Chapter 49 Match, Meet Gasoline
MATCH, MEET GASOLINE
ELIJAH
Idon't know how the hell Seven managed to fit on the tiny cot with Aurora.
They do not look comfortable in the slightest, and yet, both of them are still dead asleep while Atticus clicks away on the keyboard, monitors bright in the dim office.
He sips his coffee and opens the video feed from in front of Aurora's apartment in time to see Céline leaving with Ellie for a walk.
She spent the night at Aurora's with her last night.
I smirk as Ellie jumps excitedly and starts to pull on her lead until Céline scolds her gently and she calms her walk, keeping pace with the older woman, who gives her a treat.
Atticus switches the view, and we see that there's still only one unmarked SUV parked on the street outside. The other one must still be parked outside of the frat. Which means they never saw her leave and likely think she spent the night there.
We should've sent her home in an Uber last night, but none of us was ready to let her go yet and Céline was happy to stay with Ellie, so…
We'll let Ambrose's people think they suck at their jobs and missed her leaving the party when she rolls up on the bus later this morning.
"They didn't find the bodies yet?" I ask in a hushed whisper, careful not to wake Sev and Aurora.
Atticus shakes his head. "No. But they will as soon as someone needs something from the basement. Or when they start to smell."
I grimace.
It's not like Atty to leave things so messy, and I can tell by the tension slowly winding up in his shoulders that he's not exactly thrilled about it, either, but I believe them when they said they were careful.
As long as they didn't leave any trace of themselves behind, there's no way it comes back on us.
"We made it look like they did it to each other. Bruised and bloody knuckles, skin under fingernails. The roofies on the floor between them. It'll look like one caught the other trying to do something shady, and they fought. Shit happened. It's not as clean as I'd have liked, but it'll carry."
"Hm." Not bad.
"You're oddly cool with it," he mutters, sipping his coffee.
I don't answer that. I'm not like my brothers. I don't relish taking lives, and I've never been through war. But if I had been in that basement…
If I heard what they were going to do to my angel?
I shiver, and when I close my eyes, a flash of my trembling, red-covered hands hits me like a punch to the chest. Just because I don't relish it doesn't mean I haven't.
I lost count of the number of Ambrose's men I killed when I tried to escape. I tried so many times, but there was once…
Once where I snapped. I strangled a guard and got my hands on his gun and knife. I barely remember that night, but I do recall I was only thinking of one thing: that I needed to get out. I needed to get home.
There were no bullets left in the gun by the time I made it to the locked exit door, and my hands were so covered in blood that I couldn't even pick the fucking lock to get out.
But the guard I killed nearest that door wasn't quite dead.
I hadn't seen their faces when I fired and stabbed, but I could see hers now.
She couldn't have been more than thirty.
She choked on her own blood, muttering something over and over again, and I didn't realize until they took me back to the room that it was a name. Tommy.
Her husband? Her son?
When I got home, I didn't touch a gun for years. Haunted by the memory of what I became that day. Unable to accept the platitudes offered by my brothers.
To them, the army of a villain is an extension of him. They chose to work for him. Chose to help him keep a man prisoner. Listened to my screams and did nothing.
But what if it's more complex than that?
What if they had no choice? Like I did.
"E?"
I come out of the memory and relax my expression, finding Atticus frowning up at me. "You good?"
"Yeah, man. I'm fine."
A loud buzzing fills the room, and I whirl, looking for the source. "What is that?"
Atticus stands, and his chair screeches against the floor, waking Sev and Aurora, who groan as they untangle themselves.
I search through the mess of files Atticus put back on the table—the floor around it.
"Fuck, I think that's my phone," Aurora says groggily.
"Where is it?" Atticus asks, picking up the discarded bits of her clothing from the floor.
"Purse," she says, pushing herself up to sit on the cot, holding the blanket around her torso with a shiver.
"Shit, will my phone track that I was here all night?" Aurora's grip on the blanket tightens.
Atticus gets to her purse and opens it, but the buzzing has stopped by the time he unzips the opening and pulls it out. "No. I shut down the location tracking before we left the party."
She sighs, and I'm so fucking glad we have him to remember all that shit we never do.
He looks at her phone screen with a scowl, carrying it over to her. "It was Ambrose."
"What?"
She takes the device as Seven pushes up on one arm and sniffs, rubbing the sleep from his bleary eyes as he tries to look at the phone over her shoulder. "Looks like he left a message."
We all crowd around the cot and her phone as Aurora taps the button to play the message.
"Hi, um, it's me, Ambrose De La Rosa—"
No shit.
"I'd hoped to speak to you directly, but it's important you get this information as soon as possible. We have a bit of a problem…"
We all share a look.
What is this?
Ambrose clears his throat. "It seems the media has somehow gotten hold of some information. My team is working to figure out where the leak came from, but regardless, the cat's out of the bag. I have some people in place near Boone—"
You mean right outside her apartment?
"They'll do what they can to keep the press away from your apartment, but we need to get ahead of this.
I'm so sorry this happened. I've set a press conference for later this evening in Charlotte.
I'm hoping you'll be able to stand with me when we make the announcement.
Please call me back when you get this message. "
"Fuck," Aurora snaps when the line goes dead. "What does this mean?"
Atticus is already back in his chair, sliding into place in front of the monitors, using keywords to bring up any and all news related to Aurora and Ambrose.
Multiple windows open, flooding the screen with rumors and reports about Ambrose's #FindDelilah campaign finally having the happy ending it deserves.
"They know you're a student at ASU," Atticus growls. "Fuck!"
Aurora's phone buzzes in her hand, and she flinches when the message passes the screen.
"What is it?" I ask.
"It's Maisie," she says. "She's seen the headlines already. She's asking why I didn't tell her." Her attention snaps up, eyes narrowing on the back of Atticus's head.
"Atticus?" There's a note of panic in her voice.
"One sec."
"Atticus." It's Seven now, and his tone brooks no argument. "What does this change?"
He stops searching for more information and sits back heavily in his chair, staring at the screen filled with articles and social media posts that all somehow spawned in the night.
"Atty?" I press, my stomach in fucking knots.
He wipes a palm over his mouth, sighing. "Our timeline moved up."