7
Xavier
“Get out of my way,”Emaline snarls, sounding so cute. I’m blocking her way at the gates, so her only option is to climb the stone wall, and she won’t do that.
“Wait, Em, listen to me,” holding my palms up so she can see I’m not trying to hurt her. The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt her.
She pushes her glasses against the bridge of her cute nose, and something stirs in me. I’m so fucking attracted to this dark-haired nerd and that plump lower lip that she’s biting right now. I want to kiss her so bad. “Get away from me,” she hisses, and I find myself cracking up at her hot little finger pointing at my face. “This is not funny.”
Okay, I’m laughing at a completely inappropriate moment, so I understand this will fuel her anger even more. “It was us, Em, that found your sister. It was us, my brothers and I that freaked out thinking that it was you-”
“Move aside, Xavier,” she snarls, and I glance past her to Rosie, who has an apologetic expression.
“Did you not hear what I said, Em? Did you not hear me? It was us that found your sister.” I thought she’d be pleased about this.
She hesitates, and her mouth gapes slightly as my words sink in. “Your brother mentioned it, and I’m not sure who to believe right now, but…” She starts welling up, and my heart aches for her. She sniffs and clears her throat. “I just want to see my sister. Please move.”
“Let me drive you there,” I offer, reluctantly stepping aside. I have no problem leaving my brothers here to take Emaline and her friend to the hospital to see her sister. They might hate me for a few weeks, but it’ll be worth it to help my girl and maybe see her smile.
“No. Please,” her voice breaks, and I feel her pain, but in my selfishness, I want to be with her while she’s going through this trauma. “I can’t deal with you right now, and I need to see my sister and inform my grandparents.”
“We’ve already visited your grandparents and updated them,” I tell her, and she replies with a horrified expression on her pretty face behind glasses.
“W-why?” she stalls and looks back at me as her voice catches in her throat again under the strain of stress. “Why would you do that? You know my grandpa is highly suspicious of your intentions and views your family as the enemy, which is, by definition, the truth.”
I exhale as the tension builds in my shoulders, hoping to offload some weighty burden. “Well…maybe this proved him wrong. Maybe we’re not as bad as he and you think we are. And how can you call us the enemy when we saved your sister from a fate beyond any horror you can imagine in that poetic head of yours.”
As she frowns, her glasses wiggle slightly on her nose, which I find fucking endearing, and I long to scoop her up in my arms, but she’d likely try and fight me off. I’ve stopped asking myself why I’m so attracted to her and go with the flow because my desire overrides any reasoning. The girl who knits hats for statues is the type of girl I want in my bed and head. “I have to go,” she says, disappearing into the dark. I wonder if she’ll reconsider her opinion of me.
I turn back to find my brothers jogging toward me from around the corner of the church. “What’s up?” I ask, noticing their concerned expressions.
“Some weird shit is going down,” Austin tells me, and without detail, I know he’s referring to Emaline’s sister.
“Em’s on her way to visit Brielle in the hospital,” I say, “she thinks we’re in on it.”
“With good reason,” Austin states, pointing his thumb behind him. “Aaron’s friends were holding her captive.”
Aaron pipes up before I have a chance to react, “They said they were trying to protect Velma from the people that Brielle was hiding from.”
“What? That’s insane. But it looks like they fucking failed at hiding Brielle since they managed to snatch her and flee in the van.” I gaze at the gate that Emaline has just gone through to piece it all together. “I think we better follow Emaline to the hospital to ensure the fuckers that got away don’t return to get her and her sister.”
“Alright,” Aaron agrees, “We’ll fill you in on the way there.”
“So, who exactly are we dealing with here?” I ask my brothers as we climb into my car – Aaron in the passenger seat while my twin squeezes into the back.
“Yeah, it kinda looks like some mafia shit going on to do with Emaline’s parents,” Austin says as I put my foot to the floor and accelerate out of this place. I doubt we’re going to get any sleep tonight.
I’m unsurprised by his comment going by the shit that’s been going down and those men in suits that paid Austin a visit at his work. How did they know he worked there, and how did they know he was associated with the Applegates? We know that they muddled me with Austin or Austin with me, but still, it means that they were watching us. Then, we discovered that Brielle was paying a security firm to watch over Emaline and her grandparents while she had gone into hiding. “The plot thickens,” I mumble, braking at the intersection and waiting until a couple of vehicles drive by before turning left.
“Nah, the plot has been broken open,” Aaron disagrees. “And none of it has anything to do with us, yet here we are.”
“You’re welcome to opt out, bro,” I suggest to my older brother.
There’s a low contemplative growl before he admits, “Already knee-deep in the shit. No point stopping now.”
Austin snorts. “Yeah, and it’s got nothing to do with Velma Dinkley, right?”
“Well, maybe,” he grunts, trying to sound detached and in control. “That lil ass is kinda catchy. Like one dose urges you to go back for more.”
“You’re objectifying women again,” my twin hits, and at first, I thought he was being sarcastic until I catch his expression in the rearview mirror, and even in the dark, I notice he looks a little pissed off.
“You’re not warming to our sweet lil’ Emaline, are you, Austin?” I mock.
“No,” he snaps.
“Of course, he fucking is,” Aaron tips his head and laughs haughtily. “Austin, the Blackheart is crushing on the nerd.”
“What do you mean, Blackheart?” Austin mumbles snidely, which cracks me up.
“That little shriveled-up heart,” I laugh, “is beating to the sound of Emaline Applegate’s stride in beige jeans while thinking of Hamlet.”
The laughter stops dead, and I feel Aaron’s bemused stare drilling holes into the side of my face. “Bro? Hamlet? I mean…get a grip. I know you like studying with her, but get too fucking poetic.”
“Fine. Sure,” I say quickly, changing the subject as I notice a vehicle”s headlights rushing, narrowing the car lengths between us. Guys, we’ve got company.”
Austin glances through the back window to examine the vehicle, now three car-lengths in our wake, while Aaron checks the wing mirror. It’s hard to tell in the dark if this vehicle is a threat or if it’s some reckless douche high on adrenaline testing the power the under his hood.
“Fuck, I wish I had my Honda. I’d be up their arse like a tapeworm,” Austin threatens since he’s particularly good at circus acrobats on his dirt bike.
“Trouble,” Aaron warns as the approaching vehicle flicks its lights off, steeped in darkness. “They’re here to fuck with us.”
I increase my speed so there’s no chance they can catch up and pass us. The only problem is that another intersection is down the end of this road, and if I make another left, I’ll be heading toward the city. So, I’ll turn right away from the city traffic and away from the hospital where Emaline is driving. My heart lurches a little, which surprises me since I only just saw her, yet I want to see her again.
“Hold on, my brothers,” I caution. “I’m gonna lose this fucker.”
I give Aaron and Austin a few seconds to slip on their seat belts before slowing the speed so the trailing vehicle can catch up.
“Bro, what the fuck are you doing?” Aaron asks as he watches the back window.
“Wait and see,” I suggest, hoping like fuck I can pull this off.
Keeping my eyes on the trailing vehicle in my rear vision mirror. Even though it’s so dark out here without city lights to pollute the air, I can still detect the front grill and shine from the windscreen.
When the vehicle is a car length away, I make a hard left turn. The tires screech, my brothers, yell out, holding on, and I slam my foot on the gas, speeding in the opposite direction to where we want to go.
“You’ve lost him,” Austin informs me. “His brake lights are on, so he’s stopped in the middle of the road. He’s not following.”
“Too easy,” Aaron says suspiciously, saying what I’m thinking, “they might reappear elsewhere.”
“More than likely,” I agree. “Better stay on our guard.”
I come quickly to the end of the road, heading back to Demon Cove, where the party has died, and there’s nothing worth going back for. I come to the intersection and turn right, intending to enter the city from the west.
“If you want to be dropped off at the apartment, tell me now; otherwise, I’m heading to the hospital to see Emaline,” I told them since we’d be passing our building.
“Drop me off,” Austin grumbles. “I wanna catch up on sleep.”
“Ah, come on, bro,” Aaron argues. “Don’t you want to see this through to the end?”
“Nah,” he says, “the only soft lay I want to see is my bed.”
“Bro is the one objectifying women now,” I laugh, still feeling the adrenaline surging as my heart rate settles a little. “How do you know Emaline is soft anyway?”
“Because she let you two filthy fuckers get between her legs,” he answers, and Aaron hacks a laugh.
“My brother is a little green cos’ he’s not getting some,” Aaron mocks. “Wait until you do…you’ll never want to return to anyone else.”
I glance at Aaron, surprised by his confession. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, well, couldn’t get hard with the prettiest of chicks, yet with Velma wags her arse at me and like magic…boom,” he explains without actually saying the words. “It was instant.”
I glance at Austin, listening carefully in the back, gazing out the window at nothing but night, and I wonder when he’ll crack.
Not yet, but soon.