Chapter 7 – Corvus
CORVUS
T he road to the old outpost north of Thorn Valley could be a bitch in bad weather, and right now? Right now it was absolutely pissing down.
I cursed Diesel for picking it as the meeting point tonight, not just for the crap location, down thirty miles of gravel road, but because there wasn’t a secondary way out.
It was a dead-end at the outpost. Nowhere to go but back the way we came.
A great tactic if you didn’t think you’d need to make a hasty getaway, but tonight, all bets were off. If Lenny Ace admitted the little bitch who’d been grooming Becca was doing so at his command, Diesel would put two pieces of lead between his eyes.
It would either be them leaving here tonight, or us.
Maybe Diesel was counting on that.
But if Lenny Ace had half a fucking brain, he wouldn’t even come here tonight unless it was because he thought we could part ways without bloodshed. He had to know if it came to blood, they wouldn’t stand a chance. Their larger numbers be damned.
No one fucked with the Saints and lived. Not after Mom died. And especially not when the supposed target this go ’round was Diesel St. Crow’s sons.
The wipers slashed across the windshield, and I squinted to see through them, getting tense on Grey’s behalf even though he looked calm as ever as he maneuvered us toward the meet point.
Deftly avoiding potholes and sections of washed out road as the rain beat out a pelting rhythm on the roof of the Rover.
“Does anyone have a phone I can use?” Ava Jade asked from the backseat.
“What for?”
Behind me, the whiskey in Rook’s flash sloshed for the eighth time since we’d left Briar Hall, signaling another swig. He didn’t bother answering Ava Jade, and I had a feeling he was still on the edge from earlier.
No one called Rook Clayton by his given name.
No one except his bastard uncle and the people at the sanitorium where they’d stuck him when they couldn’t handle him at the group home.
There was a reason he couldn’t stand the sound of it.
Much like certain words and symbols triggered memories from my past, and an empty refrigerator triggered Grey, it was Rook’s own name that triggered him.
“I don’t have a phone,” Ava Jade reminded me. “I just want to check socials and my email.”
“Becca?” I asked, not really expecting a response.
I’d tried to talk to her about it earlier, but she’d shut me down.
Diesel was right though, we needed the intel only Becca could give us.
Like what the guy looked like, and whether he had any discernible tattoos. And everything he’d ever said to her.
“You can use mine,” Grey offered, but I was already lifting my ass from the seat to pull mine from my back pocket.
I slipped it to her between the seats, taking in her narrowed eyes.
She didn’t think it would be me who offered.
Why not?
It wasn’t like there was anything to find.
“Two, Seven, Four, One,” I told her as she took it. “That’s the code. Don’t forget to sign out and wipe the history.”
“No shit.”
I watched her in the rearview as her thumbs tapped over the screen, the blue light deepening the shadows of her sharply angled features.
Ava Jade Mason.
My Sparrow.
My undoing.
I couldn’t believe what went on with her and Diesel’s cop bait, and the only thing that kept me half-sane was thinking that she never would’ve gone through with it. That she knew she wouldn’t from the very fucking start, but needed to feel in control.
Like me.
Having that option in her back pocket and knowing that she could use it if she wanted to was what she needed to get through the rest of it all.
She chose us , I reminded myself, the sick feeling turning my stomach again.
I cracked the window, making Rook snort behind me, annoyed when some rain flung back at him without warning. But he didn’t tell me to roll it up.
Good, because I needed it.
It helped to distract myself with other thoughts. Like whether or not I should install some form of tracking device on the new cell phone I ordered for her late last night.
If I could get away with it, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but I knew she would strip the thing and search it inside and out. That was, if she even agreed to take it from me in the first place. It was a healthy step up from the usual burners. The newest model, actually.
Better even than my own phone.
At least now her stalker would have no access whatsoever to her number.
My teeth clamped tight at the reminder, and I breathed deeply through my nose of the rain-scented air to regain the calm I needed to get through this fucking meeting.
With any luck, the motherfucker who’d tried to inject her was already dead, but something told me it wasn’t that simple. Especially after what happened at Briar Hall this morning.
It could’ve been the Aces, sure. But that didn’t sit right.
Ava Jade slipped the phone back to me over the seat, our fingers brushing before she pulled back from the contact.
“Anything interesting?” I prodded.
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“ Sparrow… ”
She sighed, exasperated as she leaned back in her seat, swiping Rook’s flask away for a little swig. He didn’t seem bothered, but took it back from her as soon as she was finished. “Nothing from creepy stalker fucker if that’s what you’re wondering. He was a text guy though, remember?”
“ Was, ” I emphasized. “Not sure he’s going to like not being able to communicate with you anymore.”
“If he’s even alive,” Grey grumbled from the driver’s seat.
“Good,” Ava Jade said. “Either way I won’t have to deal with being skeeved out every fucking time my phone chimes.”
“This is it,” Grey said as he pulled us around the last bend in the road to the sleepy little building nestled in the woods. It was a ranger’s cabin once, before they built a more modern one thirty miles south.
No one used this one now except hikers looking for a night’s refuge or someplace warm and dry to escape a storm.
The shit brown siding was riddled with graffiti, but no gang tags.
None that mattered anyway. This was just as neutral as Nomansland and a meeting place we’d used on other occasions several times over the last two years.
Diesel was already there, sitting in a plateless black truck idling in the wide drive. It looked like Tiny was beside him in the passenger seat, though it was hard to tell in the rain, and as Grey pulled us around to the other side, we saw the nondescript dark green van next to him.
No doubt filled with at least five more Saints if not more than that.
This location made me uneasy. Unlike usual, we didn’t get the details ahead of time. Didn’t have a say. We got jack shit from Diesel, actually, besides the time and location at the last minute.
He didn’t want help setting it up, and he didn’t even reply to my text cautioning him against meeting right now. This soon after finding out about the snake.
We’d be showing them our cards instead of trying to use what we knew to figure out what cards they were trying to play.
Not to mention we had a dead Saint to bury, and I had it on good authority from Pinkie that Dies was told he should stay off his feet for at least ten days to let the knife wound to his Achilles heal.
I knew he wasn’t thrilled with what happened back at the Docks, but I had to wonder how long he intended to punish us.
I bent my head, grimacing as an ache formed in my skull.
“I still can’t believe you insisted on coming tonight,” I found myself saying out loud.
Diesel wasn’t going to like this, but he hadn’t said not to bring her. What he did say was to watch her. How else were we supposed to do that if he asked us all to come out here?
“This is what you wanted,” Ava Jade said plainly. “Remember?”
Grey flinched at that, but none of us contradicted her. Whether it was Grey who did the asking or not for her to take the trials, it was a fact that every single one of us wanted that same thing. It was better than the alternative.
“Get out,” I told her. “I have something for you in the back.”
I stepped out into the rain, bristling as the chilled droplets snaked through my hair, dripping down the back of my neck, bringing my focus back.
Her door opened, and she rushed to the trunk, squinting through the rain, her arms wrapped around herself as the rain soaked through her black long sleeve shirt.
I took out the vest I’d purchased for her more than a week ago, though it only just arrived this morning. It was the closest one to her size I could find. The adjustable straps should ensure it was a snug fit.
“Put this on.”
She looked between me and the bulletproof vest. She hadn’t been expecting this.
Her hesitation was making me grind my teeth again. They’d be worn down to stumps in no time if she kept being so damned stubborn about every little thing.
I lifted the edge of my grey t-shirt, showing her mine beneath it.
Everyone here would be wearing one tonight.
Except for Rook, who never wore one no matter how much we tried to push him into it.
He had the bullet holes to prove it, but not even those could persuade him.
He wore each one like a trophy. A time where death could’ve come for him but didn’t.
“Just put it on, Sparrow.”
She relented, stripping off her shirt without another word to lay it in the trunk, her skin reflecting the moonlight, bathed in rainwater. The tops of her breasts prickled with gooseflesh.
I adjusted my stance to block her from the view of the van as she turned around to slide her arms through. I helped her get it on and adjusted and then tugged her damp shirt back on over top of it.
Though nearly everyone here would be wearing one, it was bad form to show it. This was a courtesy meeting after all. Wearing a bulletproof vest meant you expected blood. And if you expected blood, you would often find it.