Sinners' Playground

by Caroline Peckham

  "I was there for a few months, stealing shit to get by. Then one day I was caught trying to dip my fingers into the pocket of a thug who I should have known better than to attempt to steal from. But I hadn't eaten for two days and it wasn't easy to make the trek to the better parts of town, so I tried my hand despite my better judgement. Luckily for me he thought it was funny. The guy was a fresh signup to The Diamond Cutters Crew and he liked the look of me. Told me he'd forget I tried to rob him if he could take me on a date."

  "What was his name?" Fox asked and I had to wonder if he was keeping some little list somewhere of all these names he was so desperate to collect. Maybe he had colour coded pens to rank them in order of importance and a fancy red one to strike their names out once he’d cut their heads off or whatever he had planned.

  "Cody. You already know about him,” I said.

  "That guy you fucked?" Fox growled and the others looked between the two of us like that information seriously interested them.

  "You make it sound like there was only the one," I drawled, not giving a shit if it bothered him that I'd been with other men. I wasn't his. I'd told him plenty of fucking times. And I was even less his back then than I was now.

  "What was he like?" JJ asked. "Was he nice...did he love you?"

  "Would that make it better or worse in your mind?" I asked and they looked between themselves again like they weren't even sure. I decided to give them a vague answer before moving on. "He was nicer to me than anyone else had been since I left this place," I said. "But it was clear enough what he wanted from me. I chose to give him it, be his girl, have somewhere to sleep at night that had running water and shit. He liked me being there a lot because he liked to fuck me a lot. Is that good enough for your curious little minds?" I left out the details about how much I’d hated myself for making that choice. How I’d felt like I’d whored myself out even though I had liked him well enough. He’d been nice to me for the most part and had never made it into any kind of transaction. But I was young and he knew what he wanted. He wasn’t gentle with me when he took it even if he didn’t force me. The first time we were together, I’d told him I was a virgin right before he’d pushed himself inside me and he’d barked a laugh as he shoved his cock in roughly. “Not anymore,” he’d grunted, barely pausing as I gasped with the pain of it before he started moving his hips again, driving in and out of me and groaning my name as he came a few minutes later. At least it hadn’t lasted long.

  "That was a few months after you left the foster home?" Chase asked. Like the timing was so freaking important to him.

  "So what?"

  "So you were still sixteen. How old was he?"

  "Fuck off, Chase. Who gives a shit?" But he’d hit the nail on the head because even though I hadn’t cared at the time, Cody had been twenty one and maybe what had happened between us was a little more fucked up in hindsight than I’d realised at the time.

  "I do," Fox said darkly.

  "No. You don't," I snapped, refusing to let them see me doubt or question the choices I’d made to survive. They knew full fucking well I’d have to have done plenty of dodgy shit to get by on my own. They just didn’t like thinking about it because they knew when it came down to it that it was all on them. "You don't like hearing it, but whether you want to admit it to yourself or not, you already knew all of this. From the second you bothered to ask about me all those years ago and realised I'd run away from that shitty group home. You know exactly what happens to runaway kids on streets like these. So you know I was fucked in every which way you can imagine. You know I had punk ass boyfriends who treated me like shit and you know that I put up with a lot of it. I had a few rules that I stuck by. If they hit me, I left. If they cheated, I left. And sometimes I just left because I was sick of sucking the same old dick. After Cody, I found other gangster douchebags to date because they could offer me security and I could offer them a girlfriend who wouldn't go trying to wife them or baby daddy them or fall in love or any of that bullshit. I moved from town to town whenever I got sick of my surroundings or the people I was hanging out with. I ran with hood rats and gangsters because that was what I knew best and it was the only place I fit, but I never signed up to any gangs and I was always ready to cut my losses and leave. I didn't always have boyfriends because I didn't need anyone to look after me, but as much as you might not like it, I do actually like dick, so when it suited me I did. And don't go thinking I was some poor, helpless girl getting used by a bunch of assholes, because I can assure you that I used them just as much."

  "And what about the one who tried to kill you?" Chase growled, sucking on his cigarette like it was a lifeline which he was determined to cling to no matter what.

  "What about him?" I asked casually, even though a prickle of unease ran through my body at the mention of Shawn. I wouldn't rest well until that motherfucker was dead.

  "How long were you with him?" JJ asked.

  "What town were you in?" Fox demanded at the same moment.

  I weighed that information in my mind then shrugged. "Just over two years. And I'm not telling you where."

  “Two years?” Fox choked out, looking like he wanted to kill the dude even more than he had before.

  "This guy was another gangster then?" Chase asked, cutting a little too close to the truths I wasn't willing to share with them. "What gang? One the Harlequins are at peace with? Or one pitched against us?"

  "How the fuck am I supposed to know?" I asked. "You don't tell me shit about your little boys' club and he never did either."

  "You were with the dude for two years and he never spoke gang business in front of you?" Chase scoffed disbelievingly.

  "I'm not a fucking idiot," I snapped at the underlying suggestion that I was some fucking bimbo moron. "I specifically made it clear I wasn't interested in any of that. I didn't want anything to do with his gang and he was happy to keep me out of it."

  "His gang?" Fox asked, perking up like a Labrador who'd spotted a ball. "Was he running it?"

  My heart leapt as he caught that little nugget of information too damn easily and I cursed myself. If I wasn’t careful I’d end up giving them Shawn’s identity and they’d take away my right to deal with him myself.

  "What part of me not wanting to tell you about him don't you understand?" I asked, my anger rising fast while I was forced to re-live all of this shit. "That motherfucker will meet his end when I'm good and ready to give it to him. It's far too fucking late for you to play the knight in shining armour for me. I haven't been a damsel in distress for a long time. I don't even know why you're so determined to hear about all of this. Were you hoping to find out that I'd been adopted by some kind old dear who sent me to some fancy ass college where I'd fallen in love with a billionaire who had taken my virginity when I was twenty one in the sweetest, gentlest way imaginable before setting me up for life in his palace? You know the world we live in. You know what happens to the people at the bottom of the barrel and the three of you pushed me right down to live amongst the dregs who are just about surviving there."

  "Rogue," JJ said, his voice rough as he stood up and moved towards me, but I lurched to my feet, knocking Mutt off in my haste to rise.

  "No," I snarled as Mutt ran around my legs and barked to warn him off too. "You were the ones who were so desperate to hear all of this. But I can't possibly tell you all of it in one sitting and I don't care to. I've been used and tossed aside and beaten down so many times and by so many people that I lost count. Life has spent a long fucking time teaching me that I'm not ever going to be rescued and I'm not ever going to be loved and I'm okay with that. I know how to rescue myself and I know what I am willing to sacrifice to survive, and I can promise you it's more than I ever even knew I had to give. But there is one thing I am not and never will be and that is someone's fucking possession. I gave myself to all of you once, with my whole heart and soul and everything I was. I belonged to you. And you taught me exactly what price there was to pay for loving someone like th
at when you turned your backs on me. So I should thank you really for teaching me my worth and for making me strong enough to survive everything else that I've had to since you destroyed me. Because after that, it wasn't like it could ever get worse, was it? All I had to do was make sure I never gave myself to anyone ever again and that way, when they tossed me aside like everyone does in the end, I could just bounce back up and move the fuck on."

  "We did it to save your life!" Fox yelled like that made it okay.

  "Well you know what, Fox?!" I screamed in reply. "I wish you hadn't! I wish you'd let me die when I had a life worth fucking living. I wish you'd let Luther kill me and allowed me to go in the belief that I was loved by the four of you. That I might have had something good to live for rather than just throwing me away and letting me fall on my face in the fucking dirt so that I could just go on existing and you could tell yourselves bullshit stories about me being happy somewhere without you."

  "We were just a bunch of kids!" Chase shouted, ashing his cigarette aggressively and standing up too. "We did the only thing we could. You should be grateful-"

  "No. You just took the easy way out," I spat. "You cut me loose and forgot about me while becoming that motherfucker's little pawns. Well I hope you're all as happy as I am with the outcome because as far as I'm concerned, the decision you all made for me was worse than him killing me. You gutted me, ripped my heart out and stamped on it before sewing me back together and forcing me to go on living without it beating in my chest. And you seriously expect me to thank you for it? Fuck you."

  I turned and whirled away from them, heading straight for the garage door to escape from this room and their suffocating presences. I needed to not look at them, not to see the pain in their eyes or the regret in their souls because it was too fucking late for all of that. I'd spent ten years failing to get over them followed by just hating them when I realised I couldn’t, and I wasn't going to let them force some bullshit forgiveness on me.

  I made it to the door before Fox caught me, grabbing my arm and shoving me against the wall to stop me from leaving.

  "You're not running from me again, hummingbird," he snarled, his green eyes blazing.

  "If you don't let me get out of here and get some fucking space right now then I swear to you that the next time I can escape you, I'll run and never look back. You'll never see me again," I swore with every ounce of my being, glaring at him and daring him to test me on this because if he didn't get his fucking hands off of me right now then I was going to do it. I'd run and run further away than I'd ever gone before, so far that Sunset Cove wasn't even a shadow in the distance anymore and they'd never stand any chance of finding me again.

  Fox seemed to realise I meant it, pain swimming in his green eyes as he released me and forced himself to step back.

  "Promise me you're coming back," he breathed, sounding like a broken man as he looked at me with so much emotion in his gaze that it cut into me. But I didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear it.

  "Let me go right now and I will," I said, dropping my gaze to his chest because I couldn't take anything else. I didn't even know why I was promising him that, only that I needed to get out of here and I knew it was the only way that he would let me.

  He stepped back and I wrenched the door open and headed through it with Mutt on my heels, looking at the keys hanging on the wall and snatching the ones to JJ's GT.

  I ran down the stairs, my heart pounding so hard that I couldn't hear anything beyond the pulse in my ears as I raced towards JJ's car and leapt into it. Mutt scampered over my lap into the passenger seat as I sat there with the door wide, trying to pull myself together.

  I closed my eyes for half a second, reaching up to touch my cheek with shaking fingers as I felt a tear slip down my skin.

  I smacked my head back against the headrest and slammed my hands into the steering wheel as I fought the urge to scream. This couldn't be happening again. I couldn't be letting them gain this power over me again. Because I wouldn't survive them destroying me a second time. I couldn't. It would kill me more thoroughly than a knife to the heart.

  "Rogue," JJ's voice jolted me out of my panic and I whirled around to find him leaning in through the open door of the car, reaching out to cup my face in his hand as he tried to pull me to him. "I'm sorry, pretty girl," he said, the pain in his honey brown eyes breaking into my soul and making me ache to just fucking forgive him. To forget about all of it and let him pull me closer, let him take care of me and rely on him and-

  "No," I snarled, shoving his hand off of me and forcing back all of that ache and longing and refusing to feel any of it. Because I wasn't going to let him have any part of me that he could hurt. I couldn't. Not again. So I took all of that hate and the pain and the venom in my soul and spat it back at him with as much grit as I could muster. "Stop trying to boyfriend me, JJ. We're fucking. Not falling in love. You don't have to pretend you give a shit about me just because you put your dick in me."

  He lurched back like I'd punched him in the face, but instead of getting angry like I hoped he would, he just seemed even fucking sadder.

  "You know that's bullshit, Rogue," he said. "You know I'm here for you and I hate what happened between us when-"

  "I don't know that!" I yelled. "All I know is that I'm dead inside because you and your friends killed me ten years ago."

  "We saved your life," he growled but I was shaking my head, jamming the key into the ignition and starting the engine.

  "Thank you so fucking much for the years of misery," I hissed. "Now get out of my way or I'm going to run you down."

  JJ didn't get much choice about stepping back and I tried not to feel an inch of guilt at the look he was giving me as I tore away from him.

  More tears spilled down my cheeks as I drove, but I was helpless to stop them now, all of the pain and heartache of the memories this place held rearing up in me despite my best attempts to keep them out.

  I didn't even realise where I was driving to until I found myself pulling along the street outside Rosewood Manor, the key hanging around my neck feeling hot against my skin as if it knew it was where it belonged.

  But I knew why I'd come here the moment I pulled up. This place held the secret that could bring the Harlequin boys to their fucking knees. It was what it would take to truly destroy them and probably me too. But I didn't care about that. I could just run from it, disappear, change my name and become a new ghost in a new town who no one ever thought to give a shit about.

  Not them though.

  If I set this secret free it would destroy them. Maybe even kill them, though I knew I didn't want it to go that far. What I wanted was to force their hands, make them do what they swore to do ten years ago and run the fuck away from this place. Because that was the only thing they would be able to do if I outed that secret. Run and run and fucking run and hope to hell it never caught up to them. Ten years ago they chose Sunset Cove over me, so I’d gladly take it from them in payment for what they’d done.

  For a while I'd begun to doubt whether or not I still wanted to do this, but now my answer was crystal fucking clear.

  The Harlequin boys had destroyed my life.

  Now I was going to repay the favour.

  I just needed to be certain that the instrument of their destruction was still where we'd left it all those years ago. And that meant I needed to get into the grounds of that house, check out the graveyard and make sure the crypt was still locked up tight.

  I kept driving down the street, eyeing the new fence with the electric wire running over the top of it to keep people out and I smiled to myself as an idea came to me.

  There weren't many houses out this way, but further up the road was a turning onto the highway where a bar filled with bikers and deadbeats sat.

  I pulled off of the road into a layby and left the GT with the windows wide as I told Mutt to wait there before continuing on foot through the trees. He could hop out of the car if he really wanted to, but I was hop
ing he'd just wait quietly while I did the insane part of my plan. Then we could go pay my rent and I could figure out what the fuck I was doing with my life while lying on the beach butt ass naked drinking tequila.

  It didn't take me long to make it through the trees to the highway where the bar sat with several old trucks and a group of motorcycles in the parking lot around the back of it as expected.

  These dudes were not the kind of men that it was a good idea to steal from even if they weren’t the biggest MC in the state.

  I was careful as I approached, looking out for any sign of anyone outside the building who might spot me coming and keeping an eye on the windows too.

  But the good thing about people who thought they were too terrifying for anyone to steal from them, was that in their arrogance, they tended to do dumb shit like leave their vehicles unlocked.

  I slipped out of the shadows at the back of the wooden building, keeping an eye on the door that was wedged open with a brick and thanking my luck that there were no windows out here overlooking the parking lot.

  I blew out a long breath as I focused on the task at hand. I wasn't going to let my anger with the Harlequins fuck this up for me.

  I darted across the lot and made it past the motorbikes to the cars which were parked up, trying the door handles one after another in the hopes that I was right about these guys thinking they were untouchable.

  Sure enough, on my fourth attempt, I found a red pickup with the door unlocked. I smirked to myself as I eased it open and slipped into the footwell, popping open the plastic panel to reveal the wires.

  For a moment, I was forcibly reminded of being thirteen and boosting my first car with Chase.

  "It's the blue wire," Chase hissed, trying to snatch the wire from my hand as the two of us fought for space in the footwell of the old green Chevvy.

  "It's not, Ace. Stop crowding me," I growled, slapping his hand away before connecting the two wires I was holding.