Free Once Broken (Dove Creek Chronicles) by H. Henry

beating up grown men very often. Especially ones Casey’s size.
    He offered no more detail than that, so I allowed the silence to linger. Either he was too tired and sore to talk any more, or he simply did not want to hash out every gory detail. I couldn’t decide which.
    Placing two butterfly bandages across the cut after I finished cleaning it, I moved on to the split in the side of his lower lip. The small nick was only just deep enough to bleed, but his bottom lip was puffy. It made him look a bit like he was pouting, and it might have been cute if I didn’t know that the cause was most likely a punch to the mouth. Not that I was going to go and tell him that.
    Moving on, I ran my fingertips gently along his jaw to check for swelling. It was stubbly and prickly from not having been shaved since the previous morning, but otherwise intact. Hearing a low rumble from somewhere deep in Casey’s throat, I paused. At first I thought I might have hurt him, but when I looked back up, his eyes were closed and the expression on his face was hardly one of pain.
    With that little sound he made, I was suddenly hyperaware of our nearness. Sitting up on my knees, with his on either side of my waist, my hands on his face and my own only inches from it . . . It was not a feeling I was used to. At least it hadn’t been for quite some time. My heart drummed out an unsteady little rhythm.
    I bit my lip and recovered quickly. If Casey noticed my brief hesitation, he said nothing of it.
    I gently turned his face in my hands, revealing a set of four long scratches that started just below his ear and disappeared into the line of his collar. Fingernail marks. They wept with a small amount of blood and the kind of clear fluid that usually accompanies shallow wounds.
    “That bitch .” I hissed the words without realizing I had spoken aloud.
    Casey began to laugh his easy chuckle, but it was abbreviated with a pained grunt. Rather than self-consciousness at my outburst, I felt renewed concern at the sound of his reaction.
    “What is it?”
    “My ribs.”
    “Broken?”
    “I don’t think so. Just bruised.”
    “You sure you don’t wanna go see a doctor?”
    “Positive. Besides, I like having you play Florence Nightingale.” He smirked.
    I answered his impertinence by swiping an anesthetic wipe across the fingernail trails without warning him. He inhaled sharply from the sting.
    “Oh, don’t be such a little girl.” I admonished him with a countering smirk.
    We were interrupted by Jocelyn and Aric appearing at the front door. Aric was soaked, his red mohawk dripping and plastered to his head.
    “What happened? Why are you all wet?” I asked, getting to my feet.
    “ Four of those freaking maniacs tried to take me out,” Aric started. “I jumped in the creek. Didn’t make the All State swim team for nothing.” He smiled and looked over to exchange a look with Garrett. It looked like they were saying that they were relieved to see each other without expressing that feeling out loud for the rest of us to hear.
    Aric and Garrett are identical twins, but you’d be hard pressed to get them mixed up. Aric is gregarious and outgoing. He sports a dyed cherry red mohawk and about a dozen tattoos. Garrett is shy and reserved, wearing his dark brown hair longer and more conservatively styled. With his black-rimmed glasses, he has a real Clark Kent vibe about him. At any given time, I half expect him to tear open his shirt to reveal a big yellow “S” on his chest.
    “I showed up and they pulled their disappearing act again,” Joss added.
    Before anyone could say anything else, Casey hauled himself up off the sofa and made a beeline for the back door without a word. The four of us left in the room exchanged glances, the unspoken question passing between us. Jocelyn looked at me and made a deliberate motion with her eyes toward the door. I acted on the not-so-subtle hint and went after him.
    “Hey . . . You okay?” I asked as I found