Chapter 9 – Becca
BECCA
I couldn’t seem to get his hair right. The way it sometimes fell over to the side of his forehead, casting a shadow over his brown eyes. I dipped the thin brush back into one of the brown colors I’d made especially for this purpose, and painted in the lowlights.
A sour taste in the back of my throat made me reach for the gin and lemonade on my bedside table, taking a long swallow. Cringing.
The ice melted hours ago, and it was piss warm. I knocked it back onto the table, trying to swallow away the taste.
A soft double rap on my closed door sent a shiver rolling up my spine. “Axel?”
I winced at the panic in my tone.
“Just checking. Thought I heard something.”
“I’m good,” I replied, the tension across my back starting to relax again.
“You should try to get some sleep.”
“On my way,” I lied, tapping my phone screen.
It was almost three in the morning and there was still no way I’d be able to sleep. At least not until this was finished.
“All right,” Axel said through the door. “I’m here if you need me. I’ll do your check-ins for the rest of the night.”
I rolled my eyes, but shouted a polite thanks back to him before I heard him retreat back to his place on the couch and the TV turned back on to a low drone.
Grey asked me to check in every hour on the hour. He said it was to make sure I was good, but I knew it was mostly because they wanted updates on Ava Jade. If she was here. To confirm she wasn’t.
I bit the inside of my cheek, sighing at the watercolor pad in my lap and the face staring up at me from it.
Jericho.
It was him all right, even though it wasn’t quite finished.
What I’d managed to remember surprised me.
The exact cut of his jaw. The way his eyes slanted down at the edges, just slightly.
The tiny scar at the side of his straight nose.
The way his brows arched, in a way that most girls would kill for.
And his lips. Full. Soft.
I shut my eyes against a wave of nausea, evicting the line of thought from my mind, convinced I was the most naive bitch on the fucking planet.
He used me.
Betrayed me.
Manipulated me.
Jericho almost talked me into hurting the Crows. Into hurting Ava Jade. And I almost let him. For what?
My mom was a big girl. She knew what she was getting herself into when she let herself get mixed up with Damien St. Vincent.
She knew what could happen and she did it anyway.
It didn’t make me hate the guy or the criminal organization he stood for any less, but I could see now what I couldn’t before—my mother wasn’t blameless.
She chose to be involved with him, even knowing it could mean my losing her. Growing up without her.
Love did fucked up things to people.
I didn’t even love Jericho and look how messed up that shit got.
Fuck love. And fuck monogamy. Fuck the whole damn institution of it all. I’d marry when I was forty and found the perfect dick, with a padded bank account to go with it and not a second sooner.
I thought Jericho loved me, or at least that he was headed in that direction. But you didn’t play with people you loved like dolls, only to toss them in the trash once they’d served their purpose.
If what Grey was thinking was true, then Jericho really hadn’t felt anything at all for me. I was a tool. Something to be used to get closer to his true mark. My best friend.
My fist clenched around the thin brush in my hand, and I felt it snap in my palm, that acid-eaten pit of guilt in my stomach growing even more.
“Fuck.”
The alarm on my phone went off, but I ignored the reminder to send a text check-in to Grey. Let Axel do it.
I tossed the broken paint brush to the trash bin in the corner of my room, missing it by a foot.
I snorted at myself. At how useless I was in this whole mess.
I would’ve sent my ass home too. What good was I?
I couldn’t shoot a gun. Couldn’t throw a knife.
I couldn’t even hold my breakfast down. Grey didn’t need to know it, but I’d vomited twice on my way out of the Docks, escorted by Diesel’s men back to Sanctum.
But I needed to know. I needed to see Jericho’s face. I didn’t think there was any way I’d ever feel safe again. Knowing he was dead would be the only way.
He is dead .
He had to be.
Then why are you painting him?
I lifted my phone, thumbing back to messenger to send off another message to Ava Jade. We knew the guys had her phone, but she could still check messenger without it.
REBECCA HART
You’ve made your point, babe. PLEASE come back now? They sent Axel McFuckMeEyes here to keep an eye on me. Save me?
REBECCA HART
I’m worried about you. So are your guys.
REBECCA HART
Love you, bitch.
I scrolled back up through the fifteen other unanswered messages I’d sent. Re-reading each one only compounded the cold dread in my blood until I needed to pull the covers around myself to stave off the chill.
When she got back, I’d help her disappear if she wanted to. We could both vanish. Get as far away from Thorn Valley as we could. A large cash advance from Daddy’s credit card to get us started and then we’d figure it out from there.
Fuck college. If Daddy couldn’t find me, then he couldn’t make me go to MIT. It would hurt to let the CalArts scholarship go to someone else, but…
I could get a job.
I almost laughed at the image of me in some fast food uniform, apron stained with grease. Ava Jade wielding a stainless steel spatula like a weapon of mass destruction. Slaying burgers all day.
We could do it.
If she wanted.
I flicked a fresh brush over Jericho’s lash line, pretending I was painting literally anyone else as I filled in his short lashes.
A door opened outside my room, and my heart lifted, paint brush stilling in my hand as I listened keenly.
I’d already run out there four times thinking I might’ve heard Ava Jade come in only to be disappointed. I wasn’t going out there again. Not to have Axel fuss over me and ask me ten more times if I wanted to talk.
The low rumble of two male voices came muffled through my door and I sagged, discarding the paint brush on my duvet to push my hair away from my face with a huff.
I stared down at the painting, deciding it was as good as it was going to get. I snatched it up, accidentally tossing the covers over the still wet paints. Shit.
A loud thud outside made me jump, my pulse skittering.
I rushed to the door, but my hand paused on the handle, listening to what was unmistakably the sounds of a struggle on the other side. An icy cold stole over my chest, and I held my breath.
Another crash.
Axel cursing.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t think.
Shit. Fuck.
No.
No. No. No.
“Becca, get out of here!” came Axel’s roaring command from the other side of the door, and I broke free of the ice coating my skin. My hand shook where it held the painting.
I dashed for my bed and the phone I’d left there, but the unmistakable sound of a silenced gunshot whispered in my ears and I stopped.
The painting.
What if…
Oh god.
I looked around, the panic a raging storm in my chest. A drumbeat echo in my skull.
I raced back across the room, my stare fixed on the massive self-portrait hanging on my wall. My shaking fingers lifted the base of the canvas and I shoved the sheet of paper with Jericho’s face on it into the hollow behind the painting, running back to my bed.
Phone.
I threw the duvet cover back, rustling in the heavy fabric to find it, a scream rising in my chest.
Where the fuck was my…
The door to my room opened, and I froze, my legs heavier than lead as I looked up. Fingers of dread crawled up the back of my neck as I recognized the man beneath the mask. Behind the contact lenses. Under the dye coating each strand of his hair. I’d know that smirk anywhere.
“Miss me, darlin?’ ”