Sinners' Playground

by Caroline Peckham

  "Who?" I grunted, sipping my rum again and figuring oblivion was probably a good friend to hang out with tonight.

  "Maverick," she said simply.

  His name was a bullet to my chest, a blade in my skull. I swilled a measure of rum in my mouth, avoiding answering, unsure if I even wanted to answer. What did I owe her anyway? But then I thought of the night she'd left and guilt stirred in my gut. We'd abandoned her as deeply as she'd abandoned us. I knew I wasn't innocent in any of this. But I'd also watched my friends shatter over her for years. Fox had never let go, always searching for her, always sure the next lead would take us to her. But all the trails inevitably ran cold.

  She had been gone as completely as if she were dead. And I'd figured out we were better off that way a long time before Fox and JJ ever gave up on her. But eventually, they did. And things got better. We weren't completely broken anymore. We had fun again. We built a life, a family. The three of us were stronger than ever. If she'd stayed, we would have lost each other. She would have driven a wedge between us so deep that we all would have been cast adrift.

  But I had a dark secret that no one else was privy to. I knew who she would have chosen. My heart had been ripped out a while before anyone else's when I'd learned that fact. But I'd never uttered a word of what I’d witnessed to anyone. Not even to her. But finding out you're not the one to the girl you would have died for was a pretty bitter pill to swallow. I’d swallowed that motherfucker down and moved on eventually though. That was life. It was a soul-sucking bitch.

  I let the silence stretch between us, figuring it didn't matter if she knew the truth. Maybe if she knew then she'd realise staying here in hopes of getting her hands on the rest of those keys was a fool's game. It wasn't gonna happen. Even now her key was in plain sight to me, it made no difference. It didn’t stir up old desires of what lay beyond the door it opened, because that dream had been put to bed a long time ago.

  "The night you left, Luther set the cops on Maverick’s ass over Axel's murder," I started and she swam to the edge of the pool, folding her arms on the ledge as she listened. "He needed a fall guy to go down for it, seeing as they already had the body and all, so he picked the one who no one would miss but us. And as our opinions meant shit back then, we couldn't stop him from sending Maverick down."

  "He went to prison for what I did?" she gasped, her wide eyes telling me this definitely was news to her.

  I nodded stiffly, not feeling bad about that anymore because fuck him. "Maverick wanted us to give him an alibi, but Luther was hanging you over our heads. Said he'd kill you if we didn't do what he said. We couldn't help Maverick any more than we could help you, or ourselves."

  I could see her swallow from here, but she said nothing, waiting for me to continue.

  "He went down for six years – eighteen months in juvie and the rest served as an adult - and when he got out, he could never forgive us for abandoning him. Then some bad shit happened and...well he's gone now. He lives on Dead Man’s Isle, runs his own gang. The Damned Men. We're at war with them every fucking day. We don't go beyond The Divide and neither do they."

  "What's The Divide?" she breathed, her voice like velvet and so familiar that a part of me wanted to keep her talking just so I could bathe in the feel of hearing it again. I just wished I could cut that part out of me and drown it in the pool.

  "It's where our turf meets theirs. It's a war zone. We claim an inch of their territory and they reclaim it back the next day, it's an endless cycle. A blood bath. Don't ever fucking go there," the warning slipped from me before I could even consider it. What did I care if she went prancing off to The Divide? She'd end up dead and that would be my problem solved. But shit, even as I thought that I felt a sickness I couldn't shake. No, even after all this time, I had the urge to protect her. It was why I wanted to destroy the asshole who'd bruised her face and why I'd become a living hurricane since she'd arrived. But that didn’t mean I was above sending her away again. I could do that. I would do it.

  "Anyway, point is, if you've come back to get the keys, you've got no fucking chance, ghost." I got to my feet, moving forward and standing over her so she had to lean back and look up at me.

  "I'm not here for any reason that concerns you, dude," she said smoothly, but I tutted, knowing she was lying. I was always good at reading people, I just wished I'd been better because maybe then I would have figured out who she wanted out of us a long time ago and it could have saved me the heartache before I fell for her.

  I lowered down to a crouch, swigging my rum as she was cast in my shadow, the light from the house blocked by my body. "Well I'll just spell it out in case you get any stupid ideas. You wouldn't be able to find my key, or Fox's, or JJ's. And if by some miracle you did manage to get your hands on them, then it wouldn't help you anyway. Because Maverick took off with his key and I'm sure it's buried in his fortress somewhere. You'd be shot a hundred feet from the outer fence if you went there. So good luck with the little plan that you think I can't see working behind your eyes, ghost. But I suggest you cut your losses and get out of Sunset Cove. I'll even give you the cash to set you up somewhere else. Anywhere else."

  "I’m good right where I am, Chase," she said, her upper lip peeling back.

  I leaned down, cupping her chin and ignoring the rush of heat that ran to my cock as my gaze wandered to her full lips. "I knew you couldn't forget my name, little one. It's carved on the inside of your skull just like yours is carved on the inside of mine. The five of us did a real number on each other, huh? But it all ended in tears. Did you cry for me, or did you only shed tears for the one of us you always planned on choosing?" The rum made my tongue loose and I brushed my thumb across her lips, unable to help myself.

  She sucked my thumb into her mouth and my dick turned to iron, letting me know just how much I still hungered for this girl. She bit down hard and I cursed, yanking it free and eyeing the bloody teeth marks in my flesh. Bitch.

  "I didn't cry for any of you," she snarled viciously and I got to my feet again.

  "Liar," I said coldly. "If you hurt my friends again, I'll hurt you back, ghost. I promise you that. You fucked up Fox so good that I'm already feeling vengeful, and JJ's never been the same since you left. Ten years is a long time, but apparently it wasn't enough to mend what you did."

  "What I did?" she scoffed. "You were the ones who forced me to run."

  "You were the one who kept running," I snapped, my voice echoing off of the walls and she just glared at me with venom in her eyes. "You're the worst thing that ever happened to us, ghost," I said through my teeth. "And mark my fucking words, I'm not going to let you happen to us again."

  "H ey," Fox's voice drew my attention as I lay in the admittedly waning sun beside the pool and I cracked an eye open so that I could look at him.

  I had my headphones in and Let You Love Me by Rita Ora was playing, making me feel relaxed for one of the first times since I'd shown up here. And by my headphones, I of course meant that I'd stolen JJ's phone from his pocket just before he'd left for the club earlier and had found his headphones in his room when I not so accidentally wandered in there instead of into my own. I may or may not have also had a quick look in his nightstand drawers and closet for his key, but of course I hadn't found it. All that I had found were condoms. So many condoms I had trouble believing he'd ever actually get around to using all of them and was caught between being impressed and intimidated by the hoard.

  Luckily me and JJ had always had the same taste in music and it looked like that hadn’t changed in the years we’d spent apart, so I didn’t even have to bother making up my own playlists. And he still used his own birthday for a passcode too so I had instant access to his cellphone. He wasn’t quite dumb enough to leave any information on it though, but I had found an insane number of female contacts listed with descriptions like ‘Karen with angry husband’, ‘Olivia with the perky tits’ and ‘Backdoor Jennifer’. Looking over them had made me feel kinda uncomfortable so I�
�d turned my attention to the music and had only read like six of his filthy text convos. There was stuff in those that was enough to make me blush and I’d thought I was pretty sexually diverse in the things I’d tried. Maybe not though.

  "We're having a party tonight. I got you a dress to wear. Come on, we don't have long to get you ready." Fox turned and walked away like he assumed I would follow along at his heels. But that would happen exactly never and if he wanted me to play nice tonight then he was about to be severely disappointed.

  I pulled my headphones from my ears and dropped them alongside the phone as I got to my feet then turned and walked away around the edge of the curved pool.

  Fox looked back over his shoulder at me just as I climbed up onto the diving board and arched an eyebrow at him as he frowned at me.

  "I don't want to dress up for some dumb party," I said. "So just open up the front door and I'll be out of your hair."

  "That's not how this works, hummingbird," he replied, striking a low blow with that nickname which sucker punched me somewhere just south of my heart. "I say jump, you say how high."

  I rolled my eyes at him and dove into the pool. The warm water enveloped me as I sank into it and started swimming, loving the feeling of my body gliding beneath the surface and aching for a taste of the sea even more than I had been before. I'd seen the surfboards the guys kept in the garage when JJ had dragged me out to get food with him again last night and I was seriously aching for some time on the waves. But I wasn't going to ask any of these assholes for anything, so I'd have to figure out how to get my own board once I got my ass out of here.

  I swam all the way to the far end of the pool before coming up for air beside the wall and gasping as I found Fox there waiting for me. His green eyes were stormy with anger and his strong jaw was locked tight in a way that told me he wasn't used to not getting his own way.

  He didn't even say anything, just reached down, caught my wrists and hauled me straight up out of the water.

  "Let me go," I demanded as my feet landed at the edge of the pool in front of his.

  Fox kept hold of my wrists, pinning them behind my back and leaning right in so that our chests were touching and water was seeping through his white shirt from my bikini clad body.

  "I'm starting to lose my patience with you, Rogue," he growled. "You show up here looking like death warmed up, keeping secrets, telling lies and then you have the audacity to fight against us at every turn. Have you forgotten who I am? I'm not your friend, I'm not some desperate dude with a hard on for you and no fucking hope. I'm Fox motherfucking Harlequin and if you don't start showing me some fucking respect, then you're going to end up seeing the man who everyone in this town fears."

  I swallowed thickly and for a moment I wasn't even standing there in front of this man who had grown into the role his father had laid out for him and instead I was looking at a boy with blonde hair and dark green eyes as the rain pounded down on us and I shivered before him.

  "We're Harlequins now," Fox growled firmly. "And you're not. There isn't a place for you amongst us. You were just…a way for us to pass the time. A girl we could all try and win, but the game got old. We don’t need you anymore. We don’t want you."

  Those words were like a direct knife to my heart, twisting and squeezing and crushing the life out of me as my gaze skipped between him and the other three boys who had promised to always have my back, always love me, never abandon me. And not one of them said a single word against him.

  The pain of the Harlequin boys destroying my entire world and taking the only good thing I'd ever had from me that night was almost enough to overwhelm me and panic welled up within my soul as every muscle in my body coiled with the need to run and run and run until I never had to see this place or these boys ever again.

  "Get your fucking hands off of me, Fox," I snarled, trying to yank my wrists out of his grasp but only succeeding in pressing our bodies together even more firmly.

  "Get your ass inside and get ready for the party. If you test me on this, I'll take your little mutt to the shelter and you'll never see him again,” Fox threatened.

  I yanked on my wrists again and Fox released me so suddenly that I fell backwards with a shriek of fright, crashing back down into the pool and sinking beneath the surface with my heart pounding a frantic beat in my chest.

  I sank to the bottom and kept myself there as I tried to fight off the urge to cry over the memories Fox had just brought to the forefront of my mind. If I got lost in them now, I didn't think I'd ever recover again.

  By the time I swam back up to the surface, Fox was already disappearing inside and I cursed him beneath my breath as I heaved myself up and out of the water, wrapping myself in the towel from my sun lounger and stalking back inside.

  My hair dripped all over the hardwood as I went and I left footprints too, but boohoo. This wasn't my house, so I didn't care about damaging the fittings.

  Mutt was curled up on the end of my bed as I pushed open the door to my room and I grunted a greeting at the pup as he wagged his tail and rolled over, hoping for a belly rub.

  Fox had left the dress he'd bought me draped over the armchair in the corner of the room and I growled at it as I stalked over to get a closer look. It was tight, short, black and the tags said it was expensive too. I had half a mind to set the fucking thing on fire, but that was too obvious.

  I wasn't going to play the little brat throwing a fit because I didn't like what he was telling me to do. I was going to play a smarter game. And that meant Badger needed to think he was winning.

  I took a shower to wash the chlorine from my skin then took the time to style my pastel rainbow hair in heavy curls which tumbled down my spine before carefully applying the makeup Lucy had given me when I was at the salon. I assumed JJ had had to pay for it alongside everything else I'd gotten done from my hair to my nails, but he'd offered and it was really the least he owed me.

  By the time I'd finished applying it, you couldn't even see the lingering bruises on my skin anymore. The ones on my neck had already faded to next to nothing anyway and the black eye was in its final stages of blue and yellow, but now I looked as fresh as a daisy. Well, a daisy with a preference for thick eyeliner and bubblegum pink lipstick anyway.

  Music was thumping from further into the house and the sound of laughter and chatter told me that this fun gathering was well underway, so I slipped into a set of lacy black underwear and squeezed into the dress next.

  I was now the proud owner of my own underwear and several outfits thanks to JJ’s little shopping trip, so at least I didn't have to worry about clothes anymore. It still didn't make a lick of difference to the way I felt about these assholes, but every little win needed to count at the moment because I was seriously short on good news.

  Lastly, I slipped on a pair of chunky white heels JJ had bought me and assessed myself in the mirror with a critical eye as I rearranged my boobs within the dress to give maximum appeal to my admittedly modest chest. The short dress showed off the tattoos on my legs and found I quite liked this look even if Fox had been somewhat responsible for it.

  A knock sounded at the door just as I was about to head for it and I moved to open it with a sigh of irritation, expecting Fox to be there demanding my presence like a caveman wanting to show off his shiny new club.

  Instead, I found JJ leaning against the wall looking fucking edible in a pair of stonewashed jeans and a white linen shirt which had a deep V-neck to show off just enough of his defined pecs to make me drool a little bit.

  "Well look at you," he purred, his eyes dragging over me in the black dress and drinking in everything from my tattoos to my black fingernails with the little skull decals. I was pretty certain I'd never spent the amount of money it had taken to put this look together in all my life, but I wasn't going to complain about spending their cash. It looked to me like they had more than enough to spare anyway. And the least they could do was clothe the girl they'd kidnapped. "But you're looking a littl
e tense, sweetheart. Do you want a bit of help relaxing?"

  JJ let his gaze dip to my chest and it wasn't hard to pick up on what he was offering.

  "I'm pretty sure I can't afford you," I replied coolly, refusing to show so much as a hint of interest in his offer.

  "First time is on the house," he replied smoothly. "Besides, I work so damn much I hardly ever get to fuck anyone I really want to."

  "That’s...either an oddly flattering statement or a desperately sad one," I said, my brow pinching.

  "Do you feel sorry for me, Rogue?" he teased, stepping closer and dropping his mouth to my ear. "Because you can make me feel better about my lot in life if you wanna let me eat you out before we go and join the party."

  I tried to ignore the heat which ignited in my veins at that suggestion and laughed him off as I placed my hand on his chest and forced him back a step.

  "Maybe next time, asshole. Right now, I need a drink."

  JJ laughed and followed me as I left the room, closing the door behind me so that Mutt could have the space to himself and avoid everyone downstairs.

  "No one will come up to our rooms," JJ explained. "Fox would fucking kill them if they did. The party will stay in the main part of the house and around the pool, maybe it’ll even spill down to the beach if anyone can be bothered to walk down there in the dark. But Fox has the gate locked up tight right now to make sure you can't slip away from us, so probably not."

  "You guys can't just keep me locked up here forever you know," I growled but JJ only laughed like this was all some big joke as we stepped out into the kitchen and found the place full of people who were drinking and dancing and generally enjoying the party.

  "You wanna dance, pretty girl?" JJ asked, swiping a can of beer from the counter and cracking it open.

  He took a long sip then held it up to my lips, making my stomach dip with the memory of him doing that exact thing to me a hundred times when the five of us used to hang out beneath the pier and have our own private parties in the dark. Back then we hadn't wanted anyone else to be around. But I guessed everything changed eventually.