Chapter 12 – Ava Jade #2
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Grey,” Brianna said, her brown eyes following me as I approached with a raised chin. “But you just ruined a three hundred dollar shirt and?—”
Brianna gasped as I grabbed hold of her blonde ponytail, dragging her from her seat. She screamed, manicured nails scratching at my arm as I hauled her from the cafeteria. Not even feeling the shallow cuts she was digging into my forearm.
She tripped, screeching like a banshee all the way to the kitchen.
My spine tingled as I entered, a rush of power going straight to my head.
“Get out,” I barked at the cooking staff, and they hesitated before seeing my entourage follow inside behind me and scattered like rats.
“ Stupid bitch ,” Brianna was shrieking between some very unattractive sounds as I hauled her size-two ass to the row of gas burners and switched the closest one on.
I put her face to it. So close the peach fuzz on her cheeks would be singed off. “What did you put in the soup?” I demanded.
She screamed.
“ What did you put in it? ” I repeated, my darkness surging in full now. Demanding blood. Demanding pain. My arm holding her to the burner shook with it.
Soon, I wouldn’t be in control anymore. Any second now.
I pushed her closer still, and she let out a cry. Her hair came loose from the ponytail, and I curled a fist into it, the long strands almost in the fire now.
“ Laxatives ,” she managed and I brought her back an inch. “They were just laxatives! I was trying to make you shit yourself. Fuck!”
My face screwed up.
Laxatives?
That was the best she could do?
Christ.
So pathetic.
“P-Please, I won’t ever?—”
The smell of burnt hair reached me and I recoiled from it, releasing her a second too late as her head burst into orange flame. Her hairspray drawing the fire to her like spilled gasoline.
She howled like a dying cat as she stood there, rooted to the spot in shock as the flames engulfed her head in a golden crown. Not the kind she wanted, but the kind she deserved.
“B!” someone cried, and I saw blondie numero uno rushing past the guys and into the kitchen, the other one hot on her tail. Blondie numero dos fumbled to get the extinguisher loose from the wall as the other one slapped uselessly at her friend’s fiery hair.
Brianna continued to blare like an air raid siren until she passed out, slumping to the floor. Blondie doused her with the fire extinguisher, covering her in plumes of white until she came to again, coughing and rubbing at the chalky residue on her face. Struggling to sit up.
I pushed the blonde on the floor away to kneel next to Brianna, grabbing her by the shirt to haul her to her ass.
Her hair was gone, all except for a few tufts of blonde still clinging to her scalp.
Mild red burns crisscrossed over her flesh, but they would heal. Probably wouldn’t even scar. Too bad.
Brianna clutched my hands holding her shirt, blinking past tears to stare into my eyes. Fear. She reeked of it. She was so terrified I was sure she’d piss herself. I’d be impressed if she didn’t.
“P-please,” she started, her lips quivering, but I didn’t want to hear another word out of her mouth. She needed to shut up before my darkness clawed its way up my throat and ate her for fucking breakfast.
“If you ever come after me again, I’ll end you, bitch.”
She began to shake.
“Nod that you understand.”
She nodded.
I released her shirt, throwing her to her friends. “Get her out of my sight.”
They dragged her pathetic ass from the cafeteria and my darkness snarled, rebelling at my mercy. But she wasn’t worth it. Fucking laxatives? What a joke.
I closed my eyes, cracked my neck, and rolled my shoulders back, inviting a foul smelling breath into my lungs.
When I opened my eyes again it was to see the guys standing near the entrance to the kitchen.
Corvus stared openly, analyzing my loss of control.
Grey’s mouth was gaping.
Rook had his ringed fingers clasped to his mouth, dark eyes glittering. He looked like a deranged kid with fifty bucks in a candy store.
“Dibs,” he said, biting on his lip ring as he strolled forward, tugging the plain silver ring from his pinkie finger.
“ Rook ,” I warned as he bent to one knee.
“Marry me?”
I shook my head, ignoring the way my belly flipped.
“You’re an idiot,” I said, but I plucked the ring from his fingertips as I walked past him, slipping it onto my index finger since it was the only one it’d fit. “But thanks for the ring.”
I got three steps past them before my phone chimed, making my darkness make a resurgence to the surface. It could only be Becca. I’d just emailed her. She must’ve replied to…
“Fuck,” I said on an exhale, my insides twisting as I stared at the blemish on my very new phone.
An email gleamed on the screen in vivid color.
To: Ava Jade Mason
From: [email protected]
Subject: Miss me?
Why’d you let them put her out? You should’ve let her burn, my love. She deserved it.
P.S. I see you haven’t been listening. Perhaps you thought my warnings were only idle threats. That was your mistake. Now you’ve forced me to do what you should’ve from the start. Say your goodbyes, Ava Jade.
Ice skated down my spine.
A hand on my shoulder had me tensing up, dropping low, widening my stance, on the offensive.
“Whoa, AJ, it’s me,” Grey said, his eyes searching my face. Falling to the phone clenched tight in my hand. “Is it him?”
Slowly, I scanned the kitchen, finding what I was looking for.
The blinking red light of a security camera in the corner across the room.
I’d thrown a blade before I was even consciously aware I’d drawn one.
It embedded in the glass lens of the camera and sparks dripped down to the tile floor as a little puff of smoke curled up from the ruin.
“He has access to the cameras,” I spat, my skin crawling so badly I wanted to soak in boiling water.
Grey took the phone from my hand, and I didn’t stop him as Corvus and Rook rushed to crowd him, reading the email with murderous stares.
“He’s alive,” Rook growled while Corvus stormed out of the kitchen with his face set in a myriad of hard lines, pale, with a vein pulsing in his neck.
“Grey,” Corvus hollered back over his shoulder. “ With me. Now. ”
“Stay with her,” Grey told Rook before handing my phone back and rushing to follow Corvus. Likely to interrogate the office staff and fingerprint the security office.
“Come here, Ghost,” Rook said, but I didn’t want his comfort.
“He needs to fucking die,” I gritted out past clenched teeth. I wanted to stay angry at the Crows, but I wouldn’t just sit here and let this piece of shit threaten them. They were mine to be angry at. And I protected what belonged to me.
Rook nodded solemnly, his dark eyes looking almost black now. He curled a hand over my shoulder, and the small contact made me flinch and sag, needing more. No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it.
I let him pull me close, closing my eyes against the hollow of his throat as he trapped me in his arms. “I know,” he told me, squeezing tight. His scent filled my nose, setting my soul alight and soothing it all at once. I couldn’t get enough of it. “He will. I promise you that.”