by Mae Doyle
It was almost like the excitement coming off of Kaleb was palpable. He didn’t turn around to look at us – doing so would have surely given him away and made the butler suspicious. Instead, he followed him into the house.
I released the breath I’d been holding when the door swung shut behind him.
“Now what?” I knew the answer, but I had to ask it.
Jackie squeezed my arm again and kissed my cheek. “Now, Rosita, we wait. And hope.”
◆◆◆
I didn’t mean to fall asleep, but I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before and my eyes felt so heavy that I had to fight to keep them open.
“Rosita,” Jackie said, cutting through my dream. I was reunited with all of my rogues, all four of us leaving Taylor Prep behind us.
It didn’t matter where we went. Anywhere would be better than the hell that was locked up behind those gates.
When I didn’t answer him, he nudged me. “Look, it’s Kaleb.”
Sure enough, when I forced my eyes open and rubbed them to get rid of the sleep, I saw Kaleb walking back across the street to us. His face looked grim and he didn’t speak until he’d shut the car door behind him and buckled up.
“Drive,” he said to the driver, who immediately started the car and pulled away from the curb. When we made a right turn at the end of the road Kaleb finally sighed and turned to us.
“Well?” I couldn’t hold in my excitement any longer. I just had to know if Brett was there and why Kaleb looked so tired. He frowned a little, but then a smile split his face.
“He’s there,” he said, leaning over Jackie to grab my hand and give it a squeeze. “I’m sure of it.”
“You saw him?” Joy exploded in my chest and I felt lightheaded. “Did he see you? Did you get to talk to him? How did he look?” I had a thousand questions running through my head and I didn’t know where to begin. How to ask all of the questions I had about Brett?
How to express how excited and hopeful I was about him really being alive?
Kaleb shook his head, still squeezing my hands, and I felt my excitement fade away. “I didn’t see him, you guys. But he was there.”
“How can you be sure?” Jackie’s voice sounded strangled. When I looked at him I was surprised at how stunned he looked.
We had all thought that this would be easier than it was. We thought we’d walk into the house, find him, and bring him home.
But Kaleb had gotten back into the car with us without Brett. So, what went wrong?
“I didn’t see him,” Kaleb continued, “but I caught a glimpse of his mom. I saw her at the funeral, so I recognized her. And I saw some things that I know are his.”
“Like what?” I interrupt. “Do you think that it’s possible that his mom just brought some of his things with her to make herself feel better? How do you know he was really there?”
“I know,” Kaleb said, forcefully. “There was a stack of his books on the floor by the sofa. His shoes were kicked off by the front door. The butler didn’t let me go any farther than that, but from what I saw, I feel like he was there. I felt it, okay? I know that that sounds ridiculous, but I’m sure that he’s in there.”
It didn’t sound ridiculous to me. I knew exactly what Kaleb meant.
“Then how do we get him out? Did his mom come and talk to you?” Knowing that we were so close to Brett but still so far away from being able to get to him was terrifying.
“She didn’t see me. Honestly, even if she had, I don’t think she would have come to talk to me. Unless she remembered me from the funeral then she wouldn’t have any reason to, you know?” Kaleb sucked in a breath and looked out of his window.
“I vote that we just storm the place.” Jackie sounded so convinced that, for just a moment, I felt my hopes rise.
But that wouldn’t work, would it?
Who storms an old Victorian to get their boyfriend back?
Chapter 11
We were back in front of Brett’s new house. The driver had driven us around for a while so that the three of us could talk. Honestly, I didn’t remember anything about where we’d gone. The driver had kept silent the whole time, allowing the three of us to talk in the backseat and try to come up with a plan.
By the time we’d pull back off of the road and he’d turned off the engine, my whole body was vibrating with the excitement of possibly getting to see Brett again. I didn’t think that I could wait much longer – not when it had been so long since I’d been in his arms.
“Rosita, you ready?” Jackie touched me on the shoulder and I had to force my gaze away from the house and back to him. It felt so strange to be this close to seeing Brett again but to know that it could all fall apart at the last second if we weren’t careful.
“I need him, Jackie. Let’s go get him.” Jackie and Kaleb both nodded and the three of us slipped out of the car, closing our doors carefully so they didn’t slam and attract a lot of attention.
Kaleb walked back up to the door while Jackie and I broke apart and each walked around a different side of the house.
Although I was worried about being caught and having Mrs. Cox be the one to find me, we’d all decided that splitting up was going to give us the best possible chance of finding Brett. Kaleb volunteered to go back to the front door and try to sweet talk his way into the house, but Jackie and I were both planning something a little more drastic.
Hell, I was willing to break a window if that was what it took for me to get to Brett. Creeping along close to the house, I tried to avoid the prickly bushes planted right up under the windows. They were obviously put there to deter peeping toms or people trying to break in, but even though they ripped at my clothes and pricked my skin, I wasn’t going to let them slow me down.
The first room I peeked in was a library, and I couldn’t help but gasp when I looked in the window. There were shelves of books from the floor to the ceiling, loaded with huge tomes as well as reading chairs and even a giant fireplace at the end of the room.
I longed to be in there, curled up with a book and my boys, but Brett wasn’t there, so I pulled myself away and snuck on.
The second window was higher off the ground than the first and I had to stand on a rock to be able to look through. Even then, I had a very poor view of the space, but a quick glance was all I needed to let me know that Brett wasn’t in there.
It was the kitchen, and Mrs. Cox was sitting at the table, nursing a drink. As soon as I noticed her, I yanked my head back down and hid by the bush, swearing to myself.
Did she see me?
When she didn’t come to the window, I carefully picked my way along the house to the next one.
Even as I did, though, my heart was racing. Of course, I’d believed Kaleb when he said that he’d seen Brett’s mom, but he didn’t know her as well as I did.
There was always the chance in my mind that he’d gotten her mixed up with someone else. But now that I’d seen her? Well, it simply didn’t make any sense that she’d be here without her son.
Taking a deep breath, I steeled myself for what I might find in the third window. Because there wasn’t anyway for us to get up to the second floor, I had to hope that Brett was in there. If he wasn’t…
Then we might as well storm the house, because I was convinced that I wasn’t going to leave here without all three of the men I loved.
I grabbed the windowsill and stood up, slowly peering into the room before standing all the way up. At first, the room was so dark that it took my eyes a moment to adjust and I couldn’t see anything. Someone was watching TV.
There was a huge TV mounted on the wall and the lights from the screen made it difficult to tell who was in the room.
But there was definitely someone there. I could see the outline of a head above the sofa. From time to time, a bright flash of light from the TV illuminated the person and I thought that I saw Brett’s dark hair.
My heard leapt up into my throat and I had to swallow hard to keep from feeling sick.
<
br /> Could it be?
Gently, I tapped on the window. I wanted to get this person to turn around, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted them to look at me. Just because Mrs. Cox was in the house didn’t mean that the person watching TV in this room was her son. She could be here on vacation, or visiting friends…
But I didn’t think so.
I tapped again, louder this time, because the person didn’t turn around before. This time, they whipped their head around, and my breath caught in my throat.
It was Brett.
He was here.
He was alive.
Even as I opened my mouth to call his name, I felt tears welling in the corners of my eyes.
I’d believed that he was alive.
I’d prayed that he was alive.
But to see him actually sitting there?
It was something else.
Before I could say his name, however, the light in the room turned on and Brett turned away from me to face the door. I’d been so busy staring at his gorgeous face that I hadn’t even noticed that his mom had walked into the door.
She was framed in it now, giving me my first good look at her since the funeral.
At the funeral, she’d looked distraught. Her face had been twisted and full of anger when she spoke to me and looked at me. It made talking to her hell and I’d hated every second of it.
Especially because I’d known that she’d been lying to me.
But framed in the doorway, she looked younger and calmer than ever. She looked more relaxed and much happier.
Well, she would have looked happier except she happened to glance around the room.
I had no idea what she came into the room to do or to say to Brett.
I guess that it didn’t really matter. Whatever she was about to say quickly passed out of her mind.
She locked eyes with me peeking in the window and her face darkened into a scowl.
I felt goosebumps pop up all over my arms and the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. If she could look at me like that then maybe, just maybe, this wasn’t going to go as well as I’d hoped.
I raised a hand in greeting, unsure of what to do. How was I supposed to play it cool when I’d just seen my boyfriend? He was supposed to be dead.
Her mouth moved, and although I couldn’t hear her, I could easily read her lips.
“Rose.”
Brett’s head whipped around to see what his mother was looking at and his gorgeous dark eyes fell on me. As soon as he saw me standing in the window, he stood, his mouth hanging open. He grinned, his smile splitting his face.
I realized that I was sobbing and had tears dripping off of my chin, but I didn’t care.
All I cared about was getting to see Brett again. Getting to hold him. I missed him to the point that the ache I felt had become a part of my daily life, but that wasn’t going to happen any longer.
I was going to get him back.
“Rose?” He mouthed my name and then stood, running across the room to me. I started pushing on the window from the outside, trying to get it open, and he pulled on it, yanking as hard as he could to unlock it and slide it up from the inside.
“Brett!” I screamed, my voice carrying across the yard and down the street. “Brett, I’m here! I’m here!” I was sobbing so hard that I couldn’t see, but I kept trying to tug on the window.
Why wouldn’t it open?
If he could just unlock it from the inside then I’d be able to help him push it open. I’d finally be back in his arms, where I belonged.
We could take him back to school.
“I found him!” I shouted, wanting Kaleb and Jackie to come running. Maybe we needed all four of us to get it open. “Guys! I found Brett! He’s here!”
Brett was yelling, too, and since he was so close to the window, I could finally make out what he was saying. He’d stopped yanking on the window and trying to open it and was instead pointing behind me.
“Go, Rose! Run!” His eyes were so wide that I could see their whites. His dark skin paled as he pointed and stared behind me. “Go!”
Go? Why in the hell would I go now? There was any way that I was going to leave, not that I’d seen him. Now I knew that he was alive. I knew that Brett was okay, and that was really all that mattered to me.
I stopped banging and yanking on the window to turn around. There was a huge spikey bush between me and the yard.
There was a huge spikey bush between me and the person standing there.
I didn’t think that I’d ever seen them before. The woman was taller than me, and thinner, and her face looked twisted with anger. Even so, she was calm.
Her clothes were impeccable and showed me that she was a hell of a lot richer than I could ever hope to be.
“Hello?” I asked, unsure of what to do. “Can I help you?”
The woman grinned. “Rose Bennet,” she said, and the way my name left her lips made my skin crawl. “I have been wanting to meet you for so long, so please know how exciting this is for me.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, my skin feeling clammy. “Do I know you?”
The woman took a step closer, but she couldn’t easily reach me thanks to the giant bush in between us. I glanced off of the side, wondering how I was going to get out of there if she came any closer to me.
I could make a run for it, but I wasn’t sure that I’d get too far.
Then again, she was wearing stilettos.
Stilettos.
I looked back up at her face and frowned. There was something about the way she held her mouth and how she played with her long hair that felt so familiar.
“Oh, you don’t know me,” she said, interrupting my thoughts. “But I’m pretty sure that you know my daughter. And apparently you know my nephew very well, if I am to believe the rumors.”
My skin felt cold.
“But honestly,” she continued, “looking at you right now, I don’t see why the rogues would be interested in you. When we alerted to the fact that you were at Taylor Prep and that you shouldn’t be, I brushed it off at first, I’ll admit.”
Amelia’s mom. She’s on the council.
“But now I can see that you’re a bit more of a bother than I first thought. Why wouldn’t you just leave? Everything would have been okay if you had just fucking left.”
She sounded so much like her daughter that I wanted to take a step back, but I was pressed up against the wall of the house. There wasn’t anywhere for me to go.
Brett had stopped calling me and banging on the window.
Kaleb and Jackie were nowhere to be found.
I hoped that they were all okay and that they hadn’t been caught like I was.
Because, right then, I wasn’t sure how I could save them. I honestly wasn’t even sure how to save myself.
Chapter 12
“You know, Rose, if you had just left Taylor Prep at the beginning of last year when we told you to, then none of this would have happened.” Amelia’s mom – it was so obviously her mom, they looked exactly alike, even down to the snake eyes – took a step closer to me, but she couldn’t reach me through the bush.
“I have every right to be there. Besides, it was all a mistake. Mrs. Cox admits it – I never should have been targeted, so why don’t you back the fuck off?” My hands were pressed onto the wall behind me and I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to walk out of there in one piece or not.
“God, you are a broken record, aren’t you? Amelia told me all about how fucking annoying you are. No surprise there. I guess that when you lose your dad you become a bit of a whiny bitch.” She held out her hand like she wanted me to reach for it and go with her, but when I didn’t move, she dropped it to her side and sighed.
“Just go away,” I said, feeling all of my bravery sap out of me. “I just came here to see Brett, that’s all. We’re all going to go back to school now and finish out our senior year, and then I swear, you’ll neve
r see me or hear my name again.”
She laughed, a cold sound that made me shiver. “That’s not really good enough at this point, Rose. You blew it. I just don’t know why you wouldn’t leave when you had the chance.”
I realized that I needed to try to get away from the house so I wasn’t backed up against the wall and I stepped forward from the house, slowly inching around the bush that was between us. “You need to leave me alone, I told her, trying to sound as brave as possible. Brett already paid the price for me being at Taylor Prep. The debt has been paid.”
I wasn’t sure if it really worked like that, but I could hope.
Unfortunately, she shook her head. “No, he paid the debt, but it’s not going to count if you bring him back to school. You can’t have it both ways, Rose. Not now. Not anymore.”
My heart was pounding wildly, but not so out of control that I didn’t see the movement coming towards me out of the corner of my eye. If it was another member of the council then I was screwed.
If it as Jackie or Kaleb then I might be okay.
“Tell me, why the council? Why do they give a shit about what goes on at Taylor Prep?” I was stalling, but I hoped that she couldn’t tell. If I could keep her talking then I might be able to walk out of here in one piece.
Maybe.
She scoffed, like she thought that I was too damn dumb to even understand anything that she was going to tell me. At first, I thought that she wasn’t going to answer me, but she finally rolled her eyes and answered.
“Listen, Rose. The council runs everything, don’t you see that? We make sure that the right students get into the right colleges. We make sure that there aren’t any little whores that get into school and mess everything up. If they do, like you did, then we do everything we need to do to make sure that you leave.”
“So, I’m just in your way? I’m a nuisance, and that’s it? I still don’t get it.”
Her face darkened. Whether she believed me that I didn’t understand or not didn’t matter. What mattered is that she looked pissed, and I was at the center of her ire. “God, you are stupid. You don’t belong, Rose! You shouldn’t have gotten into Taylor Prep at all, but stupid Mr. Taylor took pity on you! Don’t you see, it’s our job to purge out the undesirables and make sure that you don’t fuck everything up!”