you insane?” A crazed sort of laughter burst out of her. “The state would pick me up for sure.”
“That’s the thing, Tab. The state isn’t the enemy,” Wyatt said slowly. “They’re there to protect you. I know you’re not safe there, and I’m not gonna—”
“No,” Tabitha said, this time more firmly. “I am not bouncing around foster homes like Clay. My mama’s doing good and—”
“She ain’t doing that good. I saw her walking into Carl’s bar the other day.”
“That’s only on weekends!” Tabitha’s voice was shrill with fear. “She has a job now and—”
“Tabitha,” Wyatt started again, this time more slowly as he took a deep breath. “If you got guys there you have to lock your door to keep out, that’s not good. What’s to stop them from—”
“I’m not going home with you,” Tabitha said just as forcefully. “And if you tell your daddy, I will never speak to you again.”
Wyatt folded his arms over his chest as he considered her sharply. Then he shrugged. “That may be a sacrifice I’m willing to make. ’Cause I surely ain’t gonna sit back and let something terrible happen to you. I’d rather you hate me.”
“Then fine.” Tabitha got on her bike before she could change her mind. “I can’t stop you, but I will deny all of it. I ain’t letting the state ruin my mama.”
Wyatt called out to her when she started riding away. “At least let me hang out until he leaves. Please. I won’t cause trouble.”
“No. I can take care of myself.” She blinked past the tears as she pedaled harder. She had to shout to make sure he heard her. “Just stay away from me!”
She turned back, making sure Wyatt wasn’t following her, and saw him standing where she’d left him with his arms folded over his chest. In that moment, he looked like his daddy, tall and imposing, expecting the world to bow to his will with just a look of disappointment.
Dear God, what had she been thinking?
Chapter Thirteen
Wyatt watched Tabitha ride off, and everything in him demanded he go after her. Yet he stood rooted to the spot instead. He knew if he did chase her down, he’d have to drag her kicking and screaming to his father, and that would make the effort pointless. She wouldn’t talk about what went on in that beaten-down house next to the trailer park, and he couldn’t make her.
Not for the first time, he thought of saying something to his father without Tabitha’s permission, to voice his suspicions that her brother hurt her, because sometimes she had bruises Wyatt was almost certain were caused by abuse. He didn’t spend all his spare time fighting Clay for nothing. He knew what marks caused by fists looked like.
But then what?
If his father couldn’t find anything to take her out of the house and she wasn’t willing to say anything, that would just make things worse for her. He’d heard his father bitch enough times about situations like that to know how tied a cop’s hands could be if a victim wasn’t willing to cooperate.
You couldn’t save people who didn’t want to be saved. His father said it all the time, and for the first time Wyatt truly understood his frustration.
He stood there for a long time after Tabitha disappeared. The fear for her was so all-encompassing, he was choking on it, and the horror of being powerless was nearly killing him.
But he didn’t do anything.
Finally he got on his bike and rode back home, deciding to talk with Clay instead of his father. Clay knew more about Tabitha’s situation than he let on. Wyatt had known it for years, but when he asked, Clay would just give him a hard look and keep silent. Not this time. He was going to make his best friend talk if he had to beat him to get it out.
Tabitha had to stop and look at Vaughn’s car in the driveway. The fear made her vision spotted, but she knew she had to go into the house even if a part of her wanted to run back and take Wyatt up on his offer rather than deal with what she was about to face.
Her mother wasn’t home yet. That was both a blessing and a curse.
In the end, the decision was made for her when Brett jerked open the front door and demanded, “Get in this house right now, brat.”
Tabitha actually turned and looked down the road, thinking of Wyatt again. Everything in her wanted to flee.
As if reading her thoughts, Brett yelled, “Now!”
With her heart still beating hard, Tabitha hiked her backpack higher up on her shoulders and walked toward the steps of the house. Her body was tense with adrenaline, the way she imagined warriors were before battle.
A part of her tried to remember everything about this feeling, like marching to her own execution, so that in case she survived, she could write about it later. The front step creaked under her sneakers. She had the thought of it breaking and a black hole opening up beneath it.
Down the rabbit hole, just like in Alice in Wonderland.
Maybe there was another Garnet down there where superheroes were real. An alternate reality. What if there were some sort of experiment that went horribly wrong, and the water supply was poisoned, but only on the nice side of town where the good guys lived? When bad things happened to people like that, they always seemed to come out on top.
Like Wyatt.
And Clay.
And Jules Conner.
What if that poisoned water made them more than human? What sorts of superpowers would they have? Would they fly? No, Tabitha couldn’t see any of them flying, but Clay would have to be superstrong, because he worked so hard at it. Tabitha would have to make sure Clay had the gift of invisibility too, because there were so many times when she knew he wanted people to stop seeing him.
Jules was so smart and so quick when she was in her karate classes. What if it made her really fast? What if her brain worked better than others? That’d be interesting, but that superpower would drive Wyatt crazy. His sister was already a know-it-all.
Tabitha would have to give Wyatt the best superpower of all to make it up to him. Tabitha knew it instinctively; she wanted him to be the quickest and the strongest, because he was her hero, even if she deflected him at every turn.
What if that water didn’t just make him strong like Clay and fast like Jules, but somehow made him invincible? Nothing could hurt him. He would be safe forever.