Chapter 12
Casey
“Oh my God, Lee!” Meredith’s voice whispered, but it woke me up anyway. “Did they sleep like that last night? Holy crap, they’re so cute!”
“Keep it down, woman,” Lee’s insanely baritone voice murmured from the kitchen area. “Let them sleep! It was a rough night…”
There was a little bit of silence following this.
I realized then that I had been curled up on the thick layer of blankets on the floor, and I was wholly enveloped in Vail’s arms. My face was tucked beneath his jaw, and one of his hands was cupping the back of my head, the other wrapped around, holding me flush against the muscled planes of his body.
At my back, I could feel Shaw huddled up against me, his forehead pressing into the space between my shoulder blades.
I could tell by how soft both of their breathing was that they were passed out still, so I did my best to relax, keeping my eyes closed as I pretended to keep sleeping, listening in.
“Best if we all lay low today,” Lee said softly. “I doubt anyone from Vendetta will show up at school. Same with the Jackals-”
“ Especially the Jackals,” Meredith interrupted him. “Bryce…”
“Yeah,” Lee’s voice choked up a bit at the mention of Bryce Fraser. I thought back to what I overheard last night. Something about a biker? And… and a chainsaw…
I felt the bile rising in my throat. What the fuck happened last night? What were they doing?!
As I shivered at the ominous suggestion of Bryce’s fate, I instinctively clung to Vail, who released a little grunt in his sleep, but then only tossed a leg over both of mine before settling back into his slumber.
“So, what’s going to happen to Casey now?
” Meredith whispered. “If you give me the keys, I can drop her off at school after she wakes up and has some breakfast.” It was then that I smelled coffee and maple syrup and…
oh lord help me, bacon! My stomach involuntarily rumbled, but thankfully, not loud enough for the others to have heard.
“Casey won’t be going to school today,” Lee said firmly, like a decision had already been made.
“Won’t that just draw attention to her?” Meredith said, her voice filled with warning. “She is still legally under her father’s care-”
“That asshole won’t be for long.” He responded confidently.
“Oh?” I could hear the surprise in her voice. “When was this decision made? You guys haven’t talked-”
“This was made a long time ago, before you even lived here, Mer.”
A momentary silence followed before she spoke up again, “Childhood pacts don’t mean anything, Lee.”
“They do in Harley.”
I heard the jingle of keys in the locks, the metal sliding as each one was turned before the door opened, and I listened to Haldon murmur, “Amelie is with Mamie for the morning, and I gotta get ready for work-”
“No, Baby!” Meredith sounds pained at the thought of him going out. “I thought you booked today off? We need to lay low, remember? That’s why we’re skipping school.”
“We need the money, mon chaton .” I heard a little smack of their lips. “And if I’m not in school today, might as well make some extra cash.”
I could hear her grumbling at his logical reasoning, followed by him letting out a short, deep chuckle. “Gonna go get ready. Stay inside today. Enjoy a day off. You never get one.”
“Neither do you.” she reminded him.
“I’ll be home tonight, okay? I’ll grab some groceries, and we can have a family supper for once. Amelie will love it.”
My heart wrenched for them as more and more of their situation became clear. I hadn’t even considered how Meredith and Haldon supported their daughter or afforded this place. They must work after school and on weekends to make enough money.
“What are you guys up to today?” Haldon asked quietly as he moved around the kitchen.
“Bringing Casey home with us,” Lee said, still sounding as confident and sure of himself as ever.
Home with them? What did that mean exactly?
My mind was racing at the thought of living with these guys.
But then again, did they all live with each other?
Or with one of their parents? The only ones I remember being in the picture were Shaw’s aunt and uncle, Lee’s parents, and Vail’s mother, who was a write-off.
Surprisingly, the thought of leaving Keith and living with one, two, or all three of them had me feeling completely…
calm. I felt a warmth spread throughout my body at the thought.
After Vail’s statement last night, we’re your family now, how everything in him seemed to change with those words, I felt like I’d found three missing pieces of my soul again.
All four of us, lying together on the blankets last night, just like we used to, it felt right. We were together again.
“What are you guys planning, Lee?” she asked after several minutes. “From how I understand it, Casey is biding her time until she can leave this place.” She sounded suspicious as hell.
“We’ll do what we have to in order to keep her safe,” he said, as calm as ever.
Meredith sighed, sounding upset, “She won’t like it-”
“Tough shit.” Lee scoffed. “That’s life.
You just have to go with it and take what it throws at you.
” It’s the first time I’d really heard him speak like this, and honestly, it caught me off guard.
Lee was always so calm and collected, but he was speaking like a leader, someone who made the calls right now, and it hit me.
I always thought Shaw was Vail’s second, when in actuality, it was Lee.
With Vail passed out here with me, Lee was speaking for him and the other two.
I peered through my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything except for the curve of Vail’s throat. One of Shaw’s hands, which were resting on my thigh, twitched like he was slowly coming to.
“Not this, though,” Meredith said softly. “She’s not an object.”
“No. But she’s in Harley, and if she wants to survive, then she’ll have to adjust and accept that that’s the way shit gets done around here. It’s how we’ve survived and it’s kept us safe. So she’s gonna have to fucking fall in line and do it fast.”
“You can be a real asshole sometimes, Knight.”
“The problem is, Mer, that with Hunter expressing an interest and with the disappearances, we need to make sure she’s safe.
Think about Heather…” His voice trailed off, and the room grew quiet for a moment.
Heather? Who was Heather? “That was just the week before Casey got here. No one has talked about her. No one is asking where the fuck she is. Then there was Rachelle and Monica on the same fucking day, then-”
“I know, fuck…” Meredith whispered, her voice tight, as though she had been trying not to cry.
“I know, Lee. Look, Hunter and the Jackals may very well be doing this as a sort of fucked up way of trying to get in good with Elias and the Faceless, but would he do that with Casey? He’s treated her differently than Celeste and the others… ”
“I have no fucking clue what that asshole wants with her, but I’m not gonna let him touch her ever again!
” Lee snarled, and I knew he was thinking about that day in the classroom when they had to come in and save my ass.
“We need to get her away from her dad first so that she’s with one of us at all times.
Anyone can come in and grab her, just like the others…
” He sighed deeply, sounding weary and exhausted.
“It’s just a matter of which one of us is going to chance crossing the line to do it.
” When I heard this, I felt a tremor of fear running through my veins like ice.
What in the hell is he talking about? Who will cross a line?
Hunter? Or them? Or is he talking about someone else?
God, as this was running through my head, my feet were practically convulsing to freaking book it out of this apartment and out of town.
I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of two gangs.
But if I ran away, what kind of crap would I abandon my three boys in?
I was so freaked out and confused that I didn’t realize Vail was stirring until his grip on me tightened as he stretched and yawned.
Crap … I think. I kept the act going a little longer as he came to.
“Yo,” Lee half-whispered to him from the kitchen table. “You up?”
Vail grunted a little, one of his hands sliding away, and I could feel him shifting a little beside me. He’d been quiet for a few seconds, and then I felt his arms wrap around me again, pulling me back to himself, and he buried his nose into my hair. Holy shit…
I listened to Lee chuckle, “Sleep okay?” His tone was teasing.
“Better than I ever have,” Vail murmured back, keeping his voice low.
“Want some breakfast?” Meredith asked.
“Yeah, that’d be great, Mer.” But he didn’t move. I felt his lips as he kissed my temple, up along my forehead, and into my hair. When he ran his whiskered jaw along mine before nuzzling the curve of my neck, it took all of my self-control not to squirm against him.
“You going to join us at the table?” Haldon sounded like he was teasing him.
“Fuck off. Let me enjoy this for a few more minutes.” His voice was low and semi-muffled from pressing into my skin. Behind me, I heard Shaw yawn and grumble a little as he started to come to.
“You’re such a creep, Vail!” Meredith’s disapproving tone had cut in then. “Get your greedy hands off of her and let her sleep! Amelie probably put her through the wringer last night. Look at her face!”
Vail pulled back slightly and chuckled. When I felt his fingers gently peeling the stickers away from my cheeks, I knew I couldn’t keep up the charade any longer and opened my eyes slowly, like I was just waking up, and saw his face so close to mine.
His lovely lips were pulled up at the corners in that cocky grin I remembered from childhood, and he said, “Good morning, Darling.”