Chapter Three
Amelie
“Did anyone ever tell you, you’re the human version of a headache?” I despair. Kalen is crazy annoying me. A quick glance at my watch tells me there’s still way too many hours of this flight left to go.
“Actually yeah, O says that to me all the time.” He grins at me and I can’t help but smile. It is such an Onyx thing to say. Then my face falls.
“Kalen—”
“Don’t ‘Kalen’ me, he’s fine. I promise.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this. We shouldn’t be going away and leaving him.”
“You know if he was fit to fly, he’d be here, right?”
“Exactly. If he’s not fit to fly, I shouldn’t be leaving him! He needs me!” I cry.
It doesn’t matter that we’ve been having this conversation for weeks, the guilt wracks me and tears threaten to spill when I realise I should never have got on this damn plane.
How did Kalen convince me again?
Ah, the sex. The amazing, I’m so relieved your brother didn’t die and I can’t bear to look at his twin without bursting into tears but I need comfort from someone right now, mind blowing monster cock sex.
“And Smalls? Aadi? Don’t they need you right now too?”
“But—”
“But nothing. They would never have asked if they didn’t really need you to come.”
I know he’s right. It’s part of the reason why my stomach is in knots. Onyx barely survived the gunshot wound and blow to the head.
I ran, but I soon came to my senses. I was so terrified that he was going to die and that I would lose another person I love, that I bolted to avoid the pain. It didn’t work. The not knowing was agony, so I found help and got a lift straight to the hospital.
Onyx ended up in a coma for nine days and kept in for observation another seven after that.
He’s only been out of hospital a couple of days, but when Smalls called and said that Brenton – a close friend of him and my brother – had died, and begged me to come back for the funeral, what choice did I have?
I took a lot of persuading, and it was only Kalen deciding to come with me – I think at Monty’s insistence – that finally made me cave and agree to come.
So that’s how I came to be stuck on a twenty-hour flight back to Queensland, with the most annoying human known to man.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve had to leave my baby, Mo-Mo, at home with Sawyer.
For two weeks. I don’t know how I’m going to survive without them all for that length of time.
Kalen insists I can survive on chocolate – since we will be spending Easter with my family – and sex.
Little does he know there is no way in hell my brother or Smalls will let him sleep in my room.
He’ll get the guest bedroom. Which is a tiny box of a room, big enough for a child sized bed.
Chelsea uses it when her nieces and nephews come to stay.
“Look, sis—” Kalen begins in a weirdly reproachful tone.
“Not your damn sister, Kalen. And my brother will not appreciate you calling me that.”
“Just shut up and listen to me. And remember where you are.”
“O-okay?” I puzzle.
“There’s something we didn’t tell you about the night of the...well, you know.”
I nod sharply. It’s better if no one says it. But my chest constricts in fear at the mention of that night and the grave expression on Kalen’s face.
“What?” I ask with trepidation.
“Don’t kick off…”
“For god’s sake, Kalen! Just tell me already!” I snap.
“Okay, keep your panties on.”
“I’m not wearing any.”
“What?”
“Kalen, focus!”
“How can I focus when you’re dropping bombs like that?!”
“It was a joke, Kalen.” I sigh and shake my head at him but a small smile tugs on my lips.
“Well, now I don’t know what to believe. I’m going to have to find out for myself.” He grins wickedly and slides his hand under my blanket to my thigh. I slap it away with a scowl.
“Okay, fine.” It’s his turn to sigh now. “But give me a kiss.” Before I can ask why he leans over and steals one. “You might not want to kiss me afterwards.”
“Kalen—”
“Alright, alright! Man, you sound like my brothers when you say it like that.” He takes a deep breath and I see the worry in his eyes. “So, I know you didn’t want to talk about that night until Onyx was okay, but when Sawyer and I were coming to find you, we found someone unconscious.”
“Okay.” I draw out the letters, prompting him to continue.
“It was Baxter.”
“Baxter? Was he okay?”
“He barely had a pulse, Amelie.”
“What did you do?”
“We argued about it. I wanted to help him. Said you’d kick our asses if anything happened to him.”
“That’s true…What did Sawyer say?”
“That if Baxter was okay and anything happened to you, he’d kill us for wasting time on him.”
“Also true. But I hoped you risked it.”
“We pinned our locations on a map, knowing that as soon as help arrived they would track us and find him.”
My frown deepens. I’m not happy about it, but I guess I can understand their logic. Plus, if they hadn’t arrived when they did, Onyx…No! I shut those thoughts down.
“When help came, Baxter was gone.”
“Okay, so he came round and was okay?”
“No one has seen him since, Amelie.”
“He always disappears though, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah, but he’s always contactable. No one has heard from him.”
I shake my head.
“I don’t understand what you’re saying, Kalen.”
“He’s missing, Amelie. If it weren’t for Sawyer and me confirming we saw him outside of the main building, he would have been presumed dead in the blast by now.”
An entirely new kind of rage burns through me. It’s white hot and blinding in its intensity.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me!” I whisper-yell, smacking him on the arm. I’m conscious that it’s the middle of the night and many passengers are asleep. Typical dick Kalen move, to tell me when I can’t flip out.
“Honestly? There was so much going on, and then time had passed and I didn’t know how, and...and…”
“Why now?”
“Because we’re on a plane and you can’t run away or beat the ever living shit out of me.”
“When we land, your ass is mine. And I’ll be having words with your brothers when I get back to the UK too.”
“Sorry.”
“You absolute fucking...douche canoe!” I hiss. I’m so mad right now.
I’m mad at Kalen for waiting until I’m trapped in the air to tell me. At the others for not saying anything sooner. At myself for not even thinking of Baxter or trying to reach out to him.
And at Baxter himself.
Because if I know one thing for certain, it’s that there’s no way in hell Baxter Branson is dead. Which means I’m going to have to give him hell for letting everyone think he is.
When I find him, that is.