I got up from my desk for the fifth time in as many minutes, running a palm over my face as I circled my room.
It had been almost twenty-four hours since Ava Jade walked away from us at the Docks and still it felt wrong being back here. Here without her.
Her, alone, wherever she was. With her stalker possibly still out there.
Maybe I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. Even after everything. After she protected the friend that betrayed her and could’ve gotten us killed. Even after finding out that she was talking to a cop. Not just talking to him, but seriously considering ratting us out.
It didn’t matter that Colin wasn’t a real cop. She thought he was and that was enough.
It hurt.
It hurt more than I thought I could hurt anymore. This was why I didn’t form attachments. The reason none of us did outside of the family.
You get attached, you get burned.
And I knew from firsthand experience that those scars never fully healed.
I shouldn’t care. But I do.
I still wanted her, and even though there was a loud voice shouting in my head that she could no longer be trusted, there was another voice. One that whispered how badly we’d hurt her, too.
The voice insisted I consider what she had to go through in the last forty-eight hours and view the situation through that lens. Through her eyes.
If she could forgive us, could I forgive her?
It didn’t help that I’d barely slept more than a few hours since we got home, if you could call passing out head down at my desk sleeping. My rest-deprived brain throbbed with too many unknowns. I pulled at my hair, and the pain grounded me.
Blond threads drifted down to the carpet when I let go, and I inhaled deeply as I watched them fall, remembering a time when I was so malnourished you could count each one of my ribs without even needing to remove my shirt.
How my hair had begun to fall out in clumps near the end, when I was close to death. Too stupid to leave the house and get help. Naively convinced that if I just kept waiting, my mom would come home.
I growled before sweeping the contents of my desk onto the floor, breathing hard.
A sharp pain bloomed on my arm as I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to gain control. Liquid dripped down to my elbow and I found a thumbtack jutting out of my biceps, a little pinhead of green.
Rolling my eyes, I ripped it out and went to find a paper towel to clean the damn mess.
I sat on the floor when I was finished, the room reeking of stain remover. That was when I noticed the little flick of black nail polish on the side of the spray bottle and sagged.
I needed to talk to her.
But if I were being honest, I knew the real reason I was about to march my ass down to Briar Hall. Because I still felt a keen sense of responsibility for her safety. Or maybe that wasn’t the right way to describe it. It wasn’t responsibility. It was worry.
She was exhausted at the Docks. It was written all over her face. What if she went back to Briar Hall and took a nap. What if, tired as she was, she didn’t hear it when someone broke in. Was too out of it to stop the stalker when he tried to inject her again.
What if…
Fuck it. I was going. Now.
I stood, and as I tossed the spray bottle and wad of paper towels onto my barren desk I noticed Corvus from my bedroom window overlooking the drive. He was wheeling his motorcycle out of the garage, looking down the road like it might grow teeth and bite him.
I leaned over my desk and hammered the side of my fist on the glass until he turned, looking up. I held up a hand, shouting at him to wait through the glass.
It took me all of two minutes to throw a clean shirt and deodorant on before I was outside.
“You going to see her?” I asked as I shut the door behind me.
His hands tightened on the handlebars as he threw a leg over the seat.
“Corv?” I pressed when he didn’t answer.
“Where the fuck else would I be going?” he said, his voice the same flat monotone he’d been speaking in since last night. It reminded me of how he was when I’d first met him at eleven—before he trusted us and eventually accepted us as his brothers.
“You coming?” he added, and I swallowed hard, not giving him a reply as I got on the bike behind him and the engine rumbled to life beneath us.
I peered back at the Crow’s Nest, searching Rook’s black window for any sign of him, but I saw nothing. He was probably asleep. We’d picked him up along the road on the way back from the Docks, and he’d gotten in without a word. His expression dark.
Of course I wondered what she said to him. What he might’ve said to her…
But it wasn’t the time to ask.
The gravel road turned to pavement as we sped toward Briar Hall, Corvus barely slowing at all until we were in the actual parking lot.
“What if she isn’t here?” I asked as I stepped off.
“She will be,” he replied, and it sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than me.
I followed him to the front door of the academy, the words as the crow flies mocking me as I passed beneath them.
Mick nodded as we passed through the atrium and took the stairs up to the third floor and down the hall.
“Rook?” I asked, surprised to see him sitting against the wall three feet from her door, his elbows on his knees, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips. Ashes all over the floor between his feet.
He cocked his head, glancing up at us.
“How long have you been here?” Corvus asked, tugging the dart from Rook’s mouth to stamp it out beneath his boot, his nose wrinkling.
It smelled like dirty old ashtray in here.
I dug into the inside pocket of my jacket and passed him a stick of gum.
He grudgingly snatched it from my fingers and popped it into his mouth.
In less than an hour, all the students in the building would be waking up for classes. Some probably were already awake, terrified to leave their rooms to shower because of the Crow smoking in their hall, looking out of his damned mind.
“I left after I showered,” he said, his voice rough.
But he’d showered only a few hours after we got back to the Nest yesterday. And we’d only made the one stop to drop Diesel off with the vet to have his injury looked after.
“Have you slept?” Corv demanded.
Rook shrugged. “Maybe. Might’ve dozed off.”
He was here the whole time. Making sure she was safe through the night alone.
Guilt ate at me, and I dropped my head.
“Seen her?” I asked.
He shook his head, making a chunk of black hair fall into his eyes that he swept away with a shaky hand. “No, but she’s in there. I heard her snore a bit earlier. Nothing since.”
Relief exploded through me, so strong it made spots of light dance across my eyes.
I was starting to think Corvus had been right all along, this girl was going to be the end of us.
“I’ve been waiting until she woke up to knock,” Rook added. “But I think she’s still passed out.”
I cocked my head at him. He was waiting for her to wake up? Rook? The guy who did literally any fucking thing he wanted, whenever he wanted?
“How long has it been?” Corv asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s been quiet for at least sixteen hours.”
“Then she can wake up now,” Corvus decided for all of us, lifting a fist to the door. He pounded the wood and it rattled in the doorframe.
No sound came from inside as we waited and Corvus’ lips pressed into a taut line as he knocked again. “Ava Jade,” he called through the wood. “It’s us.”
When no sound came still, ice crept up my arms. What if…
“Grey, open it before I kick it down,” Corvus growled, and I stepped forward, digging my pick kit from my wallet and kneeling down.
“Chill the fuck out,” came AJ’s tired voice from somewhere deep in the apartment, and I stopped, slipping the metal pieces back where they came from.
The ear-cringe sound of something heavy being dragged across the hardwood came before the sound of her bedroom door opening. She’d obviously pushed her desk in front of it while she slept. At least she wasn’t too out of it to realize she might not be safe alone in the apartment.
Her stomping footfalls approached the door before they paused and I squinted through the wrong side of the peephole, catching a flicker of movement before she opened the door.
She stood there in an oversized gray t-shirt that looked distinctly like a man’s, with nothing else but black panties poking out from beneath the hem. Her hair, usually pulled back into a messy bun or ponytail, was in messy waves of darkest brown. Like she’d showered and passed out before she had the chance to brush it.
The natural texture of it suited her. Gave her the lion’s mane she deserved.
AJ took us all in in turn, saying nothing.
She pushed the door the rest of the way open and spun on her heel, heading to the kitchen. Letting us in.
It was a better start than I thought.
“Ava Jade,” Corvus hedged as we closed the door behind us, wading into the apartment.
She held up a hand from where she stood in front of the espresso machine. “Shhh,” she hissed. “No one speaks until I have a cup of coffee in my hand.”
“We really should—”
She fingered a small paring knife from the block next to the espresso machine and tossed it. It landed three inches from my foot in the hardwood with a thunk.
“I throw the big one next,” she warned, searching the back of the stainless steel beast for a switch.
Corvus walked into the kitchen, nudging her out of his way despite her glaring at him. “Let me do it,” he grumbled, tugging four cups down from the warmer on top. “Move.”
Her jaw tightened, but she didn’t argue, crossing her arms to lean on the counter next to him as he filled ground beans and filled the thingy that let the creamy espresso drip out, frothing milk while it finished filling the bottoms of two mugs.
He passed one latte to AJ first, indicating Rook for the other, while he started the process over again, making two more for himself and for me.
I took the warm mug he offered, and no one said a damn word until he was finished cleaning up the machine and all its parts. Until Ava Jade had drunk at least half of her latte, trying to conceal how much she was enjoying each sip.
“Can we speak now?” he asked her, grabbing his latte and her elbow to tug her toward the living room.
She jerked away from his touch, making the latte almost slosh out of her mug, little lines of caramel liquid dripping down its side. “Look what you almost made me do,” she sneered, flicking her tongue out to lick up the lost droplets before they could fall.
And fuck if that tiny thing didn’t make me a bit hard in my jeans.
She continued into the sunken living room on her own. “Speaking of things you made me do…”
“Don’t pretend for even a second that you talking to Colin was our fault,” Corv argued.
AJ whirled on him, stopping him from following her with two fingers jabbed into his chest. He stiffened but remained in control. “It was your fault. All of you.”
Rook and I shared a look.
You didn’t touch Corvus James, not unless he wanted you to.
But this wasn’t the first time, and I had a feeling it wouldn’t be the last.
“She’s not completely wrong,” I said, earning myself a wicked stare from my brother. “And I think you know that.”
“You know, it’s funny,” Ava Jade said, flopping onto the longer of the two black couches with a laugh that told me she definitely didn’t think whatever she was about to say was funny. Not even a little bit. “For a split second I thought maybe you were here to apologize. But how could a Saint ever be wrong? Why would a Saint apologize for their sins?”
“It’s why I came,” I said. “Or at least, it’s part of the reason.”
She stared at me incredulously, her lips popping open in surprise. An emotion I couldn’t name swimming in her eyes.
She watched me as I made my way to the couch opposite her, discarding my untouched latte on the coffee table between us. “Diesel went too far,” I started, trying to remember everything I’d planned to say on the way over here if we found she hadn’t skipped town.
“But he was trying to protect us.”
Her lips twisted.
“And…a part of me gets that you probably felt backed into a corner. Colin is good. He probably pulled all the right strings.”
“She almost fucking destroyed us,” Corvus argued, standing a few feet behind AJ, halfway into the living room still.
“But she didn’t,” Rook said, sitting next to AJ, laying his arm over the back of the couch, not quite touching her but close enough that he could if he wanted to. “Did you, Ghost?”
She shivered, gray eyes snagging on the empty space between them before she pressed her hands together between her knees.
“I couldn’t,” she admitted. “It’s not…” She trailed off, unable to find the right words.
“It’s not what you do,” I finished for her. “You aren’t a rat. I know you. You don’t trust law enforcement.”
She didn’t reply, and I knew I was right.
“It doesn’t mean I’m not pissed,” she clarified. “I’m still considering cutting all your balls off and keeping them in a little trophy jar on my nightstand.”
This earned her a laugh from Rook as he lifted his ass from the couch seat and drew out a blade, flipping it over in his fingers so the handle was facing her. “Here you go, love. Carve away.”
She eyed the blade, but didn’t take it, rolling her eyes at him.
“I’d like to keep my balls, Rook,” Corvus said, finally coming to sit with us, putting himself next to me on the couch. He was tight as a nun’s asshole. Every muscle jacked, the vein in his neck popping as he leaned over his knees, steepling his fingers. Looking at the coffee table like he wanted to hack it to kindling.
“You didn’t leave,” I pointed out, trying to get us back on track. I needed to know what she was doing. I needed to prepare myself for the worst. “Does that mean you’re staying?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know yet.”
“Stay,” Corvus said, breaking a momentary silence. The one word drawing all of our attention to him.
AJ’s chin quivered, just once, before she got control of herself. I wondered if I was the only one who noticed just how much we’d hurt her. How much she was hurting.
“Why should I?”
“Because,” Corvus breathed, some of the tension leaking from his shoulders. “I want you to.”
“So do I,” I agreed.
“You know what I want,” Rook intoned, grazing the back of her neck with his knuckle, making her glare at him before inching farther from him on the couch.
She considered us all for a minute, pulling her hands from between her knees to clench them into little fists. “I don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said in a low voice, and the urge to go and pull her into my arms almost dragged me from my seat. But I didn’t think she wanted that right now.
“You belong here,” Corvus said. “With us.”
Her eyes darted back and forth over the coffee table. “I’ll stay,” she decided. “But if Diesel pulls any more shit like he did the other night, I will kill him my fucking self. I don’t care who he is to you.”
Rook looked away. Corvus re-stiffened. But none of us challenged her. I didn’t know what that meant.
“And I’m not coming back to the Nest. I need…I need some space.”
Corvus looked like he was going to blow a fuse.
“Okay if one of us stays with you here, then?” I asked before Corvus could demand something instead. “Especially since you don’t have a phone right now?”
She nodded slowly.
I didn’t know what the next little while was going to look like for us, but one thing was startlingly clear. There was trust lost. On both sides. And I wasn’t sure yet if we could get it back. But if there was anything in this world worth fighting for, it had to be her.
