Chapter 4 #2
“Were they supposed to be hard to get out of?” he asks innocently.
The guy lets out a frustrated growl and shakes his gun at Xave menacingly. “Who are you?”
“Jonathan Greely,” he says in that same conversational tone from before.
It takes a second to remember that he told me he used a fake name to get into the rave, and based on how none of the thugs around us challenge his answer, they have no idea who he really is.
I flick my gaze to Xave, and he’s fucking smiling at our captors like he’s making small talk at a meet and greet.
How the actual fuck is he so calm right now? I feel like I’m half a second away from either passing out or pissing myself, and he’s as chill as can be.
“We know that,” the giant with the gun says irritably, confirming that they have no idea that’s not Xave’s name. “But who are you?” He flicks the gun at me. “How do you know him?”
“I don’t,” Xave says, and his tone sounds bored now.
“You expect me to believe that?” He aims the gun at Xave’s head again. “Why were you at the rave?”
“Because I was invited,” he says slowly, like he’s talking to a toddler and not a behemoth of a guy holding a gun to his head.
“Why were you there alone?” The guy behind me asks gruffly.
“Because my date never showed.”
“Why were you standing by the wall the entire time?” The guy behind him gives his arms a rough yank.
“Because I was enjoying the music and it was a good place to stand,” Xave says in that same calm, bored voice.
“You went into the back room with him,” gun-guy accuses. “You expect us to believe that you don’t know each other?”
“The whole point of going in there with him is because I don’t know him,” Xave says, sounding amused. “I had a chance to hook up with someone I just spent the last few hours fangirling over. I wasn’t about to pass that up.”
“Who is he?” Gun-guy swings his weapon so it’s pointed at my face. “Who is he?” he repeats when I don’t answer right away.
“I-I don’t know,” I stammer.
“Why did you go into the back room with him?” the guy behind me demands as he gives me a quick kick in the back of the thigh.
It isn’t hard, but the suddenness of the move startles me, and I let out another pathetic cry and jerk like he just electrocuted me.
“Why did you go into the backroom with him?” gun-guy repeats in a menacing tone.
“Because he’s hot and I wanted to suck his dick,” I blurt out, my eyes locked on the gun that’s still pointing at my face.
“We don’t have time for this,” the guy behind Xave says irritably. “Let’s get what we need, then deal with them.”
“Fine,” gun-guy says, and by the tightness of his voice, it’s obvious he’s not happy with that suggestion.
“This is what’s going to happen,” he says, his focus back on us and his gun still pointing between my eyes.
“You’re going to transfer the fee you were paid for the job to the account we give you.
If you don’t, I’ll kill you. If you try anything, I’ll kill you.
” He takes a step closer so he's only a few feet in front of us. “Got it?”
I nod, not trusting my voice since my throat is so tight I doubt I could get a single word out right now.
“Don’t try anything stupid,” gun-guy says menacingly.
I can only stare down the barrel of his gun as the guy behind me comes into my field of view, an open laptop in his hands.
I blink at the laptop a few times, my mind spinning as my body goes cold with fear.
Are they going to let us go if I transfer the money to them? Or are they going to kill us as soon as they have what they need?
I’m still trying to process everything that’s going on when there’s a flash of movement beside me. Before I can fully register what’s happening, Xave breaks the hold his captor has on him and lunges at gun-guy.
The men around are momentarily stunned by the move, and that gives Xave enough time to get his hands on the gun and literally twist it out of gun-guy’s grip.
Crack. Crack.
One after the other, gun-guy and the man who was behind Xave both drop to the ground.
Holy shit. Xave just shot them.
Neither man is moving. Did he kill them?
Tearing my gaze from their bodies, I look back up at Xave as he points the gun at the guy still holding the laptop.
“Don’t even think about pissing me off,” Xave says in a cold, emotionless voice that sends a quick shiver up my spine.
He looks like a completely different person from the guy I’ve gone to school with for the past three and a half years.
His posture is casual, and his hand is steady as he keeps the gun leveled at our captor’s head.
There’s also no emotion on his face, but the really freaky part is his eyes.
His gaze is as empty as his expression and as emotionless as his voice.
There’s no life left in them, and that’s a thousand times more terrifying than if he were crashing out.
“Give the laptop to him,” Xave says.
The guy’s hands are shaking as he extends the computer to me, and mine are shaking just as hard as I take it.
“How many of you are there?” Xave asks.
“Three,” the guy croaks.
Crack.
I jump a mile at the gunshot and almost drop the laptop as the guy in front of me falls to the ground with a strangled scream and starts rolling around and grabbing at his leg. Blood pours out of a wound on his thigh and quickly soaks into the dirty ground.
Jesus H Christ. Xave just shot the guy like it was nothing.
“I told you not to piss me off,” Xave says, his tone shifting from blank to unbothered, like he didn’t just shoot three people in the last thirty seconds. “How many of you are there?”
The guy is too busy writhing on the ground to answer, but instead of asking again, Xave shifts the gun so it’s pointing at the ground beside him.
Crack.
I jump another mile as a tuft of grass and dirt explodes out of the ground only inches from the guy’s head.
“How many of you are there?” Xave asks in that same unbothered tone. “Don’t make me ask again, because the next one isn’t going into the dirt.”
“Four,” the guy croaks.
“Are you lying to me?”
“No, I swear.”
“Good answer.”
Crack.
“Holy shit,” I half squeal, half shriek as the guy jerks like he was zapped with a live wire, then stops moving as a pool of blood gathers on the ground around his head.
My mind is still reeling as my stomach roils, and I hastily look away from the bodies of our captors and glance at Xave.
In an instant, the cold and almost robotic man who executed three people like it’s something he’s done a dozen times melts away, and the life comes back to his eyes as his demeanor shifts from predator who doesn’t play to a normal person who did what he had to do.
I blink at him like a moron as he crosses the distance between us in three long strides and kneels in front of me, the gun at his side and pointed at the ground.
“You’re okay,” he says in a soothing tone. “Pull in a deep breath for me.”
I immediately suck in a breath, but it’s like I forget what to do next and just hold it with my chest and cheeks puffed out.
A part of me knows I should be terrified of Xave, considering what I just saw him do and how easily he did it, but I’m not. He did what I couldn’t, and for some crazy reason, that actually helps calm some of my rising panic.
“Now let it out,” he says softly when I continue to hold my breath and stare at him like a puffer fish.
I do as he says, and more of my faculties come back as the worst of the shock melts away with my exhale.
“We need to get out of the open,” he explains as he slides his arm around my back and helps me to my feet.
Still clutching the laptop like it’s a shield, I let Xave drag me over to the side of the cabin and deposit me against the wall next to the still-open cellar door.
“Stay here,” he says when I’m stable enough to stand on my own. “I’m going to clear the house and do a quick perimeter check. Get behind the door and hide if you see anyone who isn’t me. Got it?”
I nod, and a second later, Xave disappears around the side of the house.
Pressing my back against the rough wood of the cabin wall, I try to slow my breathing so I don’t hyperventilate and keep my eyes on the ground in front of me as my brain spins and stalls.
What the actual fuck just happened? How the hell did Xave know how to disarm that guy like that?
And how could he just shoot all three of them without flinching?
Has he killed people before? Is that why he’s so unbothered after dropping three guys while I barely held onto my sanity and was about to lose my ever-loving mind just from watching him do it?
Are the rumors about him and his cousins true? I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years about how the Hawthorne cousins always seem to find themselves in the center of trouble, and that all four of them have a body count that has nothing to do with how many people they’ve slept with.
I’ve always assumed the stories were either lies or massive exaggerations of shit that actually went down to make them seem more badass and to deter people from fucking with them. Is it possible they’re true?
One of the things about our school that’s out of the norm is that there’s an unnaturally high crime rate among the student body. Theft, extortion, blackmail, attempted murder, even actual murder, aren’t rare events, and it’s one of those things that everyone knows but no one talks about.
The other unique thing about our school is that there’s not a lot of punishment for said crimes, and for the most part, the school is perfectly happy to let the frats and the families of the students involved handle things however they see fit.
Now that I’ve seen what Xave is capable of, I don’t doubt that every rumor I’ve heard about him is true.
Still holding the damn laptop against my chest like it’s my security blanket, I sink down the wall and sit on the dirty ground as the world around me spins and the edges of my vision shimmer with static as all the adrenaline from getting hauled out of the cellar at gunpoint melts out of me in an instant.
I have no idea how long I stay like that with my head down and trying to get my body and brain to stop glitching out, but the sound of footsteps drags me out of my daze, and I look up just as Xave comes around the corner, the gun at his side and his pace unhurried.
“It’s clear,” he tells me.
I blink at him a few times, then give him a slow nod as I try to get my brain to start working again.
He must see how out of it I am because he tucks the gun into the back of his pants and kneels in front of me.
“Are you okay?” he asks gently.
“I have no idea,” I tell him truthfully. “I think so?” I chew on my lip for a few beats. “Are they dead?”
He nods. “It’s over. There’s no one else here.”
“Okay,” I say stupidly, still staring at him like I’m not sure if he’s real or some sort of hallucination.
“Can I have the laptop?”
I look down at my hands in surprise. Right, I’m still holding it.
Shaking my head to try and clear it, I hand it to him.
He takes it and pulls the screen up, his eyes moving as he looks at whatever’s on it. He makes a thoughtful face and taps a few keys, then puts the laptop on the ground.
“Can you get up, or do you need a minute?” he asks.
“I can get up.”
He waits as I try to get my feet under me so I can stand. After my third attempt, he slips his arm around me and helps me to my feet.