Chapter 25 #3
Bohnes leaps down from the bank of lockers and Widow sits up, turning to look at me over his shoulder.
Ash’s face is full of compassion that I don’t deserve.
Alexei still looks like a highfalutin ass made of marble.
My husband. He’s my legal husband now. The thought is a sticky cobweb, stretching across my brain.
“Have fun with your friends,” Bohnes whispers to me as he slips past like a ghost, pressing something into my hand as he saunters by. It’s a note. I unfold it. I’m so jealous, I could kill Alexei. Your wedding present is that I won’t. Congratulations.
I curl my lip at him as he heads for the door. The note is cute, but this is bullshit.
“Yo, fuckboy, where the hell do you think you’re going?” I call out and he throws an undead grin over one shoulder, black hood up, white hair like frost dripping over his forehead. His makeup today is intense, like he wanted to wear his best undertaker face in case the mob showed up.
“Not a fuckboy, but I’ll deign to answer.
Based on the movements of the family, I don’t think they’ll be showing up today.
The mayor is still in DC. Chet is in town and looking for trouble.
I’m going to blow up one of his construction sites so he doesn’t bother us at the track tonight.
I bet we’ll see the Borisov clan tomorrow. ”
Ash shoves up from the bench, trembling. Like this is his moment. Like he’s ready.
“Please,” he whispers to Bohnes, like it’s a prayer. A supplication. “Take me with you.”
Bohnes’ mouth twitches.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I hold out both hands, irritation stabbing me in the veins the way I want to stab these boys in the balls with my knife. “Did I tell either of you that you could leave my side?”
Didn’t need a knife. My words are the knife.
Kellin’s left eye quivers, his rage and dominance held obstinately in check. Ash appears mollified. Widow is triumphant while Alexei remains indifferent. He wouldn’t be, if it were him I were ordering around.
“I’ll take care of you, princess. Let them go.” Widow isn’t looking at me when he makes this stupid declaration. Nisha rears back like she’s been slapped and Basti chokes. I flick Adrian in the back of the head and he growls at me.
“We’ll all go together,” I say. “Explode a few things. Cause a little chaos. Then Wesley’s. Track. That’s the agenda.” I slam my palms on my thighs, a spark of lightning caught between me and Bohnes. We’re doing what he suggested—but only because I agree that it’s the right move.
“Stalking someone who’s stalking me back is…” Bohnes pauses, reaching up to rub his hand along his ghost-white jaw. His blue eyes are wicked.
“Phenomenal?” I ask, rising up from the bench. Widow follows, lurking too close to me. The smell of him is enough to break apart clouds of sweet girl shampoo into dirty boy lust. “That what you were going to say, you overly independent ghoul?”
“Phenomenal is a perfectly suitable adjective,” he returns, slouching near the exit of the locker room with Ash by his side. If Bohnes doesn’t believe the mob will show up today, then they won’t. “Intellectually stimulating, is what I was going to say.”
“Scarlett is so fucked,” Nisha mumbles to Bastian, but he only laughs.
“Fucked is the right verb, that’s for damn sure.” My best friend tugs out his wrench, slapping it against the palm of his opposite hand. Eying me. Basti can sense that something’s up. Nisha is righteously suspicious of the men, participating in Crimson Crew business like it’s their business.
“Wesley’s in three hours,” I repeat on my way out, snagging Alexei by the elbow and causing a shudder to ripple through him that has nothing to do with disgust. Something about the way I said the name of the diner tips my friends off. I said it gently.
Too gently.
They’re immediately suspicious.
“Everyone in Prescott and their second-cousin-twice-removed wants to know if you’re going to handle Alexis.” Nisha stares me down, and I return the look, unflinching. Ah. Yeah. That. “Should I have Jenn spread the rumour that she left town?”
“No.” I shake my hands out and prepare myself to deal with the fallout of my own making. “Have Jenn spread the rumour that she’s dead.”
I turn and take off out of the locker room with all four boys following behind me.
This is our new normal. Me. Them. Together, always.
Family. Family. Family.
A girl on roller skates glides up to the window of the Chevelle. It’s the only one of my fuckboys’ cars that has a backseat. Basti is situated behind me with Nisha in the passenger seat.
“Hey Joanne,” I say, all schmoozy and flirty, licking the corner of my lip as she grins and does a little twirl for me, showing off her pink and white uniform. Don’t order a pie shake, Scarlett. Don’t do it. “Thanks for delivering Bohnes’ package to me. I never did thank you for that.”
She blushes and clasps her hands behind her, swiveling coquettishly on her skates.
“No problem. What can I get ya, Queen?”
“The severed dick of a rapist,” I whisper, hand cupped around my mouth to keep the words low enough that only Basti and Nisha can hear. I’m slapped playfully in the shoulder by Nish.
“I cannot take you out in polite company,” she grouses playfully.
“Chili cheese fries—the extra large size. And three cherry pie shakes.” Basti orders for us, leaning between me and Nisha and hanging over the front seat.
He’s extra bold today, seeing as this meal is on me.
He also knows I need another goddamn pie shake.
When Sandra said I’d been ordering them a lot lately, I… yeah. I need a new coping mechanism.
“Comin’ right up.” Joanne skates off, blond-brown curls billowing in the grease-scented breeze. On the other side of the railroad tracks, I can see the middle-class brats from Fuller High hovering around their own much-shittier-than-ours diner.
My boys are positioned on either side of us, crammed into the Stingray and the Pantera. Widow and Alexei together in the former, Bohnes helming the latter with Ash at his side.
“Why are we here?” Nisha demands, getting down to business like always. She examines the gold bracelets on her arm, jingling them around and probably thinking about Lemon. “To talk about Alexis?”
“Ain’t nothin’ to talk about,” I lie, and both my friends give me odd looks. “What? She tried to kill me. Literally. She was packing up my clothes because she thought Ash was going to whisk her away after I was dead. It was dark, y’all. I don’t want to talk about it.”
Basti snorts at me and flicks me in the side of the head.
“Nothing to talk about and don’t want to talk about are totally different things.
Fine. We can save this conversation for later.
What’s going on, Scar? As if there isn’t enough shit.
You’re scaring me.” He flops back into the backseat, crossing his arms dramatically.
There’s a little gleam in his eye though as he peers around at the interior of the Super Sport, admiring my Nightmare’s ride.
Do not think about Lemon dying in the same seat where Basti is sitting now.
Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
I open the car door and move around to the trunk. Someone reaches out of the vehicle next to me and slaps my ass. I spin around to see Bohnes grinning innocently from the driver’s seat of the Pantera. We’re parked front facing in. He backed in. I might’ve guessed why.
“Oops,” he says, and I spit at him. He…I won’t say what he does with the droplets that get on his arm. Licking is a verb that comes to mind though.
“You’re disgusting.” I ignore him, heading to the trunk of the car and opening it. The things this vehicle has seen. Everything from Aspen’s body to Lemon’s. I pick up the box and return to my seat, holding my hands over it. Reptile brain. “These are Lem’s ashes.”
The car is disgustingly silent. KMZI 66.6 is playing softly on the Chevelle’s radio. “Tonight You Belong To Me” from Patience & Prudence is playing. Such a creepy fucking song. Vibes are off.
“This is Lem?” Basti chokes out, scrambling for the box. I let him have it, and he cracks it open with a puff of dust—Lemon’s dust. He stares down at the gray ash and the white bone fragments and then he starts to cry. Softly. Clutching the dusty corpse against his chest.
“How…from the lake?” Nisha is wide-eyed, lips parted in horror.
“Ash dragged her out and put her corpse in the mayor’s bed.” It’s hard for me to even say it. Nisha’s eyes harden.
“Good. Jonas Kelly should have to look at what he’s done.
” She turns to stare at the box, and we sit in silence as the song switches to “Tip Toe Thru’ the Tulips with Me” by Tiny Tim.
Ech. Nessie is the host today. Next time I see Emma Jean, I’m going to wonder if she’s got a little serial killer deep down in that suburban heart.
I turn the radio off.
Can still hear it playing from the drive-in’s speakers though.
“I want your guys’ permission to mix Lem’s ashes with some tattoo ink.
” I spin to face Basti, knowing he’s the more sensitive of the two.
I curl my arm around the back of the seat and he puts his hand up, weaving our fingers together.
My platonic soulmate. I would kill for him (easily).
I would die for him. “And then use that to mark our crew tonight.”
I meet his eyes and he hiccups a gasp.
“Hot, cheap, and sweet,” he howls as he throws his arms around my neck, squeezing me as that horrible song plays. Nisha rubs my back and we sit with Lemon at Wesley’s for the last time ever. “That’s what our tattoos will be.”
“Maybe literally,” I’m quick to say with a smile, pulling back from Basti. “But they’re not going to say that.”
“You have a better idea for a tattoo design then, Queen?” he asks with a little wink.
Lemon’s ashes, but my story. It’s harsh but sometimes that’s how it is. That’s life.
I’m going to be a star.
“Yeah, I think I do.”