1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  But Gabriel never spoke to me like that. I was his favorite, and that showed in every fucking word and smile and joke.

  He unwraps a sucker, one of the handful he’s always carrying. Cocks an eyebrow and gives me a testy smirk. “He’s a sweet puppy, Hazel. You left him all alone here and then you want to give me shit, because I took the puppy home. Seems a bit hypocritical, even for you.”

  “Fuck you, Gabriel,” I snap, and he smiles, wide and wolfish.

  I bolt, before he can say it.

  Before he can turn using my brother into a joke. I don’t think I’d be able to forgive him, if he did.

  So I run, away from him, and down the tree-lined street, toward a park where I can hear kids playing, and mothers gossiping and I can get lost.

  The problem is, memories. They slam into me as I slow, stepping into the playground and letting my breath out, finally. Letting my tension unravel in the quiet calm here. For a long time, I sit on the bench and, silently and watch the playground.

  How many times had Archer brought me and Eli here, that first year? And then, as the years turned and we got too old to care about swings, he’d bring us here and we’d watch him hook up with girls, flirting and teasing.

  Eli used to meet Amy here.

  Gabriel and I would get high here, after Archer joined the Marines, and I stopped giving a fuck what people thought about me.

  I wonder if Archer realizes how much I spiraled, when he left to serve and protect.

  Even though I understood it. The reasons behind it. Better than Nora and Eli, I understood—I still hated it.

  I shouldn’t have come to the fucking park. There’s too much open space, too many memories and regrets.

  That’s fucking Green County, though. All the memories and regrets.

  The kids on the park are giggling and laughing, two little girls being watched and teased by a dark-haired, little boy, but it’s sweet. The boy is careful, even as he heckles and pushes the girls, coaxing and gently bullying them until they’re at the top of the highest slide.

  The youngest slides down with no hesitation, all shrieks and skirts and laughter.

  So carefree and innocent it actually hurts, even as it pulls a smile from me.

  But the other two.

  The little blond girl is watching the slide with these big, wary eyes, like it’s a trap she refuses to trust, and the boy is crouched at her side, talking to her patiently. Coaxing but not pushing.

  Waiting.

  The littlest girl scrambles back to the top, and slides down three times, while they perch there, until the girl finally, finally nods, and slides down, her eyes squeezed shut and her voice twisted up in a shriek.

  When she lands at the bottom, she’s up and dancing, her entire body an exclamation point of excitement as the boy at the top shouts and screams encouragement.

  Fucking Green County. It never changes. It’s always going to be sugar sweet and childhood and Eli and Archer. Even now—alone and furious—I’m shoved into my memories of them. Of how Archer would coax and wait, so damn patient, for me to come to him.

  “Hazel?”

  I stiffen. Let a smile twist my lips up, and it looks real, even if it feels fake as fuck. Turn to face the owner of that low gruff voice.

  I don’t need to see him to know that it’s Michael. Don’t need to look to know that John is only two steps behind him.

  Here’s what I know about the twins: they’re close. Almost too close, even for a place as dysfunctional and backwards as Green Co. can be. I’ve known them most of my life, since I was thirteen and we were in high school together.

  And I think I’ve seen them separated twice.

  Once was when Michael got himself arrested for beating the shit out of a football player from the next county over.

  And that brings me to my second point: they’re volatile.

  Michael is all cold ice, and careful judgment. He’s the one who will watch with sharp black eyes, waiting for you to fuck yourself up just enough that he can destroy you, all without ever lifting a finger.

  John, on the other hand.

  He was all brute strength and quick anger. He was action and force, where Michael would wait. John was impatient. He didn’t care that waiting meant you’d be even more screwed in the end. He wanted quick and dirty and bloody, and I’d seen the ugly bruises on the kids he beat the hell out of, the men he tore to pieces, often enough that being here, without my brother and Archer, alone in public with the twins—well, I’m a sane girl after all.

  But there’s something about this that bothers me, and that is the third thing I know about them.

  “Where is Hanna?” I ask, softly.

  Because if I have rarely seen the twins without the other, I’ve almost never seen them without their sister, eight months younger, a girl as delicate and lovely as they were cruel and violent.

  I liked Hanna even if I did think the too close relationship and the way Michael and John watched her bordered on a creepy that made my stomach turn when I thought too much about it.

  “She wasn’t feeling well, so she stayed home,” Michael says smoothly, a hand touching John’s elbow. “But she’d love to see you. You should come by, in a few days.”

  I study him, and everything in me, everything that makes me a damn good journalist and reporter, no matter what the hell happened in Boston that says otherwise—it’s screaming now.

  It’s telling me that something is very wrong about all of this, and I take a deep breath to force myself to stay still. To not fall back a step, or worse, to bolt away and find my brothers.

  Why is it that even now, four years after leaving, I still want Archer and Eli, almost instinctively, when I’m feeling threatened?

  Above us the big clock strikes the hour, and John makes a low impatient noise in his throat.

  “My brother is impatient, Hazel. We have an appointment. But. You will come and see us.”

  It’s phrased as a statement, not a question. Not something I can ignore, if I don’t want to see them.

  It’s a fucking demand.

  But I nod, and I smile, and John falls back a step or two, almost vibrating in his impatience. Michael flicks his twin a cold stare and the other man—younger by twenty minutes, if gossip can be believed—goes still and silent, a frown still etched deep on his face.

  “I apologize, Hazel,” Michael says, his voice a low hum of noise and I shrug. “John doesn’t have the best manners in the city.”

  I smirk, a tiny thing, “Do you know my brother?” I ask, a gentle tease working up, even with my unease.

  Michael smiles at that, and then he takes a step away. “It was truly good to see you, Hazel Beth. I’m glad you’ve come home.”

  And then he nods at John who flashes me a blank stare before they’re walking away, the children and the park ignored, Michael’s long black coat flapping like a carrion bird at his ankles.

  I watch them walk away, and feel him moving up behind me. He’d been there the whole time.

  Gabe would never leave me alone with Michael and John. He leans his head on my shoulder, and that quickly, the tension between us slips away. “Do you think they’ll ever not be creepy?” Gabriel asks, and I shrug.

  “Probably not. I mean, they have such a fantastic streak going, why the fuck would they want to end that now?” I ask, and sit next to him.

  Gabriel laughs, a low noise that rumbles against my skin and settles me. Home.

  That’s what this has been about. From the dinner last night, to Mama’s this morning and the boys and Gabe, fuck even the damn park.

  I’ve been home for six. Fucking. Months. And it’s the first time I’ve acted like it means something other than just my address changing.

  It’s the first time I’ve let myself be home.

  “I’m sorry, Hazy. I should have told you.”

  I slide a glance at him, weighing the words. And then, softly, “You don’t have to apologize to me, Gabriel. He’s an adult and he knows what he’s
doing.” I lift a hand as his smirk turns dirty, and his mouth opens and add quickly, “If you make a joke about my brother being good in bed, I swear to god, I’ll break my hand on your fucking face.”

  Gabe laughs at that, and slings an arm around my shoulders. We walk back to my car in silence and then, “What did Creeper and McCreeperson want, Hazel?”

  “To catch up. You know they were always fascinated with me and the boys in school.”

  He makes a noncommittal noise, and I shrug. Slip out of his arms and open the car door. I hesitate and he stares at me. Patient. Waiting.

  “No more secrets, okay?”

  He nods once and I add, “If you hurt him, Gabriel—”

  “I’m not going to hurt him. I swear, Hazy. If anyone ends up hurt in this equation, it’s not gonna be gigantor.”

  I nod and we slide into the car as I mull it over, but I don’t press. If. When. Gabe is ready. When he is, he’ll tell me what the fuck is happening and how he managed to go and fall in love with my brother.

  Chapter 10

  Eli and I don’t pretend we’re functional. It’s something that, once we realized we needed to quit pretending, worked really well for us.

  The thing is, everyone is dysfunctional to some degree. And our dysfunction, well—it keeps us whole, keeps us sharp, keeps us from spiraling into shit that neither of us really wants.

  Damaged kids grown up into broken adults, and I’m a prime fucking example of that shit.

  Good example of our dysfunction: We live together.

  It’s not as bad as it could be. I mean, it’s not like we own a house. I do.

  A brick and stone thing that I built on the property that I inherited when Dad died.

  Kinda a bloody legacy, especially when you consider the money I made while at war built the fucking house.

  I’m getting off track again.

  Eli and I share the house. He had a place that was just for him and Amy, but it went up in the same apartment fire that snatched her away from Eli and none of us are gonna bring that shit up. He’s done well, adjusting to her being gone, and the other girls who followed, over the years. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna wave that shit in his face and hope he doesn’t have a break down.

  Anyway.

  I let him move in with me, because that’s what you do for family. You help them when shit isn’t working out the way they want it too.

  That’s how I ended up with a spare bedroom turning into Eli’s bedroom, and a roommate who eats too many salads and forgets to restock the fridge with beer.

  Annoying little shit.

  So when we leave the Chief and the Mayor, we head for our place without talking about it. Because we don’t have to actually talk about this shit. After a lifetime of each other, we both know what the other wants.

  And after a night on Hazel’s couch and a morning at Mama’s, we both want showers and clean fucking clothes.

  Enough that I don’t push my brother as we drive across town, as we pour out of the Roadrunner and stumble to the house.

  There will be time, after I’ve showered and changed, to deal with my brother and whatever the fuck is happening that got us a case turning a fucking prostitute into an informant.

  Because, yeah. I’m still hung up on why the fuck the mayor thinks Elijah would be any good at that.

  As I strip, I catch the faintest hint of strawberry and vanilla and rain.

  And just like that, I’m hard. Fuck.

  Hazel. Eli and Nora are gonna fucking kill me. And I can’t bring myself to give a damn. Because I’ve waited four fucking years to have her again. To have her hands in my hair, demanding and fierce.

  Hazel wasn’t soft. Everyone saw her, saw her blonde hair and big blue eyes, that innocent-as-fuck little girl smirk, and they saw sugar-sweet-needs-to-be-protected.

  They didn’t see my Hazel. A girl fierce enough that she so often slapped me down to size. Fucking me.

  I grin. All sass and bite, until I got her legs open and slid my fingers in that sweet wet heat. Then she was putty. Sweet, moaning putty, and god, I wanted her again.

  There’s a long list of reasons why fucking Hazel Beth Campton is a bad idea. Her brother and mine will likely kill me for it. Not to mention our foster mother. There’s her almost disturbing tenacity when it comes to a story, to what she wants—fucking a journalist who has been digging around the County isn’t the best idea for a rising detective.

  She thinks I don’t know about that—she’s kept it under wraps, as much as she could.

  But this is fucking Green County and nothing here stays buried forever.

  Maybe that’s her whole angle.

  But the real reason—the one thing that keeps tripping me up, is that she’s my best friend. My secret keeper and confidant, the girl who helped me keep my family safe, who always had my back when shit got hard.

  And it did. More than any of us deserved.

  As sweet as her pussy was, as much as I wanted her again, wanted her naked and panting under me—was it fair to her? Was good sex—okay, fantastic fucking sex—worth the risk of fucking up one of the best things that had ever happened to me?

  Yes.

  There was that thought. The one that said—this was Hazel. She wasn’t some girl I’d fuck in the back room of the bar before I went home and forgot her, to smile politely when I wrote her a ticket two months later.

  It was Hazel. Everything would be easier and harder and more. How the fuck could it be anything but?

  And god. The thought of getting her again. Naked and panting, her lips around my dick.

  I groan, and reach for my dick. I can still taste her. I can feel her tight cunt rippling around my fingers and I want that around my dick, want her pretty groans filling up the room as I fill up her body.

  I can see her again. Pale skin gilded silver by moonlight, blue eyes shining, all the blonde hair a tangled mess from my hands wrapping up in it.

  The smooth arch of her throat as I fucked her, and the wrecked pleasure on her face as she came, shuddering silky sweet around me.

  I groan, my body slumping against the wall of the shower as my dick leaps in my hand, my orgasm slamming into me, through me, so fucking hard I almost slip.

  Almost hit my ass and I groan, again, the pleasure ripping through me and her laughing eyes. She’d laugh, delighted, knowing she’d nearly knocked me on my ass. I turn into the water, let it wash over my face and groan again.

  I am so fucking screwed.

  Eli is in the kitchen when I emerge, clean and dressed, with all inappropriate thoughts about Hazel tucked into a neat little box, locked tight and shoved into the back of my mind.

  He hands me a cup of coffee at me and I sip it once. Hot as fuck, with a hint of sugar to cut the dark, bitter brew, which is, frankly, the only way to drink coffee.

  “Tell me,” I say, my voice dipping into the older brother order that got Eli to do his fucking homework and fess up to smoking weed with Jeff.

  It’s never not worked on Elijah.

  His lips tighten and his eyes slide away. “It’s not a big deal, man.”

  “It’s a big enough deal that we’re being hauled in to handle an informant, and unless your game has seriously gone to hell in the past few years, I’m not sure that makes any fucking sense.”

  He makes a face and brushes past me. “My game is fucking fine, Archer. I—do you remember Scarlett?”

  I go very still. The kind of still that I learned in the Corps, when I was still to keep from getting killed, or focused on the bastards I was supposed to kill.

  “How the actual fuck do you think I’d forget her?” I ask, my voice low and furious. Eli, the bastard, has the grace to blush.

  “I’m looking for her sister,” he says, simply.

  And I swallow all my fury. All the anger that’s spilling up and threatening to bubble over. “Because she didn’t do enough fucking damage when she tore through your life, you thought that hunting down her fucking sister was a good idea?” I spit.
>
  Eli flinches. But his voice is a low growl, pitched to keep me from getting too pissed, “Archer,” he starts.

  “Why?” I snap. “Why the hell would you do this? Does Nora know?”

  He pales.

  No. Of fucking course she doesn’t. If I didn’t know, she sure as fuck wouldn’t know. Eli is keeping secrets. Again. Never mind that last time—I shove that thought down and shake my head.

  “You are the most selfish bastard I know,” I snap. “This would fucking devastate her.”

  “She’s a kid, Archer.” Eli says, his voice exhausted. “She’s a fucking kid, and she got sucked into this shit because of Scarlett. Emmie might have a had a bitch of a sister, but is that really something you want to hold against her?”

  “Do you not get it, Eli?” I ask, my voice low and furious. “I don’t give a fuck about her. About anyone that toxic whore had anything to do with. And you—you’re keeping secrets from me? Yeah, isn’t that what got you in trouble in the fucking first place?”

  His face is pale. Pale and so full of self-loathing I can actually see it, rolling like a goddamned wave across his face, and every part of me that is a big brother wants to pull him into a hug and assure him that I’m not actually pissed. That he’s fine, this is fine, that I know there’s an explanation.

  But the truth is—there’s always an explanation, when Eli is involved. And I can’t listen to it, not right now.

  The phone rings, the shrill shriek of Billings. I snatch it up and snarl, “What?”

  “Get your ass out to County Line. We’ve got a triple fucking homicide.”

  My blood runs ice cold, and I stumble a step.

  County Line is the country. Way the fuck out, a place that edges where Green County bleeds into the next township over.

  It’s all fields and woods and farms, and acres and acres of open space, perfect for getting lost or finding yourself or whatever the fuck other poetic shit Hazel would spin.

  She fucking loves County Line. Always has. Always said it reminded her of home. It’s where her farmhouse is.

  “Archer. You hear me?” Billings shouts and it narrows my thoughts down to where I can hear, where I’m not drowning in the fear that’s still swimming in my veins.