Chapter 19 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
N asty.
I wiped drool from the corner of my mouth with a frown, my nose wrinkling at a cloying smell tainting the air of my bedroom. Ugh. What was that? I lifted an arm to make sure the gross limey odor wasn’t coming from me.
“ Ew ,” I mumbled, rolling out of bed to wash the drool off my hand and rinse out my mouth.
I never drooled. Couldn’t sleep deep enough for that.
At least, not usually. I swished the cool water from the tap in my mouth and spat, opting to just take a shower in case I did actually smell like a fucking stale ass gin mojito.
At least the deep sleep brought with it some clarity and as the scalding water prodded my dead muscles back to life, a plan formed.
To be fair, it started forming the minute the fucking Crows decided to try to cut me a very one-sided deal. The little visit from Officer Vick just cemented it.
The way they saw it, I had two options.
Option one: take the deal and become their little plaything. Kneel.
Option two: be forced to take the deal by whatever devious bullshittery they came up with to try to force me into it.
Officer Vick had provided me an option number three, but honestly? I didn’t fucking like cops. Sixty percent were corrupt. At least thirty percent were power-tripping dickwads. The last ten percent were just fucking useless. Or stupid.
Biased? Maybe. But you haven’t been a starving kid living in a trailer with a crackhead mother and a father with a gambling addiction. Or maybe you have. And then you know.
I was going for option number four. It was time to take these Crows down a peg. If I’d been smart, I’d have taken photos of the stolen car that night with the guy in the shed. I’d have filmed Rook dragging him to the shed. Captured his screams on camera.
Two could play the blackmail game. I’d been focusing my attention on the wrong threat.
Bri was a blimp on the greater scale. The Crows were the real enemy.
They were the ones who deserved my attention.
I’d find out every little thing I could about them.
Their dirty secrets. Their plans. And then I would use that knowledge to buy my freedom.
It would take time, and I’d have to do it right, but it could be done. I just had to make sure I didn’t break along the way.
“You trying a new perfume?” Becca asked as I made my way into the living room, making a spectacle of plugging her nose. “Babe, that is so not your scent.”
My shoulders slumped. “You smell it too?” I asked, relieved. I was starting to think I was going crazy when it didn’t go away after the shower. It was somehow soaked into my blankets. In my pillows. Whatever I ate yesterday, I was never eating it again. Barf .
She poured herself a coffee from the elaborate chrome machine in the kitchen and pointed to a second cup. “Want one?”
I moaned, chasing the aroma of fresh coffee to the kitchen. “Careful,” I warned. “I could get used to this.”
She snorted, but set another cup under the weird coffee drippy thing and started frothing some milk. “Here,” she said, nudging the already made cup with her elbow. “Take that one.”
I took a sip, and it didn’t even matter that it nearly scalded my tongue. It was fucking divine . Like, call me religious because I might have just been converted to a devoted member of the church of Becca Hart Lattes.
“ God.” I groaned, clutching the mug under my nose to inhale. “I’m going to steal you away from whoever you go see in the mornings and make you my coffee bitch.”
Becca barked a laugh but didn’t reply, instead eyeing my outfit. The usual knock-off jeans, softened by too many owners, paired with a long sleeve black t-shirt today. “No run this morning?” she asked as she finished pouring off the frothed milk into the espresso basted cup.
I shook my head. “Nah, I had to wash that stink off. Two showers in one morning goes against years of two-minute shower conditioning. Just can’t do it.”
“Speaking of,” Becca said, leaning against the counter to sip her latte. “Maybe close the oven after you’re done baking. When I got home last night it was hot as balls in here.”
I winced. I’d always been taught to leave it open, especially when it was chilly outside.
It was a waste of heat to keep it closed.
But I supposed that wasn’t a worry here, where the air temp was controlled to within an inch of its life by the crazy touchscreen panel by the fireplace.
I probably only managed to make the AC work harder. I snorted. “Sorry. Habits.”
She smirked, getting that look she sometimes got that told me she didn’t really understand but was trying to.
“No worries. You saved me a cookie, so I guess I’ll let you off this once.”
“So kind.”
Becca swirled the coffee in her mug. She looked amazing in whatever the thing was she was wearing.
A one-piece black romper with a long gold necklace and cage heels.
But then, she always looked like a supermodel next to me.
It was a wonder the Crows didn’t take an interest in her instead.
She wasn’t like the other girls here, either.
Then again, maybe they had. What did I know?
“So,” Becca started, a mischievous gleam in her brown eyes. “Has Josh texted you yet?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
She bit her lower lip. That wasn’t what she wanted to ask. I could tell she was holding something else back.
“What?” I hedged. “Just spit it out. Is the guy a creep or something?”
Becca pursed her lips. “No, it’s not Josh. It’s just...people are saying they saw you in the elevator yesterday. With the Crows.”
The flash of betrayal in her eyes cut me to the quick. “Oh.”
“Oh?” she pressed.
“Look, I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want you to freak out.”
Her brows lowered, worry creasing the spin between them.
“See?” I said. “You’re already freaking out.”
She smoothed out her expression and gingerly sipped her latte. “Well, what did they want? Someone said they saw Corvus literally fireman carry you into the elevator.”
I gritted my teeth.
Becca set her mug down with a clatter and crossed her arms over her chest. “They’re dangerous, babe.”
“They wanted me,” I admitted before she could say anything else. “They said they’d make what I did to Bri Friday night go away if I agreed to fucking bow down to their reign, be a good little girl and keep my pretty mouth shut unless they asked me to open it.”
Becca’s face screwed up into a scowl. “And you didn’t take the deal, did you?”
“You think I should’ve?”
“ Hell yes , you should’ve. I’d take sit down and shut up over possible jail time any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Never mind that your refusal means that you get to keep them as your enemies, too.”
Heat licked up my neck, making my body shudder. “I’m not like that. I can’t just...”
“Fuck. You’re right.” Becca huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. It’s not my call to make. I just don’t want to see you run out of here or worse, you know?”
I didn’t know, but I was trying really hard to accept the fact that someone, a friend, did actually want me here. A smile beat back the frustrated heat still trying to find a toehold in my veins.
“I know. Don’t worry, Becks. I’ll handle it.”
I always handle it.
“Taurus,” she said suddenly, her eyes widening before a sour look took hold. “No, wait, that’s not it, either.”
“My birthday’s in?—”
“No,” she interrupted, her mug clattering back down onto the counter as she reached over and slapped a palm over my lips before I could finish. “Don’t tell me. I got this.”
I laughed against her hand, and she pulled back, chewing her bottom lip as she considered me.
“Good luck with that,” I muttered, finishing off my coffee. “While you stew over it, can I have another latte?”
I went into homeroom expecting to have to deal with the Crows, knowing it was likely they would try to corner me after class was through again, but...that didn’t happen.
As I walked in, a full two minutes before the second bell, I found only a lone Crow there waiting for me. Grey met my gaze as I entered the room, tipping his head in greeting.
“Morning, AJ,” he whispered as I slid into my seat and I turned to give him a warning scowl before settling in for the day’s lecture. He said nothing else to me through the entirety of first period.
And then the following day, it was only Rook. He didn’t speak a word to me, though I could feel his hard gaze on the back of my neck. Could hear the chink of metal as he spun his lip ring with his teeth.
Thursday it was only Corvus, and I realized they were all switching out through the week. One in class, to collect assignments, maybe to keep an eye on me, and the other two off doing god knew what.
That was what I needed to figure out. I got the sense something big was going down. They would be here to terrorize me every chance they got if there wasn’t something monumentally more pressing that needed to be handled.
I had to up my game.
Corvus all but ignored me Thursday. He seemed so distracted. His face a pinched mask of focus.
As if that weren’t strange enough, I was still waiting for Bri to hit back. She hadn’t made a single move even though I’d turned down the Crows.
And I hadn’t received a single text from the unknown number in days. I wasn’t foolish enough to think it was a coincidence that I stopped getting the creepy messages at the same time as the Crows being too busy to continue trying to make my life hell.
It would be too much a coincidence, right?
It had to be one of them.
By Friday, if I were being honest with myself, I was fucking bored as shit. Frustrated that I still didn’t have anything worth mentioning on the Crows. I’d been returning to the Crow’s Nest at night for days. Watching like a shadow from the darkness of the trees. But there was nothing happening.
No one there.
At least not between the hours of ten and two a.m.