Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
JADE
Weeks Later
My phone falls to the floor, a loud thud sounding as it hits the gravel beneath me. “Jade are you there?” I can hear Bass’s voice coming from the speaker but I can’t get myself to answer. Physically, I can’t speak. His words ring violently in my ear, drowning me in a river of dread. There was a fire, it caused an explosion and Servite Manor is gone. Your sister and Ace were taken to the safehouse, they’re unconscious but they’ll be okay Jade.
Unconscious. A fire. Another goddamn explosion. Once again my sister’s life is in danger because of the fucking monsters in this place. Hidden in plain sight or lurking in the darkness, they’re all fucking here. After the crash where Ace was taken captive by his uncle, Scarlett was taken to the hospital with a concussion and some minor bruising and scrapes, but now eighteen, she was able to check herself out against doctor’s orders. However, Sebastian and I forced her to come to Ace’s beach house, not letting her run off after him like she was planning to do. We needed a plan, so here we were planning to keep her locked up in his bedroom until we’d figure out what the fuck we were going to do to get him back without sending her into the lion’s den. But not all of us were on the same page. Alek of all people, along with that whore Scar brought back from the Gallows, Remi, or something, decided for once to do the “right” thing and helped her plot her escape. Alek then came back to the house for help after dropping her off at Servite Manor, and the worst part was it wasn’t until that very moment that we realized she was gone. Bass and Alek took off after her and Ace, but Beckett stayed back to make sure I didn’t go running after them. Alek said he’d promised Scarlett to keep me away from the mess she was in, but I’m not sure when it was that he started promising my sister anything. Maybe around the time he found out they were cousins.
It had been too long without any word from the guys, and I was getting restless just sitting around doing nothing. I decided to take a walk along the path leading out to the deck at the edge of the water when I received the call. My blood dropped to my feet, my heart ached with worry that something bad was going to happen to my sister. When I finally regained my composure I ran back to the house, finding Beckett on the phone just outside the door.
“I’ll call you back, she just got here,” he murmurs, hanging up his phone and shoving it in his pocket.
“Take me to her now!” I shout out, my body shaking in anger as Beckett watches me not giving away his reaction.
“Bass said it’s best if you wait for him here…”
“I don’t give a fuck what Bass said, take me to see my sister or I swear I’ll find a way to get there my goddamn self.” My blood is boiling at this point, my rage clouding my judgment as I yell at the undeserving, charismatic Beckett Masters. But unlucky for him Sebastian isn’t here, which means my volatile anger has to be directed at someone .
“Jade, come on we won’t be able to do anything there. They’re safe I promise you. Wesley, Lilith, and Macallan are dead,” he says, his posh accent making the news sound less dire than it is.
Dead .
The four-letter word that comes out of his mouth is the last thing I expected to hear. Lilith and Wesley are dead, the house exploded, and Scarlett and Ace are unconscious, yet they still want me not to worry. “I don’t give a fuck Beckett. Take me to my sister, I won’t ask you again.”
He shakes his head seemingly exasperated, his light brown longer than usual falling upon his thick brows, before nodding in agreement. “Fine, but when we get there you’re the one that has to explain to Bass how you convinced me to take you.”
“Fine, I’ll take the blame so your boy doesn’t spank you for disobeying,” I mock, realizing that’s not exactly the right thing to say when I’m trying to convince him to help me out, but saying the right thing has never been my forte.
“I swear you girls are going to be the fucking end of us. Must be some magical puss you’re giving him to have him so dead set on keeping you out of trouble,” he sneers, and although it’s quite insulting for some reason it doesn't feel like one coming from him.
I flick my ponytail over my shoulder, turning and flaunting my ass, which looks damn good by the way in my signature cut off jean shorts nearly baring my ass, as I look over my shoulder at him. His dark blue eyes give me a once over before shaking his head as a wide grin appears in place of his scowl. “You have no fucking idea.”
We arrived at the safehouse, just on the outskirts of Pleasant Hills in under an hour. It would have been thirty minutes if Beck hadn’t refused to let me drive his precious Rover. I’ve been here a few times over the last few weeks, once with Sebastian after Scarlett ran off to work at the Gallows with the creeper Wesley Servite and they dragged me there to explain everything that had happened between her and Servite. It’s when I found out that Maxwell Smoak, Alek’s uncle I’d never heard of, was in reality Scarlett’s biological father. I know, plot twist right? Well that isn’t even the best part. Turns out he only fathered her because Scar’s psycho bitch of a mother drugged him and took advantage of him all at Wesley Servite’s command. Long story short, Maxwell’s girlfriend Gianna, who Wesley was in love with and was apparently Lilith’s stepsister, killed herself after her broken heart couldn’t handle it anymore. Her demons won, and that’s why Gianna’s long lost brother Franco Marchesi, some mob boss or something that was hiding undercover as Servite Academy’s English Professor Evan Macallan, was here to enact revenge.
Some twisted shit really, and somehow my big sister got herself caught up in the demonic soap opera. The next few times I came here were to plot how in the world we were going to get her back. She was threatened by Marchesi with something big that convinced her to turn her back on all of us, but we weren’t sure what it was. We’d finally gotten her back, only to lose her once again. And if I lose her completely because of them, all hell is going to break loose.
Jumping out of the Rover before Beck even parks the car in the driveway of the small cabin like house, I run up to the front door, throwing it open utterly surprised by what I see. It’s much smaller than the houses I’ve been in recently, but still larger than the ones I grew up in. I find the living room completely trashed, a trail of blood scattered along the floor leading to the hallway toward the back of the house. I strut over slowly, my mind swirling with worse case scenarios and vivid images of the gruesome scene I’m about to come face to face with, but nothing compares to what I am about to see.
Because the scene before me is so much worse.
I hear hushed whispers that turn into loud yells, voices I recognize, Scarlett, Ace, the other two Horsemen. But there is one more who isn’t as loud as the others, but still sounds vaguely familiar. I figured enough was enough, I won't wait any longer, I won’t stand here and wait to be let in or contacted now that it is obvious my sister is conscious.
Just as I am about to enter, the familiar voice I can’t quite recognize is the next to speak.
“I can’t Scarlett, I can’t look my little sister in the eye and tell her what her big brother has become. A puppet, a criminal, a murderer, someone she’d be so ashamed of.”
My body stills at the sound of this not so stranger's voice, his words echoing through me sending a feeling of something inconceivable through my veins. Something cold, dark, and ominously melancholic.
“You’re her family Roman, her brother. She will forgive you for that, you know she will.”
Roman. Brother. My sister’s words haunt me, but not as much as what my brother says next.
“But I can’t Scar, how will I ever be able to come clean to her. How will I ever be able to admit it was me who shot and killed our father in cold blood.”
Roman killed our father.
This can’t be happening, what I’m hearing can’t be true. I barge in unannounced, pushing the door open as I come to stand under the doorway. A loud cry escapes from deep within me, my eyes going wide, glaring stunned at the sight before me.
My sister’s laid out on a small bed in the middle of the room, clearly covered in bloody gashes, scrapes, and bruises, Ace by her side looking just as bad if not worse with a bandage around his arm and torso, but what stuns me most, are the figures at her feet. Bass stands there blankly staring at me with a look of rage mixed with guilt spread across his perfectly rugged face, but it’s the figure beside him that has the blood running through my veins turning ice cold. It’s the face of a man I never thought I'd see again, yet the only person I’ve wished every night for the past six years I’d once again come face to face with.
Now as he stares at me, with nothing but a look of disappointment. I can’t help but feel the anger rise in me like a mountain of regret washing over me, drowning me. Regret for wishing I'd see him again. Regret, for trusting anyone standing here in this room, when I’ve been the fool they’ve been laughing at this whole time.
I see fucking red.
So I do the only thing I’m good at. The only thing that at this very moment makes sense.
I run.
My blood is scalding hot, searing my alabaster skin, threatening to drain free from my body, and flowing endlessly on the marble floors beneath me. Like red paint scattering around the shiny limestone, a pool of my own remains. My heart is pumping erratically, my vision red and fading out, dark spots covering the sights before me as my mind goes in and out of darkness. I push past Beckett, swinging the front door open, stepping out into the cold night, being swallowed by the darkness of the sky above me. The woods before me looking ominously dangerous, seem like the perfect escape from the monsters lurking in the shadows threatening to consume me.
But he’s the ultimate monster I must escape.
Roman.
There he was. My brother, standing wordlessly before me looking nothing like the last time I saw him. His hair longer and disheveled, his body covered in tattoos, and those green eyes just like mine clouded with shock and guilt as he stood there watching me. Stained with disappointment, as he blatantly confessed to killing my father
Chaz is dead .
I feel an odd sense of relief, to never have to worry about seeing his face again, but as I stared at the group in front of me, as I watched my brother standing before my friends acting like he knew them, Scarlett, Ace, Bass, all with knowing glances upon their telling faces, the only thing I felt was betrayal.
Especially from him . After all I gave him, after I gave him everything I could and so much more, Sebastian Silver just went and betrayed me leaving me alone like everyone else has, like they always do.
There was only one thing I could do.
Run.
So I ran. Ran as fast as my legs could take me. Ran with no end in sight. Ran with nowhere to run to. And I knew no one would follow. All I knew was I needed to get away from these monsters around me.
But what will happen when I have to come face to face with my destined fate? What will become of me when I must come to grips with my new reality, the monster living inside me?