by Lily White
A loud crash happened next, followed by a primal roar that only a person with a death wish would disobey.
“Everybody get the fuck out of the house now!”
The music cut off immediately, Grady’s cackling laugh rising up in its place. “Dude, Soren, chill the fuck out. Kendall and Shea haven’t finished their task.”
“OUT!”
Another crash was followed by another, and I pushed myself up on my bed when I heard Nolan start yelling as well. “What the fuck, Soren! She fucking asked for it!”
It was unmistakable, that sound. Soren and my brother were throwing punches. Panic filled my chest, my blood pumping so fast I could feel the artery in my neck pound. I couldn’t let them continue, not if there was a chance Nolan would be hurt.
Yes, I was still angry and shocked at how the asshole had behaved toward me, but he was my only family. I would never forgive myself if I didn’t stop the fight and he was accidentally killed.
Jumping from my bed, I limped across my room to open the door. Ignoring the burning of my scalp and skin, I hobbled down the stairs, running directly to the back family room just in time to see Soren lift Nolan up by his shirt and punch him square in the nose.
Blood burst over Nolan’s face, his teeth clenched as he shoved up to attack back. They both went slamming into the entertainment center, the barstool knocked sideways where it caught Kendall’s leg and dropped her like a stone.
Still half dressed and struggling to pull on the rest of her clothes, she rolled toward Shea who dragged her out the way, just as Nolan’s body crashed against the floor. Blood flicked off his chin to the carpet before he pushed himself back up and lunged toward Soren.
“Stop it,” I screamed, my vocal chords shredding with the volume. It only served to stop Soren and Nolan long enough to turn my direction and yell back in unison.
“Take her to her fucking room!”
Blinking my eyes, I attempted to jump into the fray, but a set of strong hands grabbed me and tugged me back against an equally strong chest.
“Not so fast, little sis. You don’t want to get into the middle of that. If either of them accidentally hits you, they’ll fight each other to the death for it.”
Spinning me around, Quinton picked me up like I weighed nothing to throw me over his shoulder and carry me up to my room. He ignored my hands banging against his back, my legs kicking like a mad woman, and my demands that he put me down.
Once in my room, he dropped me on the bed and sat down on me to keep me from leaving.
“Sorry, kid. But an order’s an order. It’s safer for you to be up here while they do their thing.”
“They’ll kill each other.”
He shook his head, brown waves bouncing where they framed his jaw. “Nah. This is just how guys work things out...”
Nolan’s voice followed another loud crash. You son of a bitch!
“...and once they’ve worn out all their energy they’ll...”
The distinct sound of knuckles crunching against a nose accompanied glass shattering and a heavy thump against a wall.
“...be friends again. Probably smoke a joint or whatever and laugh about how their hands are busted or one is missing a tooth. You know. Guy shit.”
Below us, the fight continued, and despite how much I begged, Quinton wouldn’t get off of me.
It seemed like forever before the crashes and bangs ended, heavy footsteps climbing the stairs immediately after. A deep voice shook the walls of my room when Soren stepped in.
“Get the fuck off of her and get out.”
Soren didn’t have to ask twice. Quinton was jumping to his feet before Soren could finish his sentence.
The door slammed closed and Soren stormed toward me, his fingers clutching over my upper arm before I could crawl away.
“I need to go check on Nolan.”
“Your brother is fine. Which is not something I can say about you at the moment.”
Rolling my eyes, I sneered at his busted up face. “Like you fucking care. You’ve been torturing me for days.”
“I haven’t hurt you,” he roared, his eyes locking to mine.
“Oh, really?” A scornful laugh volleyed from my lungs. “Then what the hell do you call this?”
Yanking up the cuffs of my shirt, I showed him the burns caused by the ropes he’d used to tie me up at his party. His gaze flicked to the marks and back to my face.
“Those are a consequence.”
“Consequence of what?”
“Not pledging. But I didn’t cause them by losing my fucking shit and getting violent with a woman. Your brother crossed a line.”
“What do you care?”
I attempted to tug away from him, but one hand held my arm while the other trapped my cheeks between strong fingers.
The shouting match had ended when Soren’s voice dropped to a deep growl.
“Because nobody touches you, but me. Do you understand that? Not your brother. Not some fucking asshole you haven’t met yet. And certainly not an FBI Agent who thinks he has the right to get in my face.”
Silenced by my shock, I stared up at Soren with wide eyes. His chest beat with heavy breath, the tendons in his neck sticking out with barely restrained rage.
“You might as well get used to the fact that you’ve been claimed, Little Olly. There’s not a single motherfucker out there who will get in my way when it comes to you. So either accept it and pledge like I’ve been telling you all along, or deal with the fact that I’ll be your personal babysitter and chauffeur until you get your head on straight and figure out you have no choice in the matter.”
His mouth slammed against mine, his lips forcing mine open so that his tongue could sweep in to take control of the kiss with enough heat and fire to burn the skin.
Instantly, my body reacted despite the hatred I felt, a noise climbing up my throat that excited him more.
Shoving me down until I was lying against a pillow, he continued kissing me as the hand holding my arm relaxed to creep up my neck and into my hair.
I couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to, the dizziness in my head setting the room around us spinning.
When my tongue flicked out to gingerly dance with his, Soren’s body shifted until he was lying against me, the desire he was feeling obvious by the hard bulge pressing against my leg.
But as quickly as he had kissed me, he stopped, his body jerking away like I’d insulted him, his dark eyes holding mine as he climbed from my bed.
Three long strides and he was standing at my doors with his fingers clenching the handle.
“Get a shower and get dressed. You have work in an hour and I think you know by now who will be driving you.”
Slamming my door on the way out, Soren marched down the stairs and out of earshot.
Meanwhile, I was left to curl into a ball and wonder what the hell had just happened.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Olive
More than ever, I hated the waitress uniform required at Bailey’s Diner. With short sleeves and an above knee skirt, it did nothing to hide the marks wringing my wrists or the carpet burn down my leg. I wasn’t looking forward to walking through the doors to see the staring faces of the employees and regulars.
Even worse, Tristan was working tonight and as soon as he saw me looking like I’d gotten into a losing fight with a speeding bus, he would lose his mind with worry.
Thankfully, he wasn’t the type to yell and scream, and would simply drag me into the office to have an important discussion. Not that he would be able to drag me far with Soren as my personal bodyguard for the night.
Shifting in my seat, I glared at the side of Soren’s face as he drove me through the rain to work.
“You don’t have to stay, you know? It’s a five hour shift and you’re going to be bored as shit watching me work all night.”
His expression didn’t change in response to my words. Not a grin. Not a twitch. Not a flicker.
Without both
ering to look at me – which was surprising, since he didn’t have the best track record of watching the road - he swallowed before answering.
“Five hours of watching your ass bounce around under that dress is entertainment enough. I’ll make do.”
I huffed out a breath. “Tristan will be working tonight and he hates you.”
He laughed. “That’s a bonus.”
“Damn it, Soren. You can’t do this to me. I’m not your family or girlfriend or anything, so you have no right to think you can watch over me. I don’t even need watching over. I’m a big girl now. I can handle myself.”
He laughed, the burst of sound anything but amused. “Your battle wounds say differently.”
“You caused them!”
“Consequence,” he reminded me. “The wrists anyway. Can’t say the same about your leg.”
After a pause, he added, “Just pledge and this nightmare will be over.”
Folding my arms over my chest, I kicked the bottom of the dashboard, pissed off that he wouldn’t stop demanding that of me.
“What happens if I pledge?”
“You’ll get a task.”
The car veered around a tree fallen in the road as the rain poured down harder. As if I wasn’t enough on edge, the weather was bound and determined to make my headache worse, the pain a steady pulse across my skull.
“That’s why I’m not pledging. I don’t want a task. Did you see what they made Kendall and Shea do? There’s no way in hell that’ll happen. I’m not -“
“An idiot. I know,” he finished for me. “And that wouldn’t be the task.”
“What would it be?”
“Pledge and I’ll tell you.”
Wasn’t happening. He could stalk me, bully me, make demands and even clunk me over the head and drag me around like the caveman he was, and I still wouldn’t agree to be one of his groupies.
Saying I was angry wouldn’t begin to describe how I felt about their treatment of my friends. Angry was too simple of a word, too mild and meek for the true storm that raged inside me. I wasn’t sure there was a word for the way I felt since walking into the family room that afternoon, but even more than the soul crushing, heart hammering anger I felt was the confusion that surrounded it for Soren’s reaction to my brother.
Since when did Soren give a shit how I was treated or who put their hands on me? We’d known each other for ten years, and while, yes, I was often in the background, an annoying younger sister that was always asking to tag along, it wasn’t like Soren and I had much history beyond that one regretful incident before he went to prison.
His anger, if that was the proper word, at Nolan didn’t make sense. And his continued harassment of me, and demand that I pledge, felt more like the tantrum of a spoiled kid who wasn’t accustomed to not getting what he wanted.
So why was it that on top of all of the drama, the heartache, the headache and random events of the day, it was the way Soren kissed me that held my attention the most?
I refused to think about it and had already balled up the memory and tossed it aside with the importance of an old grocery list, but like an annoying game of Whack-A-Mole, the thought kept popping up regardless of the amount of times I slammed it back down with my trusty mallet.
He was screwing with my head. I knew it and he knew it. But yet my eyes kept drifting left, focusing on the shape of his mouth and the memory of what his lips had felt like when they’d stolen that kiss.
Whack! There goes that mole again, the son of a bitch refusing to die.
The lights of the diner came into view, Soren expertly navigating the car into the parking lot despite the ridiculous speed he was driving.
“Fine. You can do what you want. Just stay out of my way while I work. Irene will be pissed if I mess up the till or upset a customer because I was too busy avoiding you.”
“Fine,” he answered on a half laugh.
His amusement only served to piss me off more. Throwing the door open and stepping out into the rain, I was surprised steam didn’t rise off of me for how angry I was.
“Fine.”
The loudly spoken word echoed across the parking lot followed by the distinct crunch of a slammed car door. Kicking a dent into the side of it for good measure, I stalked off toward the diner, refusing to look back to see if the King himself was following me.
My hand slammed on to the handle of the diner door...and I paused to take a steadying breath because I needed this job and couldn’t afford to lose it over bullshit.
Plastering a fake smile on my face, I waltzed in like I was Snow White returned from her glass coffin, the smile fading just as quickly when Tristan took one look at me and marched behind me to the office.
The door clicked closed. “Explain.”
“About?” Perhaps I’d put too much sugar into the way I’d asked the question because Tristan scoffed at my back, his eyes narrowed to thin slits when I turned around to look at him.
He waved his hand at my body as if to showcase the damage and tapped his foot several times waiting for an answer.
“I fell.”
An eyebrow arched almost to his hairline. “Falling doesn’t cause circular bruises around your wrists that look very similar to ligature marks.”
I hated that Tristan’s brother was a cop. It made him more observant.
“What if I fell in some vines in the woods and they wrapped around my wrists while I struggled to get up?”
“Not buying it, Olive. What the fuck happened to you?”
There was no wiggling my way out of this. No matter what I told him, there was no good explanation for having bracelets of torn skin and bruising.
Unless...
“I like things kinky?”
A frustrated groan rolled over his lips. “You’re not even dating anybody. Plus, if you were, and the idiot did that while you were getting your kink on, I would still tell you to get the hell away from him because he was a fucking idiot.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. “It’s not a big deal, Tristan. Just a stupid prank gone wrong. We really need to get back to work because if Irene stops in and we’re not out there, she’ll make these marks look like love taps.”
His eyes scanned the bruising again, mouth twisting with anger. When his gaze lifted to mine, his voice was matter of fact. “Maia Forbes is dead.”
“What?” My voice pinged off the walls on the single word question. There was no way in hell Maia was dead. I just saw her at the party. “How?”
Nodding his head, he leaned against the closed door.
“Murdered. Well,” he shrugged a shoulder, “cut up and strewn all over a field if you really want to get technical, but she’s definitely dead. They found her this afternoon.”
Thoughts racing back to the incident on the way home from school, I put two and two together and couldn’t believe I’d forgotten already. “What do you mean-“
Unable to finish my sentence because too many thoughts were racing through my head, I blinked rapidly, my mouth opening and closing again like a fish out of water.
Tristan watched patiently while I stood dumbfounded, finally shrugging again before filling in the silence.
“Simon told me and I don’t think the whole town knows yet, but the information is bound to get around eventually. He said she had makeup on her face like someone had done to Teagan, so it’s likely whoever killed them is the same person. You need to be careful who you’re hanging out with, Olive. Trusting the wrong guy at this point could be deadly.”
Shaking my head as if that would make this all go away, I silently pleaded with my eyes for Tristan to be lying.
It wasn’t like I mourned Maia. She was a crazy bitch who woke up in the morning thinking of all the ways she could make everybody’s life hell. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had a secret wall panel in her room that slipped aside to reveal a large whiteboard scribbled with all her nefarious and brutal plans. But that didn’t mean she deserved to die.
How could an
y of this happen? Who was running around Winter Ridge killing people for the fun of it? What could I possibly do to make this insanity stop?
“We have to get to work,” I blurt out. Because busying myself with work was less of a stroke inducing practice than thinking about it.
Racing forward, I didn’t slow down enough to give Tristan time to move out of the way. All I cared about was exhausting myself with brainless work so I could forget everything that was happening.
Smiling old men and hand-dipped milkshakes were a hell of a lot better than pranks, and tasks and pledges and dead fucking bodies.
But before I could make it through the door, another complication floated to the surface of my thoughts
Spinning on my heels, I eyed Tristan.
“Soren is in the diner. He’ll be here all night. Just do your best to avoid him and he’ll stay out of your way.”
“The fuck?”
It was the first time I’d heard Tristan curse.
“What do you mean Soren is in the diner? He’s the psycho running around killing women, Olive. When will you get that through your head?”
Except I wasn’t so sure it was Soren. He’d been shuttling me around all over Winter Ridge since the night of the party, and unless he was sneaking out after I went to bed, when would he have time to kill someone and dump the body?
It didn’t make sense. And I was far too screwed up in the head at that moment to think about it.
“Well, just be glad you’re not a woman because, apparently, that means you’re safe.”
Flashing him a grin, I ran off to deal with customers, my gaze sliding to the end of the long counter to see Soren watching over me just like he’d threatened. I ignored him as well, completely fed up with all that had occurred in the past few days.
Every so often, thoughts of Maia would pop in my head, something not sitting right with me about the fact that another girl was dead. But as quickly as those thoughts came, I dismissed them because I was too afraid to stop and consider what these string of crimes could mean.
Hours passed, and a lull occurred in customers around eight that evening. I took the opportunity to go to the bathroom and catch my breath, waltzing back into the main dining area to find Soren playing on his phone while Tristan was staring him down with an expression of pure malice marring his normally tranquil face.
