“Funny. What did you really tell them?”
He gave me a twitched smile before answering, “I told them I had to go out of town, and I wasn’t sure when I’d be back.”
“And they just accepted it without asking for more details?” I asked. Could it be that easy?
“I didn’t give them much of a chance to ask me. Just told them I had to cancel, apologized for the inconvenience, and hung up.” He sighed heavily, scrubbed his hand over his face, and then sat up.
“Does that mean you’re okay with this?” I asked, stomach rolling as I waited for his answer.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “I guess I just needed to make sure I wasn’t leaving anyone hanging while our lives are so up in the air.”
“Yeah,” I said, sighing.
“You’ll feel better after you deal with it. Even if it sucks to do it, at least you can look back and know you didn’t just leave people hanging.”
“What about our parents?” Leaving a job was one thing. What were we supposed to say to our parents? If we dropped off the radar, both sets would put out a search and rescue on us.
He shook his head. “I can’t think about that right now.”
“We’re less than ten miles from them. We need to figure this out. They’re expecting a wedding. Not only that, but college graduations—for both of us. And what happens if they find out we’re here and didn’t call?”
“Guys!” Jared shot into the bedroom, coming to a sliding halt at the foot of the bed. “So… epic news!”
“We can go home now?” I popped up to my knees, giddy for some good news.
“No, better than that!” His smile beamed from ear to ear, eyes sparkling as he all but vibrated in his shoes.
“If it isn’t news about going home, I’m not interested,” I huffed.
Jared’s hand fished out, snatching my phone from me. “Give me that, and don’t steal my damn thunder!”
“You and your thunder can—”
“Be nice! That is no way to speak to a man of the cloth,” Jared said, poking his chest out like he was proud of himself.
“What?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
“Fall to your knees, sinner, and ask for forgiveness.” He laughed.
“That’s not funny, asshole. Satan’s keeping track of all this and your ass will scorch for a long time if you don’t stop being a dick,” Mark said, poking Jared in the chest.
Jared reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. Unfolding it, he held it in my face. “Paige, can you please tell Mark what that says?”
There in black and white was his name, followed by the words, ‘ordained by the state of Tennessee’. “Holy shit. He wasn’t kidding.”
“Told ya,” Jared said, pulling the paper back to fold it.
Mark snatched it out of his hand. “Let me see that.”
His eyes scanned the page as Jared and I waited for him to read what the both of us already knew.
The page lowered as Mark shook his head. “Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
“Seriously, Jared?” Mark shot back at him.
I never understood how they could all communicate in half sentences and know exactly what they were talking about. I was getting a little better at it as the years wore on, but nothing like the Six.
“Yes, seriously. We can’t just have anyone come here and marry the two of you,” Jared answered, crossing the room to make a good show of pacing. “Now, we just need to come up with a solid date and figure out who we can invite. Gotta talk to the ‘rents about that, and—”
Ignoring Jared, I turned to Mark. “I’m not getting married without our parents.”
“…decorations online. Maybe you and the girls can sit down and get those ordered.” He stopped pacing and tossed my phone back to me.
Mark kicked his leg over the edge of the bed and put his hand out to me to help me up. “Paige and I are all for getting married here. It’s what we wanted to begin with, but we aren’t doing anything without our parents. Okay?”
“Oliver’s here,” Riley called up the stairs.
“Oh goody,” Jared scoffed. “Mr. Impossible is back.”
“Keeps you in your place, does he?” I asked, poking my finger into his side.
Jared snorted. “He wouldn’t have come back unless they either found what they were looking for or hit a dead end. Guess we should go find out.”
Mark clasped his hand with mine as we followed Jared downstairs. We—that simple, two-letter word had more weight and meaning to me than it ever had before. We were no longer just Mark and Paige. Were no longer just the Six. We were encompassed in a network of something so much bigger. And I didn’t know what the hell to make of it. Any of it.
As we walked through the living room, I noticed Oliver outside, phone up to his ear. His lips moved as if he spoke in clipped tones before he lowered the phone, jabbed the screen with his finger, and then slipped it into his back pocket. It looked as if he took a deep breath before turning toward the front door. I lost sight of him as he passed the window.
Riley and the others could be heard in the kitchen. Their conversations crossed over one another, making it sound jumbled. A cabinet door bumped closed as the refrigerator opened with a clank of jars.
“So what news of the outside world, Oliver?” Jared asked.
I hadn’t even heard the door open or close. How could someone so damn big make no noise at all?
“It was the guy in New York Ella took pictures of,” Oliver said, crossing the kitchen and grabbing, of all things, a beer from the fridge.
“How do you know for sure it was him?” Mark asked.
Oliver walked around the table to an empty seat and slumped down in it. “We didn’t until we flew out to New York and Ella worked her magic.”
Ella leaned against the kitchen wall farthest from the table. Her hands were tucked into her pockets and her hair hung like curtains beside her face, keeping most of it in shadow.
“You don’t have to hold the wall up, Ella. There’s support beams there for just that reason,” Jared said, motioning for her to join us at the table.
“Thanks, but I’m just gonna go check the perim—”
“It’s safe. Sit down before you fall down,” Oliver said, jerking the chair beside him out from under the table.
Ella moved the chair even further from Oliver, swiped his beer, and sat in one fluid movement.
“Ornery ass,” Oliver said as he watched her down half his beer in one long swallow.
She handed Oliver his beer back, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“So how do you know for sure it was him?” Riley asked.
Ella sat forward, peeling her jacket off as she answered. “He had a tell.”
“A what?” Riley asked.
“A tell. A mark on his face… I pulled all the pictures I took of him and blew them up so that I could get facial structure measurements, and there it was. A scar right at the corner of his eye. Sure enough, the guy in the morgue had the same scar. Everything else checked out, so we can safely say he was the guy following Paige.”
“The good news…” Oliver said, chiming in. “Is this particular guy didn’t seem to be on anyone’s payroll. Ella and I both think this is just a random stalker case.”
“That just makes me feel loads better,” I said, ensuring I used every bit of sarcasm in my arsenal.
“It should,” Ella said, looking between Mark and me. “Knowing he was following you for his own purposes means your identity is safe. Had it not been safe, we’d have a bigger mess to clean up.”
“What about Evan? Did you guys get anything from his phone records?” Eli asked.
Oliver nodded. “We did.”
“And?” Eli prodded.
The beer tipped up to Oliver’s mouth. When he finished it off, he stood. The neck of the bottle was fisted in his hand. “Someone made him a deal he couldn’t refuse. We don’t know who right now because some of
the conversations were tampered with. Retro is working with one of our guys to see if we can retrieve anything that points us toward whoever lured him in.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Riley jerk in response to what he said.
“Are we safe here?” she asked. “Evan was here. He could have easily told whoever he was working for about it.”
“There’s nothing in his correspondence relaying our coordinates here. We’ve checked it all. Personal phone records, both landline and cell phone. Text and email. Everything has been looked at thoroughly. My guess is he kept everything he knew about this place and all of you a secret in order to get what he wanted out of the deal,” Oliver answered with a shrug, and then added, "But there is also the chance he did tell someone. Hard to say when we don't have all the phone conversations just yet.
Josh, who’d kept quiet the entire time, spoke up. “What if he was working both sides? What if he was trying to stop something from happening to you guys, but still trying to get whatever it was they offered him?”
Ella gave him a subtle smile. “It’s definitely possible. We won’t rule anything out until we have hard evidence.”
“Until we know for sure, everyone will remain here,” Oliver added.
“No.” The word slipped out as I thought it. “No. I refuse to keep playing this game. Mark and I have lives. Real lives, with real people. Not some kind of Spies-R-Us bullshit. The threat you brought us in under is gone. I want to go home.”
“What about the wedding?” Jared asked, sounding more than a little hurt.
Mark caught my hand up in his. “I’m with Paige. All this cloak-and-dagger stuff… that’s not us. That’s not who we want to be.”
“So you’re willing to go back home, not knowing if Evan was slipping information about us, including y’all, to someone who could scoop you right up off the street and we’d never see you again? Is it worth it to you?” Jared asked.
Everyone’s eyes darted between Mark and me. Waiting.
“I think you’re delusional if you think you’re safe from this life. The only thing that kept us from them is my parents. For all these years, we’ve been protected. Are you so ready to turn your back on that? So ready to write us off until something happens and you need us?” Jared demanded.
“You act as if we’ve used you in some way. Don’t forget that it was you and all of this that pulled us from our lives. Lives we were happy with,” I fired back at him.
“Both of you shut the hell up,” Oliver said.
“Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?” Mark asked, shoulders squaring as he stared Oliver down.
Oliver just gave him a reproachful look. “A room full of adults, but right now, I can’t even say that without wanting to cringe. Fighting isn’t going to help. Get your shit together. You wanna fucking leave so bad, pack. I’ll take you to the airport. And on your flight home, I want you to remember a few things… Your buddy, Ace? He had to go into the jungle and rescue Jared from a madman. Would you like Jared to tell you all about the torture he endured while he was there? Or how about Aiden? Would you like him to call you up and tell you about squaring off with a psychopath who kidnapped his own niece and killed her mother in front of her?”
He took a breath and continued. “None of this is a game. You being a part of it is just how it is. Like it or don’t like it. You can’t change it, but you could make it better. You could be a part of something that takes those types of people off the streets. You could be the one who ends a child-trafficking ring like Aiden and Airen did. You could take out cells of criminals and rescue people like Ace did. But go ahead—run away. If that's what you choose to do, they’ll get over it. One day, the two of you will be nothing but a distant adolescent memory.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. Direct hit. Bastard. I didn’t stick around to hear anymore.
“Paige… wait!” Riley called after me.
“Leave me alone.”
Her footsteps thundered up the stairs behind me. “Tough love time, sister.”
Before I knew it, I was flat on my face, her knee in my back. “Now, you either hear me out, or I’ll keep you pinned here until… until…”
I tried pushing up from the floor, but Riley wasn’t having any of it. “Get off me.”
“No.”
THE FLOOR SHOOK ABOVE OUR heads. With voices raised, Paige and Riley were locked in a heated fight.
I turned toward the stairs, unsure what to do.
“A wise man will leave it, ye ken?” Airen said from somewhere over my shoulder.
“Leave it?” I repeated.
“Oh, aye… ye dinna want to get in between two lasses having a row. End up odd man out, ye will.”
“I’ll what?” While the fluid way she spoke was captivating, actually understanding what the hell she said or meant was something totally different.
“Don’t stick your nose in the middle of it, or you’ll be the one they both end up mad at,” Murphy said, stepping into the kitchen.
“Where the hell did you come from?” Oliver and Ella hadn’t said anything about Murphy returning with them.
She snorted, opened her mouth to say something, and then snapped it closed as she shook her head.
“What?” I was more than a little tired of being treated a little differently than everyone else. “Just spit it out.”
Her brow quirked when the shouting match above us hit its crescendo.
“Get the hell off me, you bitch.”
“Call me whatever the hell you want, Paige, but I’m not moving until you shut the hell up and listen to me!”
“Then we’ll be here all night because I won’t talk to you while your knee is in my kidneys.”
“It’s really nice outside. A bit brisk, but it helps clear out the cobwebs,” Murphy said.
The scuffle upstairs didn’t seem like it would end without one of them conceding. Neither was the giving up kind.
I looked up, wondering if I should just break it up. They were bound to hurt each other. Say things they didn’t mean.
“Let them figure it out. If you get in the middle of it now, they’ll never get everything off their chests,” Murphy said.
“Come on, Mark. Put this on and we’ll get some fresh air,” Airen said, handing me my jacket.
With the door closed behind us, you couldn’t hear the blowup happening between Paige and Riley. Maybe Murphy and Airen were right.
“It’s days like this I miss Scotland the most,” Airen said, her breath fogging up like a puff of smoke with every exhale.
“I’d love to see Scotland. It’s actually on my bucket list of places I want to photograph.”
“The highlands are beautiful in the spring,” Airen said, smiling so wide I found myself smiling in response. No wonder Aiden had fallen head over heels with her. She wasn’t just pretty on the outside. She had something about her that drew you in without realizing it.
“Ever had any fairy encounters?” I asked, finding myself joking with her as I pushed Riley and Paige’s argument aside. They’d figure it out. They always did.
“Oh, aye! Little blighters come and steal my socks. One time, they rearranged the pictures on my auntie’s wall,” she said. Her head shook as she laughed.
“Are you sure it was the fairies, or was it you pulling a fast one on your aunt?” I asked, watching her fight a smile.
“Weel, that time, it was me, but I never did admit it,” she said, winking.
“What about you, Murphy?” Airen asked. “Pull any really good pranks?”
“Me? No, I was never really the prankster type,” she answered. “I was more the make lists and organize everything type.”
“What about you, Mark? Ye’d have to have some good stories hanging around this lot,” Airen said, turning the conversation back on me.
Pranks were a common occurrence when the Six was around each other. Someone was always coming up with something to pull on either all of us, or one of us. Usually, Jared was the ringleader of
it but… “There was one time when Jared wanted to get Josh back for a prank he’d pulled on him. So he enlisted everyone else to help him pull it off. Only everyone told Josh about it, and we turned it around on Jared. It’s probably the only time we were able to get one over on him. He’s shady like that.”
“You can’t tell us there was a prank, but not tell us what the prank was!” Murphy grabbed my arm and shook me.
“Okay, okay!” I laughed, seeing the perplexed look on her face.
“I think we were fourteen, maybe fifteen… Jared and Josh were in that stage of trying to one-up each other. Mostly because they thought it would impress Riley.” I couldn’t help but chuckle remembering.
“Wait… impress her? They both liked Riley?” Murphy asked.
I could have kicked myself. “It was a misguided childhood crush.”
“So they never dated her?” she asked.
“No. That was one of the rules,” I rushed to continue. “Riley was off limits for us. We decided we valued her friendship, and each other’s, too much to ruin it.”
“So it wasn’t just Jared and Josh then?” Airen asked, covering a laugh that tried to escape.
“That doesn’t bother you?” Murphy asked her.
“No. If anything, I think it’s cute,” Airen answered.
“Cute? Your boyfriend was crushing on the girl upstairs at one point,” Murphy said, sounding a little offended.
“Years ago, and she never knew about it until we graduated,” I added, trying to make her understand it really wasn’t that big of a deal. Even though at the time, it had been. Had Ace not come up with the rule that none of us could date her, and then made us agree on it, our friendship might have taken a really hard hit.
“How’d that go?” Murphy asked.
“She was pissed, and rightly so. But by the time we’d graduated high school, every one of us, except for Ace, was over the crush. So Ace manned up and told her how he felt—how he still feels. Now look at them,” I answered.
“Married,” Airen chimed in.
“When did that happen?”
“You didn’t know?” Murphy asked.
“Paige told me, but it's been so crazy that I haven't really had a chance to think about it, let alone ask them. When did they get married?
The Vows We Make (The Six Series Book 4) Page 9
