Chapter 19 – Ava Jade #2
My other endeavors were coming up empty, too. Usually, a bit of cash was all it took to get information, but not with these guys. I’d gotten nowhere trying to get their records from before their adoption to Diesel St. Crow.
All I knew was that Grey and Rook had been together in Barrett’s Home for Boys when Diesel snatched them up as a pair.
I knew that Corvus James was adopted three years prior to that, at the age of nine.
But I had a few little gems of info now that I didn’t before.
For instance, I now knew that Corvus was adopted from fucking Lennox .
That’s right. My hometown.
I wasn’t the only one from the wrong side of the tracks.
I also knew that Grey was short for Greyson. Greyson Winters.
And that Rook was a nickname. His real name was Sawyer. Sawyer Clayton.
I wondered why none of them took Diesel’s surname when they were legally adopted. If that was their choice or Diesel’s?
It wasn’t enough though, none of it was really useful. None of it told me who they really were. What they’d done. What they’d been through. What made them tick.
I needed more. I needed something that I could use. Preferably before they were finished dealing with whatever it was they were dealing with and had the free time to harass me again.
After so many nights spent casing the Crow’s Nest from a safe distance, I’d found a path.
I had it all mapped out in my head. Exactly which direction I would need to approach from, where I would need to step, and pause, to be able to get inside without the camera seeing me.
If I could get my hands on a decent bug, I could plant it.
I doubted they were very careful with what they said while at home.
After all, no one was foolish enough to fuck with them in Thorn Valley.
I was so absorbed with my own thoughts, trying to figure out where would be my best bet to find what I was looking for in this foreign town without the Crows finding out, that I almost didn’t see him.
“Josh?”
His back stiffened, hand stilling on the door handle to the office.
I only had about a minute before my last class for the day started. “Hey,” I added when he didn’t turn around straight away. I carved through the other students in the atrium rushing to class. “You haven’t been in class.”
He hadn’t answered either of my texts this week, either, but I didn’t really care about that.
My thirsty punani did, but she could deal.
“Where have you?—”
He spun around and whatever I’d been about to say ghosted my lips.
The way he was looking at me, and also not looking at me, spoke volumes. So did the angry purple bruise swelling his left eye almost completely shut.
I could see the anger in the tension around his still usable eye. The embarrassment in the pink of his cheeks. The discomfort in the shifty way his gaze moved over the atrium. And I knew.
“What did they say to you?” I demanded, all desire to fuck this cowardly jackass gone in the blink of an eye.
Josh shook his head, his jaw tightening. “Look, I’m just here to grab my shit. I’m transferring to LA.”
“ Josh, ” I hissed, leveling the full weight of my stare on him. “What. Did. They. Say?”
He recoiled from me slightly, surprise flitting over his eyes as he took me in in this new light.
The bell rang, signaling that I was now late, but I didn’t give a fuck. My muscles twitched, constricted beneath tight skin. So tight it made me itch. Made me sick.
“Fucking spit it out.”
“It was Corvus, all right,” he said, lowering his voice even though we were the only students still lingering in the atrium. “He...he warned me away from you. Told me I should leave.”
“And you just packed up and went like a good little sheepy?”
His brows lowered, lips pressing tightly together.
“If you knew what was good for you, Ava Jade, you’d leave, too.”
I laughed, shaking my head at the ludicrousness of this whole idiotic situation.
“What did he say, then, hmm? That I was his or some other bullshit?”
Without missing a beat, Josh replied. “Yes. And he didn’t just warn me away. As of this morning, no guy in this entire school is allowed to go near you. They’ve...they’ve claimed you.”
The way he said it, with pity, made my teeth grind. I got the sense they hadn’t ever done anything like this before. Never claimed someone for themselves.
Fuck if I was going to let the bastard get away with it.
I wouldn’t let them back me into a corner. Into a cage.
I said no to their deal, and I would stand my motherfucking ground.
A growl tore from my throat as I chucked my books to the floor and spun on my heel, storming toward the stairs, and leaving Josh in my dust. I shivered, my edges coming unglued, fingers of heat inching up the back of my neck.
My vision narrowed, tinted crimson.
My thoughts were a mess of disjointed things rattling in my head.
Those entitled motherfuckers.
Friday. Today was Friday.
Grey.
Grey was here.
Last period.
He would be in room 910. Biochem.
I was there so fast that I could barely recall from which direction I came, how I’d managed to climb two flights of stairs and jump down three different hallways. It felt like barely a second had passed since Josh poured gasoline on my fire.
The door flew open, battering loudly on the opposite wall as I stepped inside. Heads swiveled. Startled eyes took me in. But I was looking for a specific pair.
“ Excuse me ,” the teacher all but shouted, rising from behind her desk with a pointed stare in my direction. I didn’t even have to look at her to know that she was five foot nothing, rounded through her middle, and absolutely no threat whatsoever.
“You,” I growled, latching onto Greyson Winters at the back of the classroom with my eyes alone. “We need to talk.”
“I said, excuse me, ” the teacher repeated. “We’re in the middle of?—”
Grey lifted a hand, silencing the teacher with a lazy shhhh, without taking his eyes off me.
My heart beat in my temples, thudding so strongly that the room seemed to expand in shades of red with each pulse. I inhaled deeply through my nose, regaining control as the initial burst of adrenaline leveled out into a steady rush, sharpening my focus. Centering.
If I’d found Grey one minute earlier, I might’ve bit his head off.
“Excuse us, Mrs. Waters,” Grey said as he rose from his desk, inclining his head to the ruffled teacher. He left his books and pencil behind as he waded through the whispering students toward the door.
“AJ,” he said with a nod as he approached, the tiny tick of enjoyment squirming at the edge of his lips was enough to set my blood boiling anew. I snatched his arm and dragged him through the door, slamming it behind us.
I didn’t stop there.
“Where are we going?”
I growled to myself, curses falling from my lips as I towed Grey along with me until I found what I was looking for. I shouldered the door to the ladies washroom open and shoved him through it.
“ Um , hello?” a small voice called from one of the stalls inside.
“ Get out .” I snarled.
The girl was spurred into action, rushing from the stall with a furtive and fearful glance between Grey and me before she rushed out the door. I checked the other stalls, punching the doors open one by one until I was certain we were alone.
I locked the door and swallowed back the acid in my throat. Crossing my arms over my chest, I faced Grey, unable to trust I wouldn’t just haul off and deck him right in his stupid mouth.
“I thought I made myself clear,” I started, surprised at the level tone of my voice, now only edged with a sharp bite. “I am not something you fuckheads can own.”
Realization registered on his face and his self-righteous smirk morphed into a taut line.
“Watch your mouth,” he said, his upper lip curling. Though it wasn’t hostility I found when I met his heavy gaze. It was something else entirely.
Grey’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides as he took me in, his broad chest heaving beneath the crisp white t-shirt he wore. His tatted biceps flexed, stretching the inked images.
“Or what?” I challenged. “Going to put me down like you did that guy last Thursday night? If you are, just get it over with. But I’m warning you now, I won’t go down without a damn good fight.”
A muscle jumped in his temple, and his fists uncurled. “There are a lot of things I want to do to you, Ava Jade,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, the sound of it making me squirm. “Killing you isn’t one of them.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Grey stepped forward, closing the gap between us, and I felt my own wetness like warm silk in my panties.
I didn’t move so much as an inch as he approached; to back away or go for a blade would be giving him too much credit.
He wasn’t armed, at least not with a gun.
I’d given him a thorough once over when I spotted him at the back of the classroom.
I’d cased each step as he approached. He wasn’t packing.
At least not anything but the hard angled shape in his back left pocket.
His cell phone.
His cell phone.
I suppressed a grin, biting my lower lip.
Grey stopped before me, standing nearly a full head taller. Inches of space between us. His dirty blond hair burned with strands of gold in the bright vanity lights over the bank of sinks at my back.
I jerked, twitching toward my blades as Grey took my jaw into his hand, his callused fingers rough against my skin. He studied my face as though he could read something hidden there. A secret code. A riddle to be solved.
“Who are you?” he asked on his next breath, his gaze narrowing as if he looked hard enough he might find the answer he was looking for. He’d asked me the same question that night in the woods. This time, I’d answer him.
“Someone you shouldn’t fuck with.” I’d meant it to sound threatening, but it came out differently. My breath stuttering.
“Is that so?”
I swung my arm up to knock his hand away, my anger flaring again at his arrogance, but he caught my wrist instead, holding it there with a cruel smirk.