𝐍𝐎 𝐁𝐎𝐃𝐘, 𝐍𝐎 𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐄 - kiara carrera²

𝒙𝒙𝒗. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚

TATUM COULDN'T BELIEVE IT. She was in too much shock to move. Everyone around her was cheering, glad that the beast was gone. So was she...wasn't she? Her father was dead. Kiara killed him. She should've been throwing a party. The man who destroyed her soul before it was created was dead. But he was still her dad.

Parked outside the chemist, on the run from the police once again, Tatum sighed and rested her head on the wall of the van. Her life was always going to be this way. She would never feel free again. While her childhood monster was dead and gone, she was slowly realising that a part of his spirit was trapped inside her, turning her into a demon. Trapped. She would be trapped in her own mind forever, and it scared the hell out of her.

Once the vehicle was quiet and the rest of the teenagers had jumped out, Leroy turned around from the front seat to face his little sister with a smirk. But it wasn't his smirk. It wasn't the dark, dangerous grin Tatum had spent her whole life terrified of. This smile was real, kind. She wasn't sure if she'd ever seen Leroy this way. Expressing emotion.

"Guess we're finally free now, huh?" he spoke up for the first time since Charleston with a shrug, a wooden stick in his mouth.

Tatum glared up at him. "What the fuck are you doing here, Lee?" she spat, her arms crossed, not buying this act for a second.

His smile faltered a little. Only a little, but it was very noticeable, considering this was Leroy Quinn, the dark angel that fell over the town of OBX, having felt nothing since the age of three when his father struck him for the first time. "Dad's dead, ain't he?" he shrugged. "We can be ourselves again."

Rather than forgiving and forgetting like she usually did, his little sister only glared harder. "You've hurt people," she reminded him harshly. "Innocent people."

"And you haven't?" he retorted, staring right back at her with challenge. "Don't kid herself, Tate, you've done worse than any of us. But people overlook the things you do, because you're you. I didn't have that privilege. I had to keep being Daddy's little errant boy, Daddy's assassin." He sighed as she set her jaw in the stubborn way he remembered from when they were younger. "If not, I would've died years ago. I've done some pretty fucked up shit, but half the stuff you've heard are rumours that I started myself for protection against Dad. We all had to protect ourselves from Dad, but he's gone now...I can finally be a human, not some robot, programmed to be a killer."

Tatum looked to the side, breaking his eye contact as her mood dropped. When the siblings met eyes again, it was sad, painful. What he said was true.

All their lives, the four Quinn siblings fought, stabbed and even killed each other for their father's approval. None of them were allowed to feel love in the public eye, because they knew it would cost them their lives. None of them were allowed to feel pure emotions, because they knew it would only ever end up with pain. None of them were allowed to be themselves, because they were terrified of the man that raised them. All of them were abused and manipulated from the day they were brought into this world. All of them had thought about taking their own lives, because of the way they were brought into this world.

"What about Thomas and Joe?" she asked after a moment, her eyes welling up at all the unwanted, dehumanising childhood memories flashing through her mind like a movie trailer.

Leroy shrugged sadly. Guiltily. "It's too late for them," he said honestly. "But I guess I still have time to be a real brother to you and TJ."

The girl looked down at the floor, searching through her mind, desperate to find just one good memory of her oldest brother. Instead, all she found was herself and Thomas cleaning the blood of Joseph in their living room, a knife pointed to her throat as he forced her to rob The Wreck, Thomas falling to the ground while he smirked.

Maybe it was all manipulation. Maybe Leroy really was a good guy. But when Tatum looked at him, all she seen was the man who scared her almost as much as her dad did. Who haunted her childhood so much that she could bearly get to sleep at night knowing he was in the bunk beside her.

"You know, when you were little, I used to make you and Tills these board games," he said, a single tear sliding its way down his face. It was first time that man had allowed himself to cry since he was four years old. "Thomas didn't like them very much, but you and Tilly were obsessed. You used to beg me all the time to make some more. So I'd go to school, get a detention, and spend the hour drawing out a whole game for you to play. You used to hug me, and I remember just wanting to keep you there - to protect you from dad. But I never could, and I hate myself for letting it get so far, Tate, I do." His voice began to crack, began to show true feeling, true trauma. "That day you shot me was the day I knew I failed. I was your big brother, you were my little sister, and I pushed you that far. When I was in prison, the guy I shared a cell with had a sister, five years younger than him - he was in there for killing her abusive boyfriend. He would do anything for his sister, and I wish I had done the same." They met eyes once again, and Tatum felt sick to the stomach, finally hearing his story. "And when I seen you and TJ, you protecting him with everything you had, it made me realise how I could've done it...how I could've saved you, and Joe and Thomas, and hell, even Cameron, but I didn't. Because I was scared. But you weren't - you never were. I've been a horrible brother, Tatum, and I'm sorry. I will do better, I promise."

Taking in a moment to process everything he had just said, Tatum's lips parted a little. This was Leroy Quinn - one of the most ruthless, feared men in North Carolina - sobbing his heart out to his teenage sister, who shot him only a week or so ago.

He was right, though. Now their father was gone, everything had changed.

She nodded, a small smile spreading on her face. "I believe you, Leroy," she told him, her eyes shinning with tears.

a/n: ngl it definitely wasn't my original plan to give him redemption, but i don't regret it.

there was also a reference to the first book in here. can you find it?