12. Jax
12
JAX
T he ground swayed beneath me, though I wasn’t half as drunk as I pretended to be while I sang one of Xoan Kennedy’s songs—Rippton’s resident rockstar. Was I exhausted? Absolutely. I hadn’t slept while I finished off my drawing of Waverly, slipped out of her bed, and nicked the kit I needed to suspend myself from the side of the building.
Then, before dawn even thought about cracking her bright eye over the horizon, I got to work with my whitewash, putting together the shadows I needed for the outline. Once the ground work was done, Waverly’s portrait came together as light crested over the campus at first light.
My methods were far from the usual, but then nothing about me constituted around the grounds of normality.
While I painted and doused myself in the occasional beer to ensure I both looked and smelled the part, Crush and a few of the frat boys I’d owe later did a little job for me. Hacking the twins and claiming back the intellectual property that should never have fallen into their hands in the first place was no small job, but they got it done by the time I finished painting and started singing.
Loud, off key and with Xoan’s express permission to use his unreleased, brand new work.
Apparently artist respected artist, because his photographer set up to grab first photos before the crowd gathered with their accumulated weekend hangover that turned up on the single’s track cover that released fifteen minutes ago.
When my voice cracked and gave out, and I ran out of beer I never drank anyway, Waverly gave me a small, shy smile back that hit my heart dead center. I swung my legs up over the edge of the building, unable to tear my eyes off her. My knees ached but I didn’t care.
I tossed my phone into the sling I used when I painted and lowered it as music blared out across the quad, killing conversation that crept up. Xoan’s lullaby that would forever be linked with Waverly now, and probably be a number one hit across the country bearing her likeness by the end of the day.
Watching from above I got my stalker self on as Waverly made her way forward to take the offering I lowered. Her head was lowered as she took the phone, but she never lowered the sound, only stared down at the screen.
My heart lodged in my chest. I fucking well knew it was the best work I’d ever created in my life, but that didn’t mean she would. And just because my plan of toddler distraction method worked to keep the twins off her back didn’t mean she had to agree with what I’d done.
I sensed their eyes on me the whole night while they watched me work from across the quad all night instead of heading up to her room to torment her for not doing what they asked while Crush’s boys raided their rooms and removed every single copy of her tape.
That included the ones on their phones through various dark web and hacking, shit I didn’t get into, nor did I want to know about.
Both the twins and Crush’s team would exact a penance, and I’d have to pay both. But for Waverly, I’d do it, and I didn’t care what it would cost me. She’d been through enough.
Right now, my pleasure came from the fact that she had no idea how free she was.
My girl finally turned her face up toward me. When I might have expected embarrassment or anger, I was far from ready for the tear streaked cheeks, the liquid rawness in her eyes shattered me apart and reformed me in an instant.
Nothing more—no words, no false gestures, because she wasn’t that sort of person.
Waverly killed the song, placed the phone in the harness and gave it a tug. I reeled the ropes up, never taking my eyes off my girl as she turned and threaded her way back through the cloud, pausing by the blonde I figured was the housemate.
They talked for a second, half of campus watching the interaction and filming everything, but Waverly didn’t seem to notice or care for the moment.
Then she walked away without another word.
When my phone reached the top, I stared down at the single message she’d left on the screen.
Thank you.
My heart nearly burst out of my chest. No ranting, no raging, no questions. Just acceptance, because that’s who, underneath all the layers and all the bullshit pressure the twins and everyone else in her life seemed to put on her, Waverly actually was.
I’d found her.
And that, for me, was enough.
While my display might have been enough for Waverly, it wasn’t sufficient to appease the twins. At least, not as far as I was concerned. I might have freed her from their wrath, but that didn’t mean there was a free pass all over. Their wrath turned elsewhere and that place was to me.
A fist slammed into my kidney and when I choked on my next exhale, I was surprised not to see blood splatter the filthy, cement floor in front of me.
Random, watered down stains of previous victims littered the ground I stared at while boots and knees laid into my sides. I studied each with a detached sort of vision, floating inside my own body rather than outside it, which might have been a blessing.
Instead, I experienced every sliver of pain that rained down from the twins first hand as they moved with the perfect unison of people who worked side by side for as many years as they’d been alive.
“Wouldn't it have just been that much easier to let her pay off her own penance, art child?” One of them–my vision was too blurry to deal with putting identical facial features together–cooed, tipping my head upside down and smiling.
A glob of spittle landed on my nose and trickled to my lips.
I fought the urge to vomit bile in his face, but I wanted to shower and crawl back to Waverly, and sink into her arms. After I passed out. Definitely after.
“So much easier. So when we come for her again, and we will come, as we aren’t done, yet , then we will rip her apart a shred at a time.” The other one spoke over his twin, and I was still confused as shit on who spoke.
What didn’t confuse me was their intent. Just their why.
“She’s a random on a scholarship. You’ve got fucking everything,” I managed to wheeze out as a boot caressed the lump forming over my kidney and pressed down.
A thin, high sound filled the warehouse, and I vaguely realized it tore from my own throat. Blood dripped onto the floor as I stared at the cement again.
Oh. There it is.
“But we’re calling in a debt.” Kash–I thought it was Kash–smiled as he scraped his fingers through my drool and blood and swiped it over my face.
“She’s paid whatever the fuck you think she owes you,” I gasped when my body recovered the ability for speech.
A polished boot tipped me backward and I landed on my damaged organs, praying they still worked the way they were supposed to. The twins exchanged an amused glance over my prone body.
“Oh, my dear, beautiful, oh so tortured artist. Whoever said it was her debt we called in?”
They left me lying there with the dreams of a beautful girl with curves in all the right places and a sense of horribly wrongness unfurling in my gut while I couldn’t even stand on my own two fucking feet.
Warm hands gripped my body and hauled me upright, managing to hit every place that hurt and doubled the pain barrier until I slammed my mouth shut and by some miracle managed not to vomit my pain onto the bodies of my saviors.
Blacking out that might have been a different matter. My vision frayed at the edges, leaving me in a permanent tunnel as I staggered toward a blue sports car I didn't recognize.
“Fuck, they did a number on you.”
I managed a nod and a grunt as Crush stretched me across the back seat with his team mate who looked ridiculously sized for the car. No one bothered with a seat belt, and I supposed that after the beating the twins threw me, it wasn’t like a car accident could do that much more damage.
The two up front chattered quietly for a moment, but their words went by too fast for my addled brain to keep up. After that I stopped noticing much at all apart from the nauseating sway of the vehicle as it moved beneath me, drifting around corners under Crush’s hard hand. Intermittent street lights flashed overhead through the thin sliver of heavily tinted windows against a darkened backdrop.
I ached every-fucking-where and I was pretty sure I both drooled and bled all over the leather of my friend’s backseat.
His words rolled around and around in my head as the coupe pulled up sharply.
They did a job on you.
I reacted way too late.
“Yeah. They did,” I croaked, sliding a little in the damp, cramped space.
“Jesus, you’re a mess.” Crush sighed, passing a flask filled with something astringent to my cracked lips that tasted like moonshine as he settled my ass on something cold and hard. “You got the right kid organized for this?”
Someone beyond me agreed, and even though I could barely see, I knew where we were.
The medical unit at Rippton U had to be one of the most well equipped in the country. It was like Candyland for students with all the kit of a fully equipped hospital. MRI, CT, CAT scans, x-ray… Whatever the med students needed to Frankenstein my ass up. The kid in the white coat wasn't a doctor or anything legit–yet–as he offered to stitch me up and pump me full of drugs.
I didn't want any of it.
“I need to get to her.”
Crush’s hand clamped over my shoulder. “Not until we see how much damage they did to you.”
“This is urgent.”
One of his mates sneaked around behind me. “So is my need to piss, dickwad.”
“Delightful.” I let the sneer fall out of the corner of my mouth, slurring a little as the hit of shitty alcohol burst through my system. I took another slug and managed to swallow another decent mouthful of the vile juice. “This is shit. Who made it?”
Crush bent to look into my face. “Mafia boy on the third floor. Room next door to yours.”
That would be the local don’s princeling who thought his shit didn’t stink. Falcon Gianio. Heard he was a good shot when it counted though and didn’t flinch from a fight. Points in his corner. Still…
“Fucking figures.”
The smile dropped off Crush’s face. “What did the twins want?”
I shook my head. “It wasn't about me. They wanted her.” Everyone and everything behind me stopped.
“The fuck did she do?”
I shook my head and the whole room swayed. “This is why it's fucking urgent, Napoleon.” I waved the med student back again when he came at me. Something on my face must have finally registered and Crush held up his hand. That, or my use of his first name damn well worked. Blessedly, the room stopped moving. Bonus . “It's not something she did. They're trying to take someone else’s penance out on her.”
“Who?”
“Her brother.”
Napoleon Crush stood tall, every inch of humor dropping from his face. “And now they've taken it out on you, too.”
I shrugged. “Add it to my tally.”
“Don't do that,” he snapped.
“Frat boy.”
“Fucker.”
I hefted an eyebrow that weighed as much as my damn soul. “What, you gonna help again? I can't pay your man right now.”
He shook his head. “Bullshit. You’re worth as much as the rest of us.”
“I'm not worth half what you are.”
The med student started to needle and thread my back without jabbing me with anesthetic.
Kinky fucker.
Damn good thing I liked pain.
Crush studied my face. “Where’s this kid live?”
I shrugged. “He’s military. Ex. I know fuck all about him.
He rolled a shoulder and pointed to someone beyond me. “You're on it.”
The burley bastard smiled when I turned around, earning myself a hiss from baby student doctor dude. “All right.”
“I'm in.” Crush turned back to me. “We’ll have the info in an hour. You coming?”
I stared at him while something warm dripped down my back. “How come the glamour boys have to be fucking heroes?”
He smiled thinly. "You're not that far off it yourself.” He cuffed my chin lightly where a bump formed that should have been there.
“Ouch,” I deadpanned when it didn't even sting.
Crush smiled mirthlessly. “That's my boy.”
I tried to flip him the bird and passed out.