Queen of Quarantine

by Caroline Peckham

  We headed into a valley below the mountains and thick forest swept out around us like artist’s strokes through the roiling landscape, lit up by the frosty moonlight.

  Saint turned off the road and took a winding track through sprawling farmland and we eventually pulled up outside a beautiful old farmhouse with a long wooden porch, the lights in the windows giving it a cosy aura.

  “Stay here.” Saint got out, heading up to the house and knocking on the door.

  A woman exited with a carpet bag under her arm, nodding to Saint as they shared a few words before placing a key in his hand. She walked over to a blue truck, got in and drove off down the track we’d just come from.

  Saint beckoned us out of the car, and I exited after Blake with a sigh of relief, desperate to stretch my legs. I gazed up at the sky as the first stars came out to wink at me and my breath fogged up in a plume above me. The air was much colder here, and I guessed there would be a frost tonight judging by the glittering icy droplets already forming on the grass.

  “What is this place?” Blake grunted.

  “A stop over,” Saint announced.

  Blake wheeled around to face him with his teeth bared. “I’m not waiting another night to go after my dad.” He squared up to Saint who didn’t seem phased by his display of aggression and my heart tugged for my golden boy.

  “It isn’t up to you. We cannot make it to where he is today,” Saint said, moving forward to press his forehead to Blake’s. “Do you trust me, brother?”

  Blake fell silent, his lips twitching angrily then he nodded stiffly.

  “Then contain your rage, keep that fire for when it is time to aim it at my father,” Saint said. “But it will not be tonight.”

  “When then?” Blake hissed.

  “I’ll explain that indoors,” Saint replied, stepping away from him. “I will not have this conversation while Tatum is out here in the cold.”

  “I can handle a little frost, devil boy,” I said, folding my arms and he walked straight past me to the car.

  “I’m well aware of that, siren. But for my own peace of mind, I still insist that we move inside.”

  Saint really did have a mini Voldemort living in his heart, but there was definitely a cute little Weasley nestled in there too.

  The boys grabbed everything from the car, not letting me take a single thing as we headed into the farmhouse and the heat of a fire washed over me.

  We walked into a large lounge and me, Blake, Kyan and Nash piled onto the couch together as we warmed ourselves in front of the fire.

  Saint moved to stand in front of it, clasping his hands behind his back like he was some royal prince about to make a speech. “This house is a three day trek from where my father is hiding.” We all fell still as the weight of the task we had ahead of us hung in the air. “So Tatum, we need your mountaineering expertise. Please make a list of all the equipment we’ll need to cross a mountain pass in sub-freezing temperatures. I have a man who will be able to get the supplies to us by morning.”

  “That’s your plan?” I asked in surprise as the guys shared looks.

  “Yes. I have studied satellite images and the only way in to the property that will likely be left unguarded is the area that backs onto the mountain. My father would never expect an attack from that direction, especially from someone like me.”

  “You’re telling me you’re not a mountain man who likes rolling in the mud and wearing flannel shirts?” Nash taunted and we all laughed while Saint rolled his eyes.

  “The day I wear flannel will be a cold day in hell,” Saint said and I swear he actually shuddered.

  I’d read a book about a mountain man once though. He was a mafia prince who’d gone into hiding because of the things he’d found out about himself and he’d sure made being a mountain man sound hot. He’d found a girl up there on that mountain and had torn down heaven and earth to get revenge against the people who had hurt her. The sex had been pretty damn hot too. So maybe Saint could pull off the mountain man thing with the right bit of encouragement. If Nicoli could do it in Beautiful Savage, then why not my OCD criminal mastermind too?

  Saint took out a notepad and pen from his jacket pocket and handed it to me. I started writing down what we’d need, my heart pounding at the prospect of going mountaineering. I hadn’t been since my dad had taken me a week before I was enrolled at Everlake and I’d missed it fiercely. Just the thought of it made me feel closer to him for a moment and my heart squeezed with a tight ache at how much I missed him. There was no way I’d be letting anything happen to Blake’s dad like it had to mine.

  “So what happens when we get across the mountains and sneak in your dad’s back door?” Kyan asked. “Are we going in guns a-blazin’ or what?”

  “No,” Saint tsked. “It will be covert. We will locate Mr Bowman and extract him safely before we go after my father. Assuring he is alive and well is our priority.”

  Blake shifted in his seat. “If he’s laid a hand on my dad, I’ll make him fucking suffer. I’ll peel him apart piece by piece,” he snarled and I rested my hand on his thigh, squeezing reassuringly.

  “Yes, well even if he is alive and well, we will ensure my father suffers regardless,” Saint said without emotion.

  Blake pushed out of his seat suddenly and marched out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him.

  “Saint,” Nash hissed. “Don’t you have any fucking tact?”

  “What did I say?” Saint asked with a frown and I got up, pouting at him before I followed Blake out of the room, leaving the others to explain it to him. He really was clueless sometimes.

  “Blake?” I called as I moved through the entrance hall, but no answer came from anywhere in the house.

  A repetitive thump, thump, thump carried from outside and I pushed the front door open, stepping onto the porch. The thumping continued along with angry grunts and I spotted him punching the side of the barn. My heart lurched and I ran down the steps, sprinting across the yard to my golden boy. I came up behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist, trying to pull him back to make him stop.

  “Tatum,” he growled. “I don’t need a fucking hug.”

  “Yes you do,” I whispered, clutching onto him as he tried to push my hands off of his waist.

  “I just need an outlet,” he snapped. “Fuck Troy Memphis. Fuck him and his fucking empire. I’ll have him at my feet in a pool of blood. I’ll kill him for this,” he swore, his voice full of vengeance and hate.

  “We’ll do it together,” I promised and his shoulders sagged, his head hanging forward. “Just don’t hurt yourself because of him. Please.” I knew he had a destructive streak in him. This was how he coped with pain, by causing it to himself, to others. But I couldn’t watch as he punished himself anymore.

  “I can’t lose, Dad,” he rasped. “Not after Mom. I can’t, Tatum, I just-”

  “You won’t,” I swore, meaning it from the depths of my soul. I would bend the entire universe to ensure Blake’s father was returned to his side. I wouldn’t let him lose him like I’d lost mine. I would not see that fate come to reality.

  The cold air made me shiver as I held onto Blake, the heat of his body calling to me like a furnace.

  “C’mere,” he murmured, taking my hand and pushing through the door to the barn.

  We slipped inside and found the place full of sacks of some crop, stacked high around the wooden walls. It was dark, but there was a skylight in the roof that allowed the moonlight to spill inside. Without the wind biting at me, it wasn’t too cold and I wasn’t going anywhere until Blake felt ready to come back inside anyway.

  He started climbing up the sacks towards the roof and I followed him, clambering up to where he laid down beneath the skylight. He tugged me to his side and tucked me under his arm, his muscles folding around me. I snuggled against him, gazing up at the sea of stars above and the half moon which glowed so bright it cast a halo around it in the sky.

  “I’ve never been this far out in
the mountains,” Blake murmured. “Mom and Dad took me camping at Lake Kahuto in the summer when I was a kid, but that’s about as close I ever got to roughing it. And we had blow-up camp beds, a TV and a barbeque, so it wasn’t exactly the bare essentials.”

  I snorted. “Try going wild camping in winter in bear season.”

  “You’re a fucking badass.” He chuckled, kissing my hair as he pulled me closer.

  “Yeah,” I sang teasingly. “I’ve got my dad to thank for that.”

  “I wish I’d met him properly,” Blake said gruffly and my heartbeat faltered for a whole eternity.

  “Me too,” I breathed as tears stung my eyes. I’d cried so much over him, and I’d promised I wouldn’t do it again, knowing it did nothing but cause me pain. But with Blake, sometimes I felt like he could see that grief in me so clearly that I didn’t want to hide it. We recognised that part of one another just like we recognised it in Nash. Loss was like the rain. Sometimes it poured for days, other times there was a drought full of nothing but sunlight. But it always came back. It was inevitable.

  “You know you can talk to me about anything, Blake. If you’re angry or hurt or you wanna vent, I’m always here,” I said earnestly.

  “I know,” he sighed. “Sometimes I don’t think…my head gets so fogged up with rage, it’s all I can feel.”

  “I feel that way sometimes,” I admitted. “When I think of my dad and how he died at Mortez’s hands. I replay it in my head over and over until it burns.”

  He held me tighter and I knew he knew how that felt without him even having to say it.

  “It’s like if you replay it enough, you can change it,” he said, his voice laced with grief. “Every moment that led up to it and all the choices that could have been made which would have changed everything.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed in a choked voice.

  “Sometimes it’s like that’s all that’s left of her,” he said in a low voice. “Like those final days have wiped away everything good before it. But I feel guilty as hell thinking that because there was so much good.”

  “Tell me something good,” I urged and he fell silent for a moment, the wind howling somewhere off in the mountains.

  He ran his thumb over the bracelet on my wrist that had belonged to his mom and I could almost feel a connection to her through it for a second. Like I knew her. Just a little bit.

  “We used to make pancakes together every Sunday,” he said at last. “Dad would get out of bed late and the two of us would make a complete mess of the kitchen before he came downstairs. We’d make everyone’s favourite pancakes, always the same ones. Mine were chocolate and banana and hers were…cherries and maple syrup.”

  I turned my head to look at him as he said that, but he kept his eyes on the sky, his dark green gaze reflecting the sparkling stars. “But you always have cherries and syrup.”

  His throat bobbed. “After she died, I started eating it every day to remind me of her. To have something physical right in front of me first thing in the morning that would make sure I never forgot her. People always say they won’t forget the dead, but they do. They move on. They get past it. They don’t want to face the pain because otherwise it’ll never leave. But if the pain leaves, doesn’t that mean they leave too?”

  I blinked back tears, looking up at the sky. “I don’t know,” I whispered because I struggled with that too. I didn’t want to let go because what if I was the only thing still keeping them alive? Dad, Jess. If I forgot them, who else would remember them? But holding onto the pain didn’t bring them back. It only made me suffer.

  I reached up to brush my fingers over the necklace around my throat, trying to reach for some feeling of Jess lingering on it.

  “Do you think they’re somewhere out there?” he asked. “Do you think they miss us too?”

  A tear slid down my cheek as I nodded. “I think we have to believe that, we have to hope they do. Because the alternative is too awful. But either way…they’d want us to stop hurting for them. I know I’d want that if things were the other way around. But that doesn’t mean we have to forget them.”

  “You’re right,” Blake said heavily.

  “It would hurt your mom to see you in pain. Just like it hurts me when I see you hurt yourself.” I drew his bruised knuckles to my mouth and kissed them gently, working my lips across each one.

  He rolled toward me, pushing a lock of hair behind my ear as he gazed down at me. “I never wanna hurt you again, Cinders.”

  “So don’t,” I breathed and he leaned down to kiss me, his mouth moving firmly against mine and I felt the depth of his words within it. Blake Bowman had once been my broken, vengeful monster. He’d hunted me, caged me, wounded me. But every blow he’d struck had really been against himself. Now, I treasured the scars he’d left on me, because through making each other bleed, we’d found a way to heal, to cope. He wasn’t my monster anymore. He was my golden boy, my beam of sunshine in the dark. He shone so brightly, sometimes it was hard to believe he held anything but light in his heart. But I knew better. I knew that even the sun had scars beneath its blinding exterior. And that didn’t make it weak, in fact, it burned all the brighter for them.

  ***

  Saint’s man showed up before dawn with almost everything we needed. He’d managed to get hold of the camping and trekking gear as well as the clothes and boots we’d need and he’d brought the guns and weapons Saint had requested too. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get hold of the Kevlar vests though and of course, Saint had lost his shit over it. It had taken me twenty minutes to talk him out of destroying the guy’s entire life for failing him and in the end he’d finally given in so that we could head off. I didn’t have high hopes for the guy’s future though.

  None of us were pleased about having to head into Troy’s home without the bulletproof vests, but we couldn’t waste any more time while Blake’s dad was in trouble, so we just had to hope that we wouldn’t need them.

  So when we set off in our hiking gear as the sky began to pale, our packs were full of everything we’d need for the trek even if they were a little light on body armour.

  There was an old path that led us out to the mountain we needed to cross but we were soon climbing through rocky terrain, our breaths misting before us as we marched on resolutely, wanting to gain as much ground as possible. We only paused briefly to eat lunch and drink hot coffee Nash had put in a flask, all of us lined up on a fallen trunk as the cold air whistled through the trees around us.

  The forest grew denser as we moved on and occasionally I’d check the GPS with Saint to make sure we were still on track. My guys followed me, trusting me to guide them and by the time night was falling, I’d led us into a sheltered ditch between two huge rock formations and started teaching them how to pitch a tent. Monroe was the only one of them who had any real experience camping, so he helped me teach the others.

  Kyan crouched down beside me with the hammer, excited to beat the tent pegs into the ground as I worked to get it in place.

  “You have to do it at an angle,” I told him before he went Rambo on the peg I was positioning at the side of the tent, the elastic wrapped around the end of it.

  “Why’s that?” he asked.

  “Because if it’s straight, the tension of the elastic could pull it back out of the ground. This makes it more stable.” I held out my hand to take the hammer from him, but he clutched it to his chest like it was his new favourite toy. I snorted, rolling my eyes at him. “Fine, just hammer it in this way.” I showed him how to hold the peg and he nodded, taking it from me and bashing it into the ground before looking to me for approval like a murderous little puppy dog.

  “Perfect. Now do the rest of them.” I kissed his cheek and stood up, heading over to help Saint who was laying out the pegs on the ground, adjusting them so they sat in a straight line. Real helpful.

  I poked him in the back. “Do you wanna help me collect some firewood?”

  He turned to me, looking s
o out of place here in the wild that I had to swallow a laugh.

  “Alright,” he said stiffly, and I sensed something was off as I took his hand and led him into the trees beyond the camp.

  “Ahh! A peg just popped out and hit me in the eye, Kyan!” Blake shouted from behind us. “Put it in sideways like Tatum showed you.”

  “That’s what she said,” Nash joked and Kyan roared a laugh as I looked to Saint with a grin, but tension was lining his brow.

  “Are you okay?” I asked when we got out of earshot of the camp.

  “Yes,” he growled, looking at the ground. “What’s suitable for burning?”

  “The dry stuff. There’s usually some under the pines or any kind of tree that doesn’t drop its leaves.” I led him over to one and started piling branches in my arms beneath an old conifer.

  Saint crouched down to help, examining each branch critically before building a pile of the ones which passed his assessment. We started making a good hoard, the light of the moon bright enough that we didn’t even need to use our flashlights.

  “These aren’t dry enough,” Saint snarled suddenly, standing up and kicking his pile so they scattered everywhere. “I’ll start again.”

  “They’re fine,” I insisted, but he moved to examine another small branch with narrowed eyes and I sighed, throwing an armful of sticks onto the ground.

  “Saint, what’s going on?” I marched toward him and he stood upright, brushing down his knees before looking to me with the Devil in his eyes.

  His jaw ticked and I could sense he was hovering on the verge of losing control. I hurried closer, cupping his face in my hands to get him to focus on me.

  “I’m not used to this,” he rasped. “It is one thing to be surrounded by my own things while we’re moving from place to place. I can create some semblance of routine. But tonight, I will be sleeping on a roll mat in a tent which is hardly bigger than a janitor’s closet and I – I-”