Chapter 10 – Corvus
CORVUS
“ T he fuck you think you’re doing?” I asked Rook as he pushed the passenger side door of the Rover open.
He hobbled out into the parking lot at Briar Hall, stretching out his lower back with a groan.
“I can’t sit anymore, man.”
“Too fucking bad, park your ass on the hood until I get back.”
“Nah. I’m with you.”
I shook my head, pushing down the swell of heat in my chest. It’s been there ever since we found Julia’s body, just below the surface, aching for release. Everything I’d worked almost my whole damn life to swallow—to control—was teetering on the edge of release. And no one wanted to see that shit.
A long breath and I sent my gaze skyward to the slowly brightening sky. The navy blanket of night already turning the purple of a fresh bruise. In an hour it would shift to shades of rust and roses.
Another night without Ava Jade.
She wasn’t in any place I thought to look for her, and I’d considered every fucking possibility.
Diesel continued the patrol, rotating out the most tired Saints for fresher stock, but they’d searched every nook and cranny of Thorn Valley and had even sent a contingent of Kings to Lennox to check there, too. It was where she’d grown up. Maybe she’d wanted to go home.
They didn’t turn anything up, but as soon as we were done here, that was where Rook and I were headed. I wanted to walk the train tracks. Check the trailer she grew up in. Her school. Find her old friend Dom. And that instructor she had a thing with. Kit?
If she went to him…
I’d fucking kill him.
“In and out,” I told Rook, jerking my chin to the back entrance of Briar Hall.
He slammed the door to the Rover.
“Hey. Use the crutches.”
Rook’s back tensed, but a second later he reached into the open window and dragged the crutches out, a dark shadow over his eyes as he struggled to get them into place.
I worked to keep my pace slow so Rook could keep up, even though it felt like wading through fucking water. I just wanted to get this over with.
Grey said Becca and Axel missed the last text check-in and neither was answering their phone.
It meant one of two things. Either they both fell asleep, which I was banking on, or they were fucking.
I wouldn’t put either past Axel. And I had it on good authority Becca had a thing for dangerous men.
And apparently, also for older guys if what people said about her and the substitute English teacher last year was true.
We took the elevator up to the third floor.
A text came in from Grey along the way, and I growled as I took it out. He was probably texting to say they finally checked- in and this whole goddamned side trip was a total waste of our fucking time.
Why he was even so insistent on sending Axel with her was beyond me. There was no danger, not for Becca, not anymore.
GREY
You there yet? Still haven’t heard anything.
CORVUS
Just got here? Find anything on the cams?
GREY
Nothing.
“Fuck.”
“What?” Rook asked as the elevator doors slid open on the third floor.
I pocketed my phone. “Grey. He still hasn’t found anything.”
What good was having access to all the local security cameras and the ability to hack traffic cams if it gave us absolutely nothing?
Sparrow, where are you?
My stomach twisted as we made our way down the quiet corridor. So quiet I had to wonder what fucking day it was. A weekday? Weekend? I’d lost track.
Either way, the dead silence only broken by the sound of our footfalls and Rook’s crutches clicking against the marble tile was enough to set my teeth on edge.
Something wasn’t right.
I lifted a hand to signal Rook to slow down, stay quiet.
I turned back to see him ditching his crutches against the wall in favor of his gun and a nasty limp. I drew mine, too, flicking the safety off.
Rook nodded to the door at the end of the hall.
Fire raced over the back of my neck when I saw what he was looking at. It was open. Just slightly. The low lighting from inside stained a slice of the floor with its hazy orange glow.
I quietly fingered my phone back out of my pocket, moving steadily, stealthily forward.
Rook knocked into my elbow as he passed me, rushing toward the door.
“ We need to call for backup ,” I hissed, making a grab for him, but he was already gone, all attempts to remain silent abandoned as he shoved into the room.
I followed right on his tail, sweeping the hall, the living room, the kitchen.
“ Axel ,” Rook roared, running to the kitchen, almost slipping on the trail of blood mopped over the floor from the living room to the coffee bar. “Watch my six.”
I swept the rest of the living room and kitchen, kicking Ava Jade’s door in to sweep the inside of her room and bathroom before returning to the kitchen where Rook was hunched over Axel’s still form.
He lightly ran his thumb and index finger over Axel’s eyelids, shutting them. Blood puddled around Axel’s head. He was shot in the temple. The bruising around his jaw and over his knuckles told me he didn’t go down without a fight.
“Fucker didn’t deserve this,” Rook said on a sigh, pushing back to standing.
My gaze fixed on the door across the living room and the blood in my veins went cold.
Rook looked there, too.
“Rebecca?” I called, raising my gun back to eye level.
My phone started to ring in my pocket, but I ignored it as Rook and I pushed forward, stepping over Axel, around the kitchen island, until we were standing at her door.
I met Rook’s stare. He nodded.
Ready.
I kicked the door down and we ran in, guns raised.
“ Becca ,” Rook called out, putting his gun away to rush to her ..
What the fuck happened?
Why?
Who?
I watched Rook ball up a wad of what looked like satin pajamas and push them against Rebecca’s chest, his hands immediately soaked red.
Her skin glowed pale white in the lamplight. If you didn’t know she usually had a perfect golden tan, you could almost believe she was asleep. With her eyelids fluttered gently closed. Her lips parted just slightly. Arms splayed above her head.
I failed her.
Rook slapped Rebecca’s cheek, leaving a red stain behind on her skin. “Hey!” he shouted at her placid face. “Becca, wake up .”
“She’s gone, Rook.”
“No she’s not.”
He slapped her again, pressing so hard against the bullet wound in her chest that I’d be shocked if he wasn’t cracking ribs.
“Why are you just standing there?” Rook growled at me. “Help me.”
I couldn’t look at her anymore, my rage-stained thoughts making ration an elusive thing I couldn’t quite grasp.
Come on, Corv. Make sense of this.
Rebecca should’ve been safe. Her boyfriend was dead with all the other Aces.
Who else would want her gone?
Diesel?
No.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. He wouldn’t hurt someone Ava Jade cared about. Not anymore. Not now that she was one of us.
Then who?
Why?
My phone rang again, jostling my line of thought.
It cracked against the opposite wall of Rebecca’s room, shattering onto the ground after I threw it. I didn’t remember deciding to throw it.
“Corvus!”
Whoever did this had to have wanted her dead badly. No. Needed her dead.
Why?
Why?
“Corvus!”
“What?” I bellowed, my nostril flaring as I lost my train of thought again, ripples of vicious rage rolling up my arms.
“Call an ambulance, man. The fuck you doing?”
I blinked, my red-stained gaze refocusing on Rook. On Becca. He tipped her chin back and blew into her lungs. Rebecca’s fingers twitched.
Jesus fucking Christ.
She’s still alive.
“Corv!”
I raced to the busted up remnants of my phone, kicking them aside with a curse.
“Back pocket,” Rook shouted between rounds of blowing air into the half dead girl at his knees.
I found his phone, but my fingers paused on the dialpad.
Ambulance?
I couldn’t call an ambulance. Protocol was always the vet.
Hospital records were too difficult to scrub and surgeons too wealthy to afford to pay off.
“ Now, Corv.” Rook commanded, his black eyes fixing on mine with the promise of violence. “There’s no time. She won’t make it to the vet.”
No. She wouldn’t.
And we couldn’t let her die.
“I need you to hold this.”
I bent, ignoring the stab of pain in my abdomen as I took over holding the wad of soiled satin to Rebecca’s chest while he focused on getting air to her brain.
“Hold on,” I told Rebecca, as if by commanding her alone, I could will her not to die. Not to leave the friend who still needed her. “You don’t get to die. Not today.”
I dialed, lifting the receiver to my ear, ready to threaten the worst kinds of violence if the ambulance didn’t arrive in the next two fucking minutes.