I turned to the Night Keepers who clearly intended on following me and shook my head. “I’m just going upstairs to see another Night Keeper, assholes. You don’t have to follow me like hungry strays.”
Saint narrowed his eyes and the three of them shared a look where some silent agreement passed between them before they slowly lowered back into their seats.
“Good boys.” I reached forward to scruff Blake’s hair and he barked like a dog, making me laugh.
I reached for Saint’s hair next, but his eyes warned me off. “People have been executed by me for far less, Barbie,” he warned and I smirked as I side-stepped towards Kyan, reaching out to him as he gave me a bored expression before turning my hand at the last second and holding my middle finger up in front of his face. He caught my wrist with lightning quick reactions, closing his mouth over my finger and sinking his teeth into it.
“Ah!” I smacked him across the head with my free hand and he released me with a smirk, leaning back in his seat and gazing at the teeth marks he’d left on my flesh.
“Thanks for the snack, baby. Hurry along. If you’re not back soon, we’ll come hunting.” He gnashed his teeth together like he meant that in the violent sense of the word and I walked away with a scowl, feeling eyes on me from all around the room as I exited.
I headed along the empty corridor, taking the large stairway that curved up onto the second level and drifting along the hall. Headmaster Brown’s old office had been boarded up and abandoned since the toilet paper fire considering no one could get any workman in because of the pandemic. So the new headmaster’s office was upstairs, but it wasn’t a room I’d ever been in before.
Monroe was still avoiding me as much as he could. I knew why now, but that knowledge also made me unbearably sad. My mind was always drifting to the two kisses we’d shared and my heart broke every time I remembered him walking away from me. We were still allies, friends I guessed, but now I put my walls up around him, trying to keep my mind on neutral topics. Whenever we sparred, we spent minimal time pinning each other down. We basically acted like each other’s bodies were made of liquid hot magma, so I was surprised he’d called me out to speak to him one on one.
I headed to the door at the end of the corridor and knocked, my heart quickening as I waited for him to call me in. When he didn’t answer, I knocked again, frowning when there was no response. I took hold of the handle, twisting it but it was locked.
Taking out my phone, I shot him a message asking where he was, moving to rest my back against the wall as I waited for his reply.
And waited.
And waited.
My gaze drifted to the door across the hall. It was ajar and there was a note stuck to it with three words printed across it in bold that made my heart jolt.
In
Here
Tatum
I frowned as I headed across the hall, realising this was the photography darkroom and wondered why Monroe was lurking in there. My mind conjured up thoughts of him grabbing me and kissing me as I tip-toed into the gloom.
Oh my god, what if he’s changed his mind?
“Monroe?” I called innocently, moving past a screen someone had put up to block the light spilling in from the doorway.
The space was lit in a low red light and as my eyes adjusted to it, I could see there was no one in here.
What the hell?
I fell entirely still as I took in the photographs developing on a line running across the back of the room. Fear crept along my spine and made me choke on the breath in my lungs. They were all of me, taken while I wasn’t looking. And worse than that, there were photos of me and Kyan behind the Sacred Stone with me down on my knees for him or my head tipped back in pleasure while Kyan touched me. Sweat began to bead on my brow as I forced myself to move closer and take them all in. There were photos taken through the windows of The Temple. Of the night I’d stripped for the guys, but worse than that, far fucking worse. Of the night we’d all been drinking, me held in Kyan’s lap while Blake’s head dipped between my thighs, my lips parted in ecstasy.
Fuck fuck fuck!
I started snatching them all from the pegs that held them on the line, gathering them in my arms. I took each and every one of them, my hands trembling, my mouth horribly dry.
Who did this?
Who’s watching me?
What do they want?
As I grabbed the final photo, I realised it wasn’t of me. It was of two distorted eyes, the face murky and unclear in the thick darkness this photograph had been taken in. But there, in the depths of their irises was a reflection of me on a woodland path. I shuddered, dropping it in surprise and it fell to the floor face down, revealing a message on the back of it in thick black letters.
I see you.
I gasped, terror gripping me as I turned over some of the other photographs, finding more and more messages for me.
I feel you.
I know you.
I want you.
I listen.
I watch.
I wait.
I hunger.
Soon.
Soon.
Soon.
Soon.
SOON.
The door slammed and my heart nearly burst as I ran towards it, needing to get the hell out of here. I grabbed the handle, twisting hard but it was locked.
“Hey!” I yelled. “Who’s out there?!” I demanded, my voice full of fury as I disguised my fear. “Let me out and face me yourself, you coward!”
They must have planned this, left that note on Miss Pontus’s desk. Who is this asshole??
I hammered my fist against the wood harder, panic warring in my chest. I didn’t want to be in here. I needed to get out. To find who did this. To destroy them for terrorising me.
“Let me out!” I cried then the door swung open and I stumbled forward into a hard chest.
Punch – I mean Toby - steadied me, his eyebrows arched in surprise. “What’s wrong?”
I lurched away from him in alarm. “Did you do this?”
“What?” he asked, looking confused enough that I believed him. “What‘s going on? Are you okay?”
“Yes, no, I don’t know. I need to see the Night Keepers.”
He drew me away from the door, not letting go. “You look pale, what happened?”
He glanced down at the photos in my grip and I quickly turned them out of his sight.
“Tate!” Blake called and I spotted him, Kyan and Saint striding towards me. “What the fuck’s going on?”
I moved away from Toby toward Blake, holding out the photos as Kyan and Saint flanked him. “I found these in there. Someone locked me in,” I breathed, sensing Toby still standing close and not sure if I wanted to share my secrets with him.
“And what are you doing at the scene of the crime?” Saint pinned his malevolent gaze on Toby and I shook my head.
“He let me out,” I answered before he could.
“I was in the restroom down the hall. I heard her shouting. Shall I get a teacher?” Toby asked, sweat beading on his brow.
“Just go,” Kyan snapped and he bowed his head, hurrying away.
Saint reached forward, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear as Kyan and Blake sifted through the photographs, their faces growing more and more furious.
Saint’s eyes promised cruelty of unspeakable kinds as he whispered a vow to me that made my heart feel strong. “We will find them and we will end them. You have our word.”
I sat on the jutting rockface three quarters of the way up Tahoma Mountain with my back to the hard stone and my left boot sticking out over the sheer drop below while my right leg remained bent in front of me.
My cellphone was ringing in my pocket, but I was ignoring it. Not that that would help for long. I had to answer. Today. Or someone would come in person. And that wouldn’t end well for anyone.
The view over the lake was picturesque and despite the biting cold in the air, the sky was blue and the sun was shining. From
way up here you could hardly even see all of the buildings around campus. I could practically pretend they didn’t exist at all.
A bald eagle was riding the wind ahead of me and my eyes trailed its movements hungrily as I sketched out a tattoo design based on it. There was something about the majestic bird which called to the hungriest part of my soul. He was above it all. His only desires hunger or carnal. He didn’t feel hate or hurt or guilt. That was true freedom.
My dirt bike was parked up a little way down the trail I’d used to ride up to this place. No one else ever came up here. The paths were too steep and the drops too treacherous. There were mountain lions too. Not that I’d ever gotten too close to one. But I trusted the knife on my belt to get me out of that fight if I ever had to have it.
I pulled a packet of cigarettes from the inner pocket of my leather jacket and placed one between my lips. Saint would freak the fuck out if he realised I’d been smoking. Which he would. Because even if I destroyed all the clothes I was wearing, showered in bleach and washed my mouth out with an entire bottle of mouthwash, he’d still smell it somehow. And he’d know why. But I couldn’t deal with that knowledge right now.
I’d taken the pack from a freshman dickhead who thought he looked cool coughing his guts up as he tried to give himself a new, cancer-inducing habit. I’d really done him a favour by knocking his tooth out and taking them from him. Maybe I’d get a thank you card from him when I got back.
I hadn’t really smoked in over two years. But in my family, if you weren’t doing an impression of a chimney at all times with a cigarette barely clinging to its spot in the corner of your mouth, then people thought there was something up with you. I couldn’t even say for sure how old I’d been when I’d started smoking. Back when I’d given a shit about gaining my family’s approval. Either way, it was pretty fucking weird to be an eighteen year old who had already taken up the habit, gotten addicted and quit. Seemed like I shouldn’t have had time to do all of that shit. Seemed like I shouldn’t have had time to do a lot of the fucked up things I’d done. But then I guessed I’d never really spent much time being a kid. I’d witnessed my first hit when I was eight. I remembered wondering how many buckets all of that blood could fill…
I flipped open the zippo lighter and took a long drag on the cigarette as I lit it before picking up my charcoal again and trying to capture the curve of the eagle’s wings as he soared overhead. There was a patch of skin to the right of my abs which wanted filling and I was convinced that I was on to the right design here.
If I kept adding to my ink at the rate I was going, I was pretty sure I’d run out of skin to decorate by the time I was thirty. But as I didn’t expect to live much beyond then, I guessed it didn’t really matter. In fact, as my phone started ringing again, I had to wonder if thirty was a pipe dream.
I should have known my family wouldn’t just let me go as easily as they had. But I guessed I’d been a hopeful idiot, caught up in the dream of freedom.
Smoke billowed between my lips as I continued to sketch the eagle but as my phone started up again, I had to accept that I couldn’t keep putting it off.
I flipped my sketchbook closed and pulled my cellphone out. Unknown number of course. I wondered who it would be. Dougal with his softly spoken words and deadly intentions? Dermot with his hot temper and threats? Connor with his long stories and roundabout murderous implications? It wouldn’t be Ma, she never disciplined me herself these days. Always a brother to call in for the job. One perfectly suited to whatever crime I’d committed against the family with my existence and opinions and Roscoe attitude. Which basically meant I wasn’t a willing pawn for the O’Brien empire and they didn’t like that one bit.
Whichever one of my uncles it turned out to be, I was pretty sure they were about to pull rank, make threats, let me know exactly how much attention they’d been paying to me during the last few months since I’d cut myself off from them and demand I come back.
For a moment there I’d let myself think I was free.
What a pretty fucking idea that had been. Had I ever really believed they’d just let me go? Or was I just a fool who’d wanted to try and build a life inside a dream?
“Yeah?” I answered, taking another long pull on the cigarette.
“You’ve made your poor mammy quite distraught, lad.” I fell utterly still at the lilting Irish accent of my grandfather’s voice. Liam O’Brien, the head of our entire family. He was the only close member of my family with a full accent like that, though more than a few of my uncles and cousins had a touch of it from their time spent back in the homeland. But the man who headed our criminal empire was born and bred in Killarney with the rich sense of patriotism for his homeland. In fact, I was pretty sure he loved Ireland far more than any of his nine children or subsequent grandchildren. He certainly didn’t pay attention to me all that often.
“I’m surprised she noticed I left,” I said in a rough voice. I wasn’t just going to bow to him, but I wasn’t a fucking idiot. He could have me killed in whatever heinous way he desired before the sun set tonight if the notion took him. But I was the polished front they wanted for their crime ring. The name that opened doors. My Dad did all of that for now, but I knew they wanted me to take over from him soon enough. To get someone with O’Brien blood and the Roscoe name doing their dirty work instead of trusting it to the in-law.
But they hadn’t really counted on me being my own man. On me wanting out of their plans and away from that life. But of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. They wouldn’t just let me choose.
“Connor says he took you to Royaume D'élite and you threw a fit over your initiation like a wet little babe,” Liam said in his unhurried tone. I had to call him Grandpa to his face, but that name always seemed too doting for the cold man I knew. “I told him that my golden boy wasn’t afraid of nothin’. That there was no way the things you’d seen and done there could have shocked you into runnin’ off like a little pussy. So I wanna hear it from your mouth. In your words. Why are ya breakin’ ya ma’s heart?”
“She doesn’t have a heart and we both know it,” I deadpanned, taking another long drag of my cigarette.
It was so beautiful up here that I could almost pretend the man on the other end of the line was in a whole other world. Somewhere he couldn’t hunt me down and gut me like a pig for choosing my words poorly.
He laughed darkly but there was no real humour in it. “C’mon boy, I don’t have all day. I’ll have the truth from your lips now or I’ll send Niall to come get you for a more personal chat.”
Another lungful of nicotine gave me the strength not to curse him. Niall was arguably the worst of my uncles. Certainly the most unpredictable. He might come down here and cut one of my balls off just for causing him to make the journey. Or he might gut one of the other students out of boredom. He could just as easily do nothing at all and come at me with jokes and smiles. And there was no real way of knowing with him until the blood started running.
“Naw, don’t waste his time chasing after me. I’m only at school. The same school you sent me to to get my posh boy education so I can play my part one day,” I said easily.
“That almost sounds like you intend to fill the role that’s been assigned to you,” Liam replied. “But I know you cut your ties to us as thoroughly as you could before you went back to that fancy school of yours. Lucky for you your tuition for the year was already paid up, wasn’t it? Or else you’d have had nowhere to go.”
“Yeah. You know I appreciate that… I just wanna be my own man, Grandpa,” I said, using the affectionate term to try and butter him up. But his heart was so black it made mine look rosy so I was doubtful it would help. “I wanna carve my own path. Prove myself and make my own choices.”
“And you want to abandon your family to do that? Are you sure Royaume D'élite didn’t break something in you? I’d hate to think of you as soft, boy.”
I blew out a breath laced with smoke and stubbed out my cigarette be
fore jamming another between my lips and lighting that too. Because he was right. Royaume D'élite had been the final straw for me. I’d known my family was a bunch of cutthroats and criminals, but that place crossed lines I hadn’t even realised needed to be drawn. It was the ultimate abuse of money and power. People were bought and sold like chattel. Men fought to the death for the vague promise of a better life that was never coming. Girls younger than some of my classmates were auctioned off to men older than my grandpa and more depraved than all of my uncles combined for nothing more than the chance of being selected for the higher tier, and the oblivion of the drugs they were given to make them forget what had been done to them. Assuming they survived the night at all.
And the things they’d made me do as part of my initiation…I shuddered in disgust at myself as I refused to even think about it. I’d been in firm denial about it ever since but if I was being honest with myself, I knew those memories were haunting me. I’d been forced to find out just how fucked up I was and I’d been more than a little horrified to realise just how fucking low I would fall in the name of survival.
“Soft?” I scoffed, making sure none of the horror and disgust I felt made it into my tone. “I’m not soft. I’m all for death and glory with a worthy opponent. That place was just a scam. No one in there had an ounce of grit to them. They were posturing assholes who bought their power. Most of them used fucking proxies to make it through the initiation. How does that prove they’ve got anything to them? How does that show their strength, power and superiority like they spout? If I’m going to be claiming that my balls are the biggest in the room then I’ll prove my power for myself, earn it honestly, on my own.”
Though I wished I hadn’t been forced to prove it in that fucking place. To do the things it had taken to win…
“I’m glad to hear it, lad, you’re an O’Brien through and through, each of us earned our own spot there, but the world is the way it is. You must have learned that in your fancy school. More men have inherited their money than earned it these days and we can’t be so picky about our friends as to alienate them for some unsavoury tendencies. Besides, who cares about a few whores and addicts being carved up for fun? You passed the initiation already. You don’t wanna take part in the games on offer when you go back there, then don’t. Any man tries to call you a pussy for it, you fuck him up good and I’ll get a cleaner in for you to dispose of the pieces. But it’s time for you to stop sulking and come back to the fold.”
Kings of Lockdown: A Dark High School Bully Romance (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep Book 2) Page 45
