by Eva Ashwood
“Hey… why don’t we take Cora home and cool down?” Misael suggested, glancing from me to Bishop, and then to Kace, who had remained completely silent through this entire exchange. “I don’t think anyone called the cops—in that neighborhood, nobody really bats an eye at a stray gunshot. You guys got rid of the body, so there’s not much else to be done tonight. Let’s just take a break and figure things out from here, okay?”
“Yeah.” Bishop answered Misael without looking away from me. “Yeah, okay.”
The expression he wore let me know that this conversation definitely wasn’t over, but when he pulled me up from the couch and brushed my hair back from my face, his touch was tender. He stared down at me for a long moment, as if trying to convince himself I was really okay, that I was really still alive, still here with them. Then he kissed me once, palming the back of my head and pressing his lips hard to mine.
When he drew back, I glanced over at Kace. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he gazed back at me, and for a moment, I was sure he was going to walk over and tug me from Bishop’s arms and kiss me too.
I hoped he would.
I needed him to.
But instead, he just dipped his chin in a nod. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Misael kept my hand in his as we headed out to Bish’s car. The cold night air nipped at the bare skin of my legs, and Bishop cranked the heat in the beat-up convertible as we made our way down the streets of Baltimore. The boys all lived close to the small house Mom and I rented in a run-down neighbored that was a far cry from the community of gated mansions I’d grown up in.
Thirty minutes later, I was home—though as I looked up at the squat little house, the feeling of “home” rang hollow.
It was the middle of the night by now, and I noticed a strange new car parked in our driveway as Bishop pulled up. New, as in brand new. My brow rose as I peered through the passenger side window at it, fogging the glass with my face pressed so close to the cold pane.
Does Mom have someone over?
I had no idea who that might be. Almost everyone from our old world had abandoned us after Dad was arrested for fraud. They didn’t care that he insisted he was innocent. No one wanted to be associated with a criminal, so our entire family was cut out of the world we’d once belonged to.
Leaving the boys with a quiet “good night,” I pushed into the house, looking around. No one. Odd.
“Mom?” I called.
“Back here.”
She’s in her room? Does she have someone back there?
My exhaustion gave way to confusion, but I walked down the small hallway to her bedroom at the back of the house, only to find my mom alone, going through her closet. She was pulling clothes out of her closet and sorting through them. I was surprised she was still awake, and more than a little relieved to see that no one else was in the house.
“Hey… I thought someone was here. There’s a car out front…?”
“It’s mine,” she said simply. She didn’t even look at me.
My brows furrowed, and a little surge of adrenaline made my heart beat faster. We didn’t have the money for something like that. Not even for a used car, and certainly not for a brand new one. “Yours…?”
“That’s what I said, Cordelia.”
A million questions flooded my mind. I went for the most obvious one.
“How did we get a brand new car?”
The money we had was enough to cover our living expenses—nothing more than that. Had she used what little money we had left for a car? Why would she do that?
“It’s nothing you need to worry about, Cordelia,” she told me. “I took care of it. Who’s the parent here?”
She finally glanced up at me, red dress in her hands, with an expectant raise of her brow. There was something she wasn’t telling me, and I was too tired and emotionally drained to press for a better answer. Instead, I nodded.
“Okay. Sorry. Just curious.”
Without another word, I turned and left. In my curiosity about the car, I’d forgotten that, despite Misael’s careful ministrations, I still looked worse for wear. My scrapes were clean, but they still stung, my hair was a wild mess, and my clothes were ripped and dirty. Mom had barely looked at me, so she hadn’t even noticed, but if I had stuck around too much longer, she probably would have.
In the safety of the small bathroom, I undressed and stepped into the shower, turning the water on as hot as I could handle. It made my cuts and scrapes sting even worse, but I ignored the pain, scrubbing at my skin with soap as if I could wash the entire night off of myself.
When the water began to run cold, I stepped out and wrapped a towel around myself, padding to my bedroom to put on sleep clothes. A loose shirt and clean underwear. My lids were heavy and my body was more so as I fell into bed, crawling up the mattress and pulling the blanket over me like a protective shield.
But it didn’t work.
It was far too flimsy and soft to protect me from all the dangers of the world—dangers I had stirred up by my foolish actions.
Everything seemed to crash over me all at once.
The sob came before I could stop it, my hands flying up to my face to stifle the sound. I cried into my palms, the tears streaking down my face in hot lines.
I cried for the fear that hadn’t truly hit me until now. The realization that I could have—would have—died if not for the Lost Boys. I cried for the loss of one more piece of my innocence as I realized what kinds of monsters existed in the world. But most of all, I cried for the three boys who had irrevocably altered the paths of their own lives to save mine.
I cried until there was nothing left. No more tears to spill, no more air left in my lungs. As my sobs subsided, I lay alone in the dark, gazing up at the cracked ceiling.
On the other side of our small house, my mom was probably asleep by now, blissfully unaware her daughter had almost been raped and had witnessed a murder in the same evening.
What would she have said if I had told her? Would she have been able to talk me through what I was feeling? Would she have comforted me? Or would she have blamed me? Told me it was my fault?
Thoughts tumbled round and round in tumultuous and chaotic circles in my head, and I didn’t notice my window opening until a waft of cold air hit my skin. I blinked my tear-swollen eyes as my head turned sharply to see a large body crawling through the window frame.
Dim moonlight shone off short-cropped light blond hair, highlighting the strong, broad lines of Kace’s face. Without speaking a word, he joined me on my bed, kicking off his shoes and lifting the covers to slide in next to me.
Warm arms wrapped around me, tugging me close to his broad body, and the soft scent of sage made fresh tears leak from my eyes. It was a scent that I would always and forever associate with safety. With being utterly protected.
“Kace…”
My voice was small and raspy, the word muffled by his chest. There was so much I wanted to say.
Apologies. Worries. Words of regret. Words of gratitude.
Words of love.
But they welled in my throat and stayed there. It was too much; I didn’t even know where to start. How could I possibly get through all of these emotions in one night?
But Kace just pulled me closer, until his large body seemed to envelop mine. I felt him shudder once, as if the entirety of the night was finally hitting him too, but his hand was steady when he reached up to stroke my hair, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
“Don’t think about any of it tonight, Princess,” he said. “Just sleep.”
Three
I woke to an empty bed, but the scent of Kace lingered on my pillows, making me lie there a little longer before I finally dragged my sore, still exhausted body out of bed. I could’ve sworn that maybe, just maybe, I had dreamed him up, but there was no dreaming the warmth that lingered in the space beside me.
I wish he’d stayed.
It meant more to me than I could possibly tell him that he’d come to
me, and I knew his presence had been the only thing that allowed me to sleep without overwhelming nightmares. But I wished I could’ve comforted him the way he did me, wished I could’ve helped him process what had happened—even if I wasn’t sure how to do that myself.
All three boys had claimed me at the beginning of the school year, but Kace had been the most stand-offish at first. He was quieter than the others, a boy of deep feeling encased in a hard shell of violence. He had allowed me to see so much more of him as we’d grown closer over the past months, but I knew there were still parts of himself he kept hidden.
I wanted to see them all though.
Even the parts that scared me.
And I wanted him to know that, no matter what, I would never be afraid of him.
The house was chilly, and I shivered as I slipped into the bathroom to shower again—I wasn’t sure I could ever get clean enough after having Flint’s hands on me. I dressed quickly, and as I gathered my backpack and textbooks, I could feel my nerves ratcheting up.
I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to behave for the day. I knew changing our routine out of the blue was out of the question. It was a school day, and no matter how much I dreaded it, the four of us had to go to Slateview, sit through all our classes, and eat the horrible cafeteria food as if nothing had happened. As if it were just any other day.
Maybe that was just my own personal paranoia more than the reality of the situation, my fear that changing form would end up looking suspicious, but I didn’t want to chance it—paranoia or no. The Lost Boys didn’t seem to be interested in breaking form, anyway. They arrived right on time to pick me up, and there was no mention of ditching school.
I slid into the front passenger seat, glancing over at Bish beside me before peeking at Kace and Misael in the back, each in their usual seat.
It was routine. It was familiar.
The quiet tension in the car, however, was not. I couldn’t stand the silence, and when we were halfway to Slateview, I finally spoke.
“Is… everything okay?” I asked, keeping my gaze trained straight ahead. I didn’t mention Kace’s impromptu visit the night before. It wasn’t like the other boys would resent him for spending the night with me, but it felt like something intimate between the two of us. Something maybe he’d needed as much as I had. “After yesterday. No news from Nathaniel?”
There was another brief silence. Not even the radio played this morning to fill the quiet air.
“Well. We haven’t heard anything,” Bishop said evenly. “And Flint probably didn’t bother to tell anyone he was meeting you anyway. Most likely, he didn’t want anyone to know. Eventually someone will start to wonder where the fuck he is. Until then, nothing to do about it.”
Nothing to do about it.
The words seemed to land on my heart like weights, and I clenched my hands into fists, my nails digging into my palms. He was probably right, but I hated it. I wanted a plan, I wanted to do something. To run away to Mexico or something, to get away from the danger I could feel lurking on the horizon. To flee while we still could.
But Bishop didn’t deviate from our usual route as he drove to school. And no one else had anything to add to what he’d said.
It was harder to concentrate than I expected when we got to school. The longer I was left to my thoughts, the more the logistics of the situation kept falling apart at the seams. Even if Nathaniel didn’t care about or find out about what happened to Flint, who was to say the police wouldn’t? Who was to say they wouldn’t investigate Flint’s actions and whereabouts that day? That they wouldn’t be led back to the diner, to the fact that Flint had met briefly with an unfortunately recognizable face and wasn’t seen again after they left together?
How would Flint’s death not lead back to the Lost Boys?
If someone connected it to me, it would be an easy jump to connect it to them. Everyone at Slateview knew I belonged to them, and Bishop had told me himself—they protected what was theirs.
I barely paid attention to my classes, and by the time lunch rolled around, my stomach was so unsettled that I didn’t think I’d be able to eat anything. I’d skipped breakfast too, and I felt a little shaky and weak, but the thought of food made my stomach flop over like a dying fish.
But as I approached the cafeteria, all thoughts of food slipped from my mind. My footsteps slowed as shouts and yells rose up ahead of me.
The cafeteria entrance was blocked by a logjam of students, all craning their heads to peer over and around each other as the sounds of a fight spilled out from inside the large room.
Fuck. This is the last thing the Lost Boys need today.
The three boys were the unofficial rulers, leaders, and peacekeepers of the school, keeping a tight rein on everything that went on between these walls and dominating anyone who stepped out of line. Fights in the halls weren’t all that common, and whenever they did spring up, the Lost Boys usually intervened quickly to shut that shit down.
I jostled my way through the press of bodies, my gaze already scanning the faces around me, searching for the Lost Boys. But when I finally forced my way into the cafeteria and caught sight of the spectacle everyone had gathered to watch, my heart froze in my chest.
Kace was at the center of the crowd, exchanging blows with another student.
What the hell?
This was nothing like the day he’d punched a boy to break up a fight. That had been controlled, calculated—intended to stop the fight in its tracks and show the other boy who was in charge.
This? This was pure, chaotic violence.
The crowd was yelling, urging the two boys on as they went at each other with everything they had, and adrenaline spiked in my veins. Bishop and Misael were nowhere to be seen. The lunch period had just started, and they were probably on their way here. They’d be here soon.
But that might not be good enough.
I elbowed my way past the few people who still stood in my way, darting forward.
“Kace!”
He either didn’t hear me, or he ignored me. His arm cocked back, fist smeared with bright red blood, his face full of fury. His nose was bloody; he’d taken a few good blows himself. But I knew Kace, and I knew his nickname—Reaper—and for a moment, fear that he was going to take this too far flashed through me. The look in his eyes… I’d seen it before. It was the same look he’d had right before he’d pulled the trigger on Flint.
I rushed up, possibly a little out of my mind, considering no sane person would get in the way of two big guys throwing fists at each other. But I didn’t care. Kace needed to stop this.
“Kace!” I repeated his name, grabbing his arm as he drew it back to swing again. He startled, rounding on me, raising his other fist as a snarl contorted his bloodied face—
Then he blinked.
Recognition flashed in his wild, moss-green eyes. Then something like shame, and a deep, soul-crushing pain.
He stared at me, fists still raised, frozen in space. His nostrils flared as he breathed deep, his chest rising and falling.
But he’d stopped. That was all I’d wanted.
We held eye contact, and I stepped toward him tentatively, like someone approaching a feral animal. But at that moment, the other boy used the distraction to land a heavy blow against the side of Kace’s face.
“Fuck you!” the guy grunted, and my stomach clenched with fear as I watched darkness overtake Kace’s expression.
Shit.
Maybe that idiot boy didn’t know it, but he was playing with fire. Signing his own damn death warrant.
Kace’s eyes flashed again, and he rounded on the guy, his entire body seeming to swell with rage. I threw myself toward him, ready to do whatever I could to stop him from fighting, as useless as I knew my efforts would be.
But arms wrapped around me from behind at the same moment Bishop stalked forward, hauling Kace away from the other boy. As soon as Misael was sure I wouldn’t move, he let go of me, stepping up to put his body between Kace
and the boy he’d been fighting.
“E-fucking-nough,” Bishop growled, his voice low, meant only for Kace. “Get your shit together, dude. Now.”
Kace struggled, rage making him wild, and for a second, I thought he might take a swing at Bish. My stomach dropped like a rock, and I stepped forward again, my breath so shallow from fear that it was hard to speak. But I forced the words out anyway, finding the wild boy’s gaze as I spoke
“Kace. Please…”
He looked to me, that same pain and regret flickering in his eyes, before he pulled his arm from Bishop’s hold. He stalked away, and the crowd parted for him like a wave, none of them eager to end up being the new target of Kace’s anger.
Bishop sighed, and the other guy took a step back from Misael.
“Your boy needs to rein himself in,” he huffed, putting a hand to his bloodied face. “He fucking bumped into me and then decided to start swinging for no damn reason at all.”
Bishop just looked at him with a dark, steady gaze. When his complaint got no response, the guy scoffed and left, elbowing his way through the crowd and leaving little droplets of blood on the cracked linoleum of the cafeteria floor.
My heart was still beating too hard and fast, and I bit my lip as I stared in the direction that Kace had gone. Last time he’d gotten hit in the face, I had taken him into the bathroom to clean the blood from his face… and had ended up on my knees in front of him, his cock between my lips.
I had a half-formed impulse to go to him again, to offer him whatever comfort I could, in whatever form he would take it, but before I could move, Misael took me by the shoulders, checking me over to make sure I hadn’t gotten hit by a stray fist.
“I’m okay,” I muttered, still looking distractedly over my shoulder.
“You gotta wait for us next time, Coralee.” Misael shook his head, worry reflecting in his dark eyes. “Don’t go running into a fight like that.”
