The Hart Game

Chapter Thirty-Nine

LUKE

I was exhausted. Emotionally, physically and mentally. The energy I had earlier had depleted as I stepped through the front door of the last place I wanted to be. I guess anger can do that to a person. I didn't want to be here, but I had promised Cameron that I would at least come home.

"Luke." I froze. I was only two steps up the stairs before I heard his voice. It sounded broken and defeated. Something I never heard from Robert Garrick. Not even when we lost Kyle, he hadn't sounded like that. Maybe he thought he'd just lost another son. I wasn't even sure of that. I wasn't even sure if I could forgive them and I wouldn't know where to start.

I stood there for a moment, waiting. I was pretty sure he was waiting for me to turn to him. To look at him. But I couldn't. I didn't know how I would react when I saw his face. If the anger I felt earlier that day would come back and I would say something that I couldn't take back. I was still trying to comprehend what Cassie had shared with me not even an hour earlier.

Cassie.

I wanted to stay. I really did. But I could feel my anger bubbling up and almost taking over me. The anger I had before I went to her house had doubled from the anger when I left my house and then going to Eleanor's and learning the truth about my brother's double life. And that mixed in with the anger of Cassie's past and what she'd been through. I was seething and barely holding on.

I realized when I left through her balcony that it must've took all her energy to tell me something like that. That she gave me a giant amount of her trust for her to tell me something so personal, so intimate. When she talked about what happened, I barely contained myself punching another hole in the wall. Especially the realization when I made the connection between Logan Ross and the guy who hurt her. The guy that made her into the the monster that she thinks she is. A man who took advantage of a hurting little girl. If he wasn't dead already, I would've hunted him down and do it myself damn to hell about the consequences.

Feeling my anger rising again, I start heading up the stairs again.

"Luke-" My Dad starts again but I couldn't hear what he wanted to say. I didn't want to.

"Just stop." I clip out almost loud enough to wake Mom and Cameron, finally turning towards him, our gazes locking. His eyes were red and puffy and glossed over. His hair was sticking all over the place, like he ran his hand through it a bunch of times. Like many firsts from him, I have never seen this side before. I have never seen him cry and so unkempt. Not even when Kyle died. I continued. "I don't want to hear it. I'm exhausted. And angry. And if I don't walk away now, I'm going to say some things I may or may not regret and I don't want to do that right now. So please, give me time."

I started up again, but he wasn't having it. "Creepy, please, just listen."

"Why?" I half shouted, angry that he used my nickname. "Why should I listen now? When were you going to tell me about this "secret" life?" I exclaim, my voice rising with every word. And if I knew any better, mom and Cameron were already awake. But I knew they were smart enough to stay in their rooms. "Were you even going to?"

"I was trying to protect you-" His voice was still the vulnerable stranger I never knew existed. A side I've never seen from him.

"Well you've done a great job of that, have you?" I snap. The hurt in my voice known by the visible flinch he does. I might as well have just punched him. But I was exhausted and still angry, and was on the verge of regretting what I just said to him. So I chose my words carefully. "I'm not...Ready...To talk about anything right now. I'm exhausted, my head hurts." My heart hurts too. "And all I want to do is sleep. So please." I begged. "Please, not right now."