Chapter 28 – Ava Jade
AVA JADE
I checked my phone for the fifth time since I texted Becca two hours ago, finding only another passive aggressive text from Aunt Humphrey.
FEMALE HITLER
I finally got to speak to several of your instructors this past week. It seems all your grades are well above average, however that doesn’t excuse your lack of attendance.
Her way of apologizing?
Another message came through before I sent it back down.
FEMALE HITLER
Also, dinner will be at 7 o’clock sharp at the manor for Thanksgiving. If you’re bringing anyone along, please let me know in advance so I can make the appropriate arrangements.
Um, yeah…hard fucking pass.
“Anything yet?” I jumped out of my seat at the desk and winced as the torn ligament in my knee stretched too far.
“ Fucking shit fuck ,” I cursed, bending to rub the ache out of it.
“Sorry,” Grey said, raising his hands in apology. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
I sighed heavily, falling back into the chair at the desk and shoving my history notes out of the way so I could rest my arm there instead. “No. I haven’t. She hasn’t texted me back at all, and she won’t answer my calls.”
Grey’s frown deepened. “Are you worried?”
I shrugged. “A bit? I don’t know. She’s always slow to text me back when she’s with him, but not like this.”
“Yeah, she doesn’t usually spend the night,” Grey mused aloud, and he was right. Becca always wandered back into the apartment at Briar Hall sometime in the early hours of the morning. She was never gone this long.
I shifted my notes around on the desk, stacking them into a neat pile atop my textbook, officially done with studying for the test this week. I doubted anything was sticking in my head right now anyway.
I’d overheard Diesel outside with Corvus this morning.
I didn’t catch everything, but I did catch something about things getting ugly and one trial.
Hopefully, that meant there was only one left.
I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing, since Diesel St. Crow seemed set on me not surviving to the end.
“Hey,” Grey hedged, coming into the loft. “If she isn’t back for class tomorrow morning, then we’ll go and look for her, ’kay?”
I wasn’t sure how we’d find her since I had absolutely no fucking clue where she went when she drove off to meet her?—
That was it! However she’d gone to meet her guy friend last night at the docks, it wasn’t with her car. That was still parked in the school lot. I’d walked there with Rook earlier to check, and to stretch out the shit that was all twisted up in my knee.
“Do you think the GPS in her car has passive tracking? Like, to see previous routes?”
The corner of Grey’s mouth lifted. “Yeah. I think it probably would. Just have to hack in, and lucky for you…” He rubbed his knuckles over his chest, smug as fuck. “You happen to be sharing a house with someone who knows how.”
I smiled back. “Thanks, Grey.”
His gaze softened and some of that smugness faded, transitioning to something harder to name. He cleared his throat. “Can I, uh, get you anything? How’s the shoulder? We should probably redress it.”
I shook my head. “Already done. And it’s good.”
I rolled it to show him, unable to conceal all the discomfort from my face, but somehow, mercifully, the arrow hadn’t hit anything important. So, while it hurt like the devil’s asshole, it would be just fine.
“Right. Good. That’s good.”
He was stalling, and for half a minute I considered asking him to stay.
I’d been isolating myself from them since the Primal Ethos show, and I knew they were all uncertain about what the shift meant.
Hell, so was I, but it didn’t change things.
Even if Rook and I had a moment last night.
Even if a part of me wanted to rip every bit of Grey’s dark tracksuit to shreds and fuck him until I couldn’t breathe.
And even if I couldn’t stop remembering the feeling of absolute freedom that’d come with letting myself feel something other than hate for Corvus.
A shred of doubt nagged at the back of my skull.
This wasn’t what I came here for. I came here for a fresh start. A chance at a new life free of violence. Free of gangs and guns and hate .
Each day that image of what I wanted when I set foot in Thorn Valley has shifted. Every day spent with the Crows has been another bar welded onto a cage that I might never escape from if I’m not careful.
And that cage would trap me in the life I swore I was leaving behind when I took my Aunt up on her offer.
I didn’t know what the fuck I wanted anymore, and that was a terrifying thought. But one I needed to figure out before it was too late.
“Thanks,” I muttered, but still he hesitated. Wanting to say something more? Wanting to feel useful? It was hard to tell, but I knew they all partially blamed themselves for the Hunt. For letting it happen even though they didn’t have a choice. Or, at least, that’s what I was trying to believe.
“Maybe, if you don’t mind, I’ll take another piece of Rook’s cake?” I said with a shrug, and his eyes lit up.
“Yeah,” he said in a relieved sigh. “I can do that. Be right back. I’ll make you some tea. I have this Rooibos blend that’ll be really good with the cake. Might help you sleep, too.”
He was gone before I could say anything.
Like, what the actual fuck is Rooibos? I didn’t peg him as an herbal tea kind of guy, and the new information made a small laugh escape my lips as I shook my head.
I could use the sleep aid, though. It was already half past ten and I wasn’t even remotely tired yet.
Probably something to do with my three-hour morning power nap in Rook’s bed. With Rook.
I hadn’t planned to fall asleep there. I’d just wanted to sit with him a little longer after the blinding sun got to be too bright for our overtired eyes. Next thing I knew, I was drooling on his pillow, not for the first time.
I slumped in my chair, but sat bolt upright again as my phone buzzed violently with a new message. Becca’s name flashed over the screen.
About fucking time.
Lifting my cell, I saw that it wasn’t a message at all, but a video. I unlocked it and hit play and felt my whole fucking world crumble around me.
Becca screamed through the silvery tape covering her mouth, her black eye makeup running four inches down her face. Cords of metal chains hung in heavy circles around her slender neck, the skin beneath red from her struggling.
The clip was only four seconds long, and played again when it ended, starting a loop of horror.
I jumped to my feet, rushing to the bathroom to scream for the guys when another message came in, this time, a text. Making my racing pulse stop dead in my chest.
Becca: She’s at the warehouse in no man’s land. Come alone. Your trial begins now. You have thirty minutes. D.
What?
I replayed the horrific video of Becca, my hands shaking, stomach in knots.
There was a red glow over her right shoulder. I paused the video. It was blurry, but clear what it was. A timer. The red numbers 29:32 telling me the countdown had already started.
The chains around her neck…
He wouldn’t.
But the guys’ words echoed clearly in my mind, and I had to clutch the edge of the desk to keep myself from passing out at the wave of adrenaline going straight to my head.
Anyone or anything is fair game.
Come alone.
I couldn’t even remember getting my blades strapped on, or putting on my shoes, but suddenly the keys to the Rover were in my hand and I was sneaking out the garage door, rolling beneath the seven-inch gap to keep from making too much noise. At least until it was too late for them to stop me.
“AJ,” I heard Grey call out from upstairs in the loft just as I got to my feet.
Fuck.
The Rover chirped when I unlocked the door and got inside, and I saw Grey’s face in the octagonal window as I started the ignition. His mouth opened wide as he shouted something I couldn’t hear. Something not meant for my ears.
But I was already gone, peeling out of the gravel drive and bumping down the road, the Nest flickering to nothingness in the red glow of my tail lights in the rearview mirror.
Becca.
Of course Diesel would use the one friend I had here against me.
She was never going to want to see me again after this. She’d run for the fucking hills without looking back. Would she blame me? Hate me?
My stomach soured, and I groaned as the choppy pavement switched to clean smooth blacktop with a hard bump in the road.
If Diesel hurt her…
All bets were off.
I’d promised to try to not kill any Saints during the trials, but I’d have his fucking head if she died. And the heads of any others involved.
The minutes slashed away as I drove, barreling down side roads until I got to the edge of town, to the border of no man’s land.
They kept falling until ten were already gone.
Then fifteen. Hedging on twenty even as I pushed the Rover to the breaking point of how fast she could go, nearly losing control more than once as the uneven pavement leading down to the old industrial area tried to slow me with potholes and scattered debris.
The tires screeched, and the throat clogging stench of burning rubber filled my nose as the Rover slid to a standstill, knocking against a cement barrier.
The glass of the passenger window shattered, raining down over the seat and my lap as I shoved the door open and raced out into the night, making a beeline for the warehouse.
My peripheral sight expanded all around, tracking movement as I slipped a blade between my first two fingers, holding it loosely at my side.
I lowered myself to a crouch, skirting the edge of the warehouse, listening carefully as I neared the open bay doors at the front.
A soft whimper inside twisted my insides, and I grimaced, lifting the blade to throw as I stepped out of the shadows and into the gaping doorway of the abandoned warehouse, my mouth falling open.