by T. S. Joyce
It was very kind of him to offer to lead her to Ren.
Ren.
Her phone dinged in her purse, and Nuke turned just far enough to slide her a glance over his shoulder. Chills rippled up her forearms. His hearing was very good. Even better than hers, perhaps.
She reached into her purse and checked her phone screen quickly. It was the devil himself.
Are you there yet?
She tossed the phone back into her purse like it was a hot potato. When she looked up, Nuke was standing in the road facing her. With a squeak, she slammed her foot onto the brake and jerked to a stop inches from his kneecaps.
He stood there tall as an oak, staring down his nose at her, his hair blowing softly in the breeze and haloed by the sunlight behind him.
“Why did you stop?” she asked on a breath as her heart pounded away.
Nuke waited an unsettling moment, and then twitched his head toward the woods. “You’re here.”
Through the final layer of trees, there stood a small cabin in a clearing.
Nuke ducked out of the way of her car and watched her as she coasted by him.
By the time she’d gotten out, he had disappeared into the woods like he’d never existed at all.
She’d just met Nuke. The Nuke.
Her phone dinged again. She reached into her purse, turned off the ringer, and tossed the phone into the glove box. She didn’t need Manning in her head right now.
The stairs of the porch creaked under her flip-flops. She squared up to the door to knock, but hesitated. It was Ren. Ren had been kind to her.
Before she could wrap her knuckles on the wooden door, it opened suddenly, and there stood her friend.
“Trina,” Ren breathed. She pulled her into a back-cracking hug. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t…I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Did you leave him for good?” she asked, shoving Trina back at arm’s length.
“I think I did.” It wasn’t a lie and it wasn’t the truth. It was somewhere in-between.
Ren’s dark eyebrows drew down under her short, pink-streaked bangs. “Are you okay?”
Trina shrugged up one shoulder. Mostly she was numb.
“I heard a rumor about you,” Ren said softly.
“I thought you started rumors.”
“I hear them sometimes, too.” Ren released her shoulders and cocked her head, studying her. “I would’ve never guessed.”
“Guessed what?”
“Guessed what you are.”
“I’m human,” Trina said robotically.
Ren was a rare blue-eyed raven shifter, and those clear sky-blue eyes narrowed on Trina now. “Hmmm.”
Uncomfortable under Ren’s scrutiny, she looked around the woods surrounding the cabin and changed the subject. “Your home is amazing. I heard you paired up for good. Bron was really nice to me when I met him.”
“I wondered what happened to you after the Crow War. I hoped you didn’t go back to Manning.”
Trina’s skin crawled with how intent Ren’s attention was. This had been a bad idea. She was making a mistake. An awful mistake. Ren had been kind to her.
“I should go.”
“We have a couch you can sleep on,” Ren said hopefully. “You can stay here until you catch your breath and figure out your next move.”
“That’s very kind of you…” Trina backed down the porch stairs. “I shouldn’t have come.” Guilt washed over her like a tsunami. “It was good to see you again.”
“Trina, you should stay.”
“I really have to go. This was a bad idea.”
“If the rumors are true, you really have nowhere to go.” Ren’s voice snapped through the woods and stopped Trina in her tracks.
“What have you heard?”
“Enough.”
“Well, that’s the thing about rumors. They aren’t always true.”
“Then why is your voice shaking?” Ren asked low.
Trina blinked hard and dropped her gaze to a single dandelion weed that was growing in a crack in the concrete walkway. That weed was thriving in a place it didn’t belong. She envied it.
She didn’t know what else to say. All she knew was she didn’t want the stupid water filling her eyes to spill.
“You have the attention of a monster.”
And Ren was right. Manning was a monster. But when she looked up, Ren was looking at something behind her. Trina cast a look over her shoulder, and there stood Nuke, right at the tree line.
“There’s still the empty trailer in the park,” he said in a gruff voice. “Won’t be filled until Friday.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t think about that,” Ren said on a breath, and disappeared inside. She returned a few seconds later with a key attached to a purple bear paw shaped keychain. Ren tossed it to her, and Trina caught it. The keychain was actually a bottle opener.
“The Crew is filtering in and moving in this week,” Ren explained. “The cream-colored one is a shit-shack and probably a rathole, but it’s a roof over your head, and right now, I think that’s what you need. Just…breathe, Trina.”
That wasn’t the plan.
Trina was here for someone else’s bad intentions. She was here to protect people she shouldn’t be protecting, but she had no choice. She’d never had a choice.
That’s just how it was.
“You already took the keys. You accepted,” Ren said, as if she could see the denial in Trina’s face. “I’ll come make sure you’re settled in the morning.” And with that, Ren made her way inside and shut the door behind her.
“I’ll lead you back,” Nuke said simply, and when Trinity turned around, he was holding her car door open, waiting.
What choice did she have? What choice did she ever have?
She sniffed and made her way to her car, slipped inside, and got half of her thanks out before he shut the door on her. “Thank—”
Slam.
“You,” she whispered.
Nuke walked back down the road without looking back, and okay. Here they went again. She was just going to follow the motherfreakin’ Nuke around the woods like everything was fine.
But Nuke and Ren didn’t understand. She was here with bad intentions, and if they found out, nothing would ever be fine again.
Chapter Three
Rathole was accurate.
Trina set her duffel bag gently onto the floors, lest the squishy surface cave in completely. It was some kind of fake wood laminate flooring, but the sub-flooring felt like it was rotted straight through. When she walked into the living area, it felt like she was floating on the surface of the moon. The kitchen had all white cabinets, and would’ve been cute if some of the doors weren’t missing. Someone had plugged in a mini-fridge where a full-sized one was supposed to go, and when she opened it up, she nearly gagged at the smell. There was an old moldy block of cheese in there. She shut the door and made her way into the bedroom and the bathroom. There was no furniture in here at all. In fact, other than the block of moldy cheese, there was only a canister of cleaning wipes, a roll of paper towels, and a half-full box of garbage bags under the sink.
Well, tonight was going to be uncomfortable sleeping on the floor, but as she stood in the middle of the living room, under the sagging ceilings and a fan that wouldn’t turn on, she felt the tension leave her body. Trina let loose a deep exhale and sat on top of her duffel bag. No one was watching her. No one was spying on her. No one was judging her every move. For the first time in a long time, she wasn’t under a microscope. Right about now, she could’ve been in a beetle-infested cave and she would’ve felt relief.
This place almost felt…safe.
A soft knock on the front door vanquished that relieved feeling, and Trina threw her walls up again. She rushed to shove her phone into her back pocket. She should’ve left the dang thing in the glove box. Warily, she opened the door to find Nuke standing there holding a full-sized recliner like it weighed less than a bag
of cotton balls.
He grunted a greeting and then barged in, hooking the chair sideways to get the giant thing through the smaller doorframe.
He squished his way across the spongy floors into the living room, set the chair down right in the middle, hooked his hands on his hips, studied the leather chair, gave a curt nod and a grunt, and then he moseyed on out of the trailer and slammed the door behind him.
Trina’s mouth was hanging open wide enough to catch the two fat flies buzzing around. With a snap of her teeth, she jogged to the door and threw it open. “Nuke?” she called to the giant man who was already almost to his trailer on the opposite side of the park.
She could hear his irritated sigh clear as day. He stopped and turned to her. “What?”
“Thank you for being nice to me.”
Nuke angled his face away from her slightly, his dark eyes narrowed on her. “You have secrets.”
“So do you.”
The smallest smile curved his lips. “Secrets make things interesting.”
Well…okay that was true. “Um, good luck!” she called as he turned for his trailer. She was desperate to keep him here and talking for another few seconds. It was fun talking to someone who knew nothing about her. This was like a complete re-do. She could be whoever she wanted to be with Nuke, because he didn’t know anything about her past.
“Good luck with what?”
“Your mouse problem.”
Nuke shrugged and his grin got bigger. Whoa, that man had a handsome face. Perfectly straight, white smile and the hint of two dimples in his cheeks, and holy moly her little A-cup titties were perking right up. “Good luck to you, too.”
Trina frowned. “With what?”
“You have more mice than me.” And with that, he did an about-face and hopped up into his trailer, then shut the door soundly behind him.
It was so weird that his trailer didn’t have stairs. The lip of the door was about three feet off the ground. Even if he left the door open all the time, what mouse was going to plummet three feet out of the safety of a trailer to hit the earth?
He’d probably just said that to scare her, she thought as she made her way back inside. Ha. Little did he know, she wasn’t afraid of mice. From afar. As long as they didn’t crawl on her, or jump out and startle her. Or swim around in the toilet and wait to bite her butthole when she sat down to pee in the middle of the night. Okay, perhaps she was scared of mice.
She closed the door behind her and looked around the trailer. She didn’t hear anything, and her hearing was impeccable. No scurrying or squeaking. But what if they were sleeping right now? Or worse…watching her from the shadows.
Barf. She made her way to the recliner and hesitated only a couple of moments before she sank into it and pulled the lever on the side. The footrest sprung out and the back of the comfortable chair slammed straight backwards. After her heart stopped trying to race out of her body, she melted into the cushion. Oh yeah, she could definitely sleep in this.
Nuke was really handsome. And sexy. And powerful, she could tell. And he was thoughtful. She would’ve been sleeping on the unforgiving floor without this chair.
Don’t get a crush.
You are here for a reason.
Do your job, and get out.
A girl like her couldn’t afford a crush.
And speaking of job, in a bout of awful timing, her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She wished she could ignore it. She wished she could sit here for a few more minutes and think of the odd peace she’d found here instead of dealing with the reality of her life. But she couldn’t. That wasn’t her story.
Trina pulled her phone out and sighed as she saw the name on the caller ID. M. That’s what she’d changed Manning’s name to as soon as she’d hit the first gas station away from his house.
M texted her, I need you to check in or you know exactly what will happen. I’m not doing this shit Trina. You will mind the rules or the consequences will be swift. You and I both know I won’t lose an ounce of sleep over any of this. Don’t fuck with me.
I want a video update of her, Trina texted back.
You think you’re in any position to make demands? What would the world do if they knew you existed? If you lost the only other one like you, and the world found out, and you were out there on your own. All alone. Huh? Think smarter, Trina. I said don’t fuck with me. She’s fine. For now.
Trina’s hands shook as she leaned forward in the recliner and typed out, I’m here, and staying the night. Krome is building some sort of trailer park a few acres away from his house for his new Crew members. There’s a couple of males already moving in.
I need their names.
Trina hovered her fingers over the keyboard of her phone. Their names? She didn’t want to give Nuke away.
Bron and Krome, she typed. Send.
You dumb bitch, I already know Krome and Bron live there. It’s their Crew. What are the new males’ names?
Another hesitation. She didn’t want to do this. I haven’t met them yet, she lied. Send.
A FaceTime request came through from Manning, and in a rush, she accepted the call. For fifteen seconds, she went insane as the screen glitched and froze on a blurry, dark frame, and when it did start playing, she slammed the foot rest back into the recliner and leaned forward, intent on the screen.
Manning was grabbing Tory’s face and forcing her to look at the camera. “Your bitch sister wants you to say hi.” He shoved her face away and panned the camera over his living room. The crows in Manning’s Murder sat at the dining table and stood around the cavernous room, empty-eyed. The camera trained back on Tory. God, the older she got, the more she looked like Mom. Her jet-black hair hung down in limp waves and her eyes were rimmed with red. Her lips looked swollen and there were dark circles under her eyes like she was exhausted.
“Tory, I’m going to fix this!” she called in a rush before Manning angled the phone at his own hideous face. She’d thought he was handsome once, back when she was unaware of what manipulative spies Crow Blooded kings could be.
“The only way you fix anything is to gather information on Krome’s Crew, and then you come back here and get back in line. I fuckin’ hate your attitude lately. That Ren cunt rubbed off on you in all the wrong ways. If it wasn’t for your popping off lately, you wouldn’t be in the position you are in, and Tory would still be out living her life like before. You are the one who is forcing this. Don’t worry about fixing anything for Tory. Worry about your duties as my mate, and everything goes back to the way it was. Tomorrow I want pictures of the trailer park, and of Ren’s cabin and Krome’s, and I want every name of the Crew members they’ve recruited.” His eyes filled with ice before he angled the camera to a silent Tory again. She was crying. Oh, she was trying not to show it, but Trina knew her like the back of her hand. It was the lowered arch of her dark eyebrows that gave her away, and the tension in her shoulders. She was trying not to sob.
Trina would never escape him. Manning had his talons dug so deep into the pulse of her life, she could never sever the ties to him. Not when he knew about her sister, and not when he and his entire Murder knew what they were. She’d trusted one person, and look where that trust had gotten her.
Don’t get bitter.
Her mom had always told her and Tory that. No matter what happens, don’t get bitter.
Bitterness was a slow-release poison that killed a person from the inside out. It vanquished the light little by little until nothing was left but shadows.
She would do what Manning wanted, and when she got back to Tory, someway, somehow, she would figure out a way for both of them to escape.
She had to.
She couldn’t let Tory pay for her mistakes.
Pictures and names.
Tomorrow she would gather pictures and give up the names.
Chapter Four
Nuke couldn’t sleep.
Sometimes, Tovlin haunted his dreams, and tonight was one of those times.
> He liked to torture himself with what-if, and what-happened, and what-could-he-have-done-differently as his pound of flesh for what had happened that night four years ago. It wasn’t fair that he was still walking the earth.
The clock on his phone read 4:50, and he sighed as he sat up on his mattress on the floor. It was strange sleeping in a new place. He’d been in a rented cabin for the last few years and that had been the view he saw every morning when he cracked his eyes open. This trailer was still unfamiliar.
Fuck sleep. He scrubbed his hands over his face and got up, showered, and grabbed his flannel jacket. He didn’t really need it, because his engine ran very hot, but people looked at him strangely when he was out in cold weather in a T-shirt with no gooseflesh. He’d learned through the years to blend in, he had to pick up certain habits that made him look more human.
The hardware store opened early for contractors to pick up their supplies before they hit the construction sites, so that’s where he was headed.
He hopped out of his trailer, and then eyed the huge drop-off where the stairs were supposed to be. A quick mental measurement told him the door was about three feet wide, and he could build the stairs four feet wide. Hell, maybe add a deck and bring it out. He measured off eight feet by walking it out, stopped himself, and let off a soft laugh. It had been a long damn time since he wanted to fix a place up. He frowned at the ground as a memory of him building decks with his dad and brothers assaulted him.
He knew exactly what he needed from the store—every size of screw, every length of nail, the amount of lumber he would need, the color of stain he wanted, the tools—
“Are you going to build a deck?” a soft voice asked in the dim light of dawn.
Nuke startled hard and spun.
It was the woman—Trina.
Her hair was down and hanging in loose waves down her shoulders. She’d put on make-up, but her eyes were full of something he couldn’t understand. She was probably in her early thirties, but those eyes looked a hundred years old.
