Chapter 12 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
“ Y ou think Bri will be there?” I asked Becca as we got in her Audi, the all-black interior swallowing us up before she started the ignition and the dash came to life, painting her in shades of blue.
Becca pulled out of the school lot, giving me a curious look. “Why? You miss her?”
Turned out she went on a shopping trip to LA. Or at least, that’s what Becca thought. Bri went every year around this time for some big annual sale a designer put on in the fall. It would be just my luck if she got back in time for the party.
“So much it hurts,” I replied, my voice dripping sarcasm.
It was a relief not having to deal with Bri the last few days, but I’d still had to weather the Crows this morning.
I’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t just a little bit on edge walking into homeroom, not knowing whether or not Grey would hold to his word to keep last night’s unfortunate rendezvous between us.
It seemed he had, though. Corvus was his usual quiet, menacing self. Rook looked almost... serene. And Grey? Grey just kept on fucking staring at me. Not even bothering to try to hide it, either. Earned himself a solid jab to the ribs by Corvus at one point, too. Though I didn’t know why.
Best not to question it.
Not to even think about it at all.
Banishing all thoughts of the Crows from my mind, I sank back in the seat, letting the supple leather conform to my curves. “Hey, nice car by the way.”
“Thanks.”
I took note of how the passenger side seat was slid all the way back and lowered, as though someone tall frequently sat in it. I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t any of my business. I wondered if he was handsome. Older, I was betting. Maybe a teacher?
Becca had the air of someone much older than she was. I could totally see her banging a teacher. I just hoped it wasn’t that Harry Potter wannabe from homeroom. Ugh . Or Mr. Williams from AP math. That guy gave me the creeps.
“What?” Becca asked after a few minutes of quiet driving. “Do I have something on my face?”
I laughed. “No. You’re good.”
“You clean up pretty nice, yourself,” she said, giving me a smirk as she jabbed some buttons on the center console, connecting it to her phone, and Halsey came on. I should have known we’d have similar music tastes.
“It’s amazing what a bit of mascara and a new dress can do, am I right?” she asked.
Well, she wasn’t wrong. Even though I was loath to admit it.
The dress fit unlike any second hand one ever could.
Hugging my body like it was made for me.
The deep ‘v’ showed off just enough tit to be sexy, but not enough to be straight up slutty.
The length was perfect, too, not so short that I would have to keep tugging it down, but not too long that it bordered on prudish.
The short heels Becca lent me to go with it, and the small miracle she worked on my unruly hair, really brought the whole thing together. I looked fucking amazing and I knew it. All thanks to Becca.
“So, anything I should know before we get there? It’s at the docks, you said?”
Becca turned the music down a click as we veered off a main road and onto a side one without any streetlights. Though it was harder to see in the dark, she didn’t slow. She clearly knew the road well, even though it wound and curved down the hillside.
“It’s an old pier. Been abandoned for a few years now. It’s basically just an old warehouse building on stilts over the lake.”
“Sounds super safe.”
“Not really,” Becca said, checking her lipstick in the rearview, signaling to me that we were almost there. “But only one person ever actually drowned. Lots of close calls, though.”
Noted.
“Just stay away from the balcony on the far side,” she continued. “The boards are rotten. Bri got her heel stuck in one once, almost broke her ankle.”
“I’d have paid good money to see that.”
Becca lifted her shoulders and sighed like she got a case of the warm and fuzzies. “It was glorious.”
I laughed, reaching to turn up the music as my current fave came on.
“You like Primal Ethos?” Becca asked as I hummed along. “Not many people have heard of them.”
“I’ve been listening since his really old stuff.”
“I heard he’s on the radio now. Oh! And there’s a show in Lodi next month. You have to come with me. It’s going to be epic.”
“I didn’t think he was doing any more shows?”
She shrugged. “Guess he changed his mind. People are dying to figure out who he is. There’s this whole online forum dedicated to sleuthing his true identity.”
I wasn’t surprised. I had to admit I didn’t really care as long as he kept making music, but even I was a bit curious. When the video went up of his first live show, his face was done up in killer skeleton makeup, black hair slicked back. Eyes covered in whiteout contacts.
He was a mystery.
Honestly, I was no expert, but it seemed like nothing more than a great marketing ploy.
“No shit. Who do they think he is?”
She snorted. “ A prince .”
“A prince?”
“Yeah, like of some European country. Hiding his identity and coming to Cali so he can do what he loves without the royal family breathing down his neck.”
“I would’ve pegged him as an ex-con or something. I mean, have you paid attention to his lyrics?”
I turned up Gravedigger so the next lyric could play loud and clear, proving my point.
“Maybe he’s just a twisted prince? Like that one from Game of Thrones, oh fuck, what was his name?”
“Joffrey?”
“Yeah! That fucker.”
She had a point. “Maybe. Power does go to your head.”
As we wound around another sharp curve in the road, the docks came into view and the thumping bass of music in the distance warred with Becca’s playlist in the car. She turned it down as we drove down and into a parking lot running along the water’s edge.
The pier was alive with a crush of people in the parking lot smoking and chatting. Others walked down the narrow planks out onto the water where the building perched on stilts loomed at the end.
It didn’t look as beat up as I thought it would.
But I should have expected that. If it was too atrocious the students from Briar Hall wouldn’t dare go near it.
As it was, the ‘docks’ seemed like they would be something of a novelty to them.
Like rich folk who spent their weekdays in condos and their weekends ‘roughing it’ in cottages on the lake.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Becca said as she turned off the radio and parked.
I nodded. “Not bad.”
The rough plank exterior of the building was done up in swirls of graffiti.
I thought I caught the signature fleur-de-lis tag of the Saints amidst the blocky letters and vulgar art.
Discernible from the religious symbol by the elongated bottom, formed to look like a blade.
There was an A, too. The gang tag used by the Aces.
Though it’d been badly covered over in artwork.
Clearly this was disputed turf. Noted.
The whole roof was strung with hundreds of little lights on strings—the only light illuminating the area for miles save for the moon and flashlight beams on camera phones.
The music grew louder as we stepped out, the sound of it echoing off the lake making the bass reverberate in my breastbone. I only recognized a few faces from the school, the rest looked a bit older. Anywhere from late teens to late twenties seemed to be in attendance.
Thorn Valley didn’t seem a particularly large city though, and I was willing to bet there was very little this exciting happening here on any given Friday night.
Becca looped her arm through mine, taking my cell phone from my hand to pop it into her purse since I didn’t own one of my own. “I don’t see Bri’s car,” she said excitedly as we made our way to the dock leading out to the pier. “That’s a good sign.”
I hadn’t seen the Crows yet either.
Could it be that I might actually have fun tonight? A smile pricked at my lips as we waded into the sea of bodies walking the plank.
The floor shook under our feet as we crossed into the large building and I instinctively put my arms out to stabilize myself.
Becca laughed at the expression on my face. “Trust me, it won’t fall,” she shouted over the music. “There’ll be twice this many people here within the hour. Then the floor really shakes.”
Jesus.
I let Becca drag me to an area to the right, weaving through dancing and chatting groups of people, many already piss drunk. The colorful strobing lights made their movements seem jerky and robotic with each flickering color change.
Despite the cool night air outside, it was fucking hot in here, and I was glad I’d accepted the dress from Becca instead of wearing the jeans and long sleeve I’d planned to.
She swiped a red cup off a stack from a table, and I snatched it from her, eyeing the punch bowl with horror. I could smell it from here. Artificial sweetener and way too much booze and likely a whole lot more than that.
It was wide open, ripe for drugging.
“You’re not seriously going to drink that, are you?”
She cocked her head at me, smirking as she drew a mickey of gin out of her bag. “I’m not drinking at all,” she said, pushing the gin and cup into my hand as she drew a joint out from between her tits. “And if I were, do you really think I’m stupid enough to drink that ?”
No , I thought, a bit guiltily. I really didn’t think she was that stupid. I gave her an apologetic grimace, and she bumped my shoulder with a smile, lighting up her joint to take a long drag.
“Don’t worry about it. The punch is probably safe, anyway. This is Crow territory. No one would dare roofie the punch unless they wanted their eyeballs used as ice cubes in Rook’s bourbon. But still,” she shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”
I grimaced, able to vividly imagine Rook poking out eyeballs with a skewer after hearing the screams from their shed last night. Ugh .
Biting my lower lip, I considered the gin and cup before handing them back to her. If the Crows were here after all, then I should tread lightly.