by Eva Ashwood
“So Nathaniel doesn’t know he met with me?” I asked, my heart thudding hard in my chest.
“We don’t think so. If he did, he’s playin’ it super close to the chest.” Misael shrugged, a look of concern flitting across his face.
“How did you…” I shook my head. “Why did you get a promotion?”
“Because Nathaniel’s preparing for the possibility that Flint’s either dead or has turned on him and gone into hiding,” Bish said flatly.
“The fucker used to do a lot of shit for Nathaniel,” Kace grunted. “So with him out of the picture, there was slack that needed picking up.”
“He asked us to keep our ears to the ground, see if we can pick up anything about Flint’s whereabouts.” There was a note of dry humor in Bishop’s voice, and my head whipped toward him, my eyes going wide.
“He wants you to investigate Flint’s disappearance?”
“Well, I’m sure we’re not the only people he told to keep an ear out. But you can sure as hell believe we’re not gonna tell him we found anything.”
I settled back against the seat, gazing out the window as I tried to sort through the implications of everything they’d just said.
If Nathaniel didn’t know yet what had happened to Flint, that was a good thing. He wasn’t stupid, so of course he suspected some kind of foul play, but it seemed that his suspicions were focused outward—probably at a rival gang member or something.
“So… that’s good, right?” I asked, hardly breathing, hardly daring to let myself hope. It was only hitting me now just how stressful this past week had been. It had felt like trying to go about my regular life with a massive snake wrapped around my body, slowly squeezing the breath out of me.
“We think so,” Misael said, finding my gaze when I turned around to peer into the back seat. “And the promotion is good for us. We just need to make sure Nathaniel never finds out. Flint was a bastard, and everybody knows it—but bastard or not, he was one of Nathaniel’s, and nobody kills one of his men without paying for it.”
A cold surge of fear flooded me, and I gripped the car door tightly.
Right.
Flint’s death had been justified, as far as I was concerned. But for Nathaniel, any attack on one of his people would be considered an attack on him, and he couldn’t let that stand, regardless of the reason for it.
At the moment, he wasn’t sure Flint was dead, and he had no reason to suspect the Lost Boys of killing him.
But I could never let myself forget the danger we were all in.
We balanced on a knife’s edge, and there was no safety on either side.
Five
Despite the knowledge that we weren’t out of the woods yet, a strange sort of calm permeated the rest of the week, and bled into the next. Knowing that Nathaniel wasn’t suspicious that the boys had anything to do with Flint’s disappearance eased a little of my worry—but it didn’t stop my nightly, terrifying dreams in which Flint’s body turned up, setting Nathaniel against my boys, or in which Flint himself returned from the dead and came after all of us with vengeance in his eyes.
In my waking hours, I tried not to think about it too much. If I let my mind focus on it, then I would start to think far too much about the fact that the tide could, at any point, wash up a body with a bullet in its head and rouse Nathaniel’s interest over who in the world might want to remove one of his people from existence. It set off my anxiety when I let it settle in my mind too much, so I threw myself into school with as much energy as I could muster, spending hours studying to distract myself.
I had plenty of time to do it, because the promotion Nathaniel had given the Lost Boys kept them incredibly busy. We had less time to hang out together after school or on the weekends, and aside from just missing them, I worried like hell every time they were called away to do something, usually spending most if not all of the evening gone—or in the case of the weekends, the entire day.
They were happy about being given more responsibilities for Nathaniel, but I knew they missed me too. When we did manage to see each other, we were all over each other, hands and mouths and teeth devouring me in an almost violent clash. Even at school, they were with me as often as they possibly could be, and they found little ways to constantly touch me or be near me.
It was sweet, and it fed something primal inside me—a need to be close to these boys. To claim them over and over as my own, and to give myself to them as theirs.
There was an element of raw fear that infused every kiss and touch, but I tried not to think about that either. I tried to ignore the fact that every time they kissed me or fucked me, part of me wondered if it would be the last.
I considered begging them to stop working for Nathaniel, but it wouldn’t do any good. This was the life they had chosen, and they were in too deep to walk away now. It might only make Nathaniel more suspicious, honestly. And besides, if he did find out what’d happened to Flint, it wouldn’t matter if the Lost Boys worked for him or not—his wrath would fall on them just the same.
So I just held my breath every time they went to see the crime lord, and clung to them even more tightly every time they returned.
And, for better or for worse, there was one other thing that helped distract me from my worries about Flint, Nathaniel, and the boys.
Mom.
The situation with her was completely confusing. Ever since I’d come across her going through her closet and then witnessed her strange cleaning binge, she was never at home anymore. The car Dad’s lawyer, Isaac, had gotten for us to replace the one that’d been destroyed by the Slateview students during my first week of school was gone. That car had been sensible and obviously used, although it’d been in decent enough shape for our purposes.
But the new car I’d seen in the driveway the night Flint died was not only brand new, but an expensive model. I’d asked a few more times, but Mom still wouldn’t tell me how she’d gotten it, other than to say that it was “taken care of.”
She’d spent most of our first two months here refusing to leave the house, barely even making it out of bed some days, but now, it was like she’d done a complete one-eighty. She never seemed to want to be at home. She would dress nicely, do her hair and makeup, put on jewelry that I could’ve sworn she said she’d sold, and wouldn’t come back until late in the evenings, when my homework was long done and I’d put away the leftovers from dinner.
When I asked her about where she was going, what she was doing—and even once asked if we could spend a day together—she brushed me off entirely.
“Oh, it’s nowhere you would be interested in going, Cora. Why don’t you spend time with your little friends?”
The fact that she was encouraging me to hang out with the Lost Boys, after the way she’d treated Bishop when she’d first met him, raised more red flags than I could count, but it also wasn’t like I could really do much about it either. She was the adult, and she could do whatever she wanted. And she had been in a better mood lately, so between her extended absences and her cheerful demeanor when she was home, at least the pall of sadness no longer hung over the place.
At this point, I would take any scraps of good news I could get.
Later in the second week following the boys’ promotion, another new thing cropped up, this time in the form of a new student by the name of Eli Parks.
Slateview High didn’t get a lot of new students—because what kind of transfers were happening in an inner city school? His arrival was greeted with whispers and rumors, and half the female population of the school eyeing him like he was a juicy steak. I caught sight of him in the hall on his first day, and I had to admit, he was attractive. Tall and well-built, dark eyes and light hair, and a tan that said that he did more than just stand around and look pretty for school girls.
He was put into Mr. Tyson’s sixth period US History class, and he strode in just before the bell, casting his gaze around the room before settling into the free seat beside mine.
Mr. Tyso
n gave him a brief introduction, then began the lecture. I dug out my notes and textbook and tried to focus on what Mr. Tyson was saying, but my attention kept wandering. A couple of times, I caught Eli looking at me, his gaze intense and piercing in a way that felt oddly familiar.
It was kind of like the way the Lost Boys unapologetically set their gazes where they pleased, simply because they could.
I had to admit, it raised the hairs on the back of my neck, for reasons I couldn’t quite place. After class, I hefted my backpack over my shoulder and made a beeline for the door, anxious to escape the strange tension that seemed to hover in the room.
Students jostled each other in the halls, laughing and joking loudly, as I headed to my locker to get my books for my next class. Before I could slam the locker door closed, a new awareness prickled up my spine, and when I looked up, I saw Eli leaning against the locker beside mine.
“Hey. Your name’s Cora, right?”
My brow rose, and I closed my locker slowly before turning to face him. His expression was impassive, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Does it matter?” I asked coolly.
No matter how intimidating he seemed to be trying to be, I didn’t have to answer to him. My days of answering to anyone at Slateview were long over, and this boy—this stranger—might think he needed to build himself up a reputation, but I wasn’t going to entertain that kind of shit.
To my irritation, he smirked.
“It was just a plain question, but that answers it just as good as a ‘yes’ would,” he said. “You’re feisty. I like it. I was just wondering—”
But whatever he was wondering, I never got to find out. He stopped speaking suddenly, looking over my shoulder. A lazy grin tilted his lips, and his head tilted with a nonchalance that was mildly irritating.
“What do you want?” a voice behind me growled.
I peered over my shoulder, a surge of relief filling me. Bishop came to stand right behind me, giving Eli a hard stare before he looked down to me.
“Everything alright?”
“Of course it is. I was just asking Cora if she’d like to chill sometime,” Eli said, answering before I could even open my mouth.
My head whipped back toward him, my jaw dropping in surprise. That’s what he’d been about to ask?
Irritation spiked in my veins. He was speaking for me as if I wasn’t even here, and the vaguely taunting tone in his voice made me want to punch him. “Excuse me—”
“The answer’s no,” Bishop said flatly.
“I think a lady can answer for herself.” Eli grinned. “Unless you’re worried about what she might say? Maybe she’s looking to branch out?”
“The lady has the same answer,” I said before Bishop could say anything more. Seriously, what was this guy’s deal? This was the first time anyone at Slateview had been so blatantly… antagonistic toward Bishop. Maybe it was because he was new. He’d only been here a day—maybe he didn’t know that Bishop and the Lost Boys had control of Slateview High.
Or maybe he did, and he didn’t care.
He smirked a little, dragging his gaze away from Bish to look back at me, the smug expression still on his face.
“Shame. So I guess the rumors are true. Y’know, it’s healthy to spread your horizons about a little bit.”
Eli reached out, intent on brushing a bit of my hair behind my ears. I jerked back, but before he could touch me, Bishop’s large body was between us, muscles seeming to pulse and swell with anger.
“Listen up, fuckhead,” he grated in a low, dangerous voice. “I’m only gonna say it once. You’re new, and that’s the only reason you get a pass. But around here, I run shit. Me and my boys do. And Cora? She’s. Off. Limits.”
The same infuriating smirk remained on Eli’s face, even as Bish spoke. He seemed completely unaffected by Bishop’s words, by his strength and bulk, or by his dominating presence.
It was unnerving.
“Oh… Oh, I see. You ain’t heard yet.” Eli shrugged. “Listen, I already know who you are, Bishop. And I know that the ‘Lost Boys’ run interference around here. But you’re not the only one working under a big name here, and the only person I answer to is Luke Carmine. Ya feel?”
My spine straightened as the words fell smoothly from Eli’s lips. The name didn’t sound familiar, but it didn’t sound good either, and even though I couldn’t see Bishop’s face, I knew he’d been taken off guard too. The tension that went through his shoulders was visible, and his silence and lack of answer for a few moments spoke volumes.
What the hell is going on?
“Is that a fact?” Bishop finally asked, his voice even and measured despite the tension still choking the air.
“It is, in fact, a fact,” Eli said easily. “So maybe keep that in mind while you try to lord over this school.” He leaned to one side, cocking an eyebrow as he glanced at me over Bishop’s shoulder. “Be seein’ you around, Cora.”
With that, the new boy turned and strolled away, leaving Bishop and me behind. There was a strange silence before Bishop turned to me.
“You alright?” he asked, clearly trying to force calm into his voice. I nodded.
“He didn’t do anything to me. He was just annoying and inconvenient.” I settled my hand on his chest. “Are you alright? What’s going on? He works for Luke Carmine? Who is that?”
“No one we’re gonna talk about here, but he’s not a friend of ours.”
There was a finality in his voice that told me Bishop was done talking for the moment. Whatever this was about, it wasn’t something he could discuss openly at school—just like the boys never discussed Nathaniel here. Jessica and Liam knew, and I was sure some other students had figured it out, but no one ever mentioned it.
I nodded, shoving my things into my locker. “Okay. We’ll talk later?”
“Yeah.” A muscle in Bish’s jaw twitched, but he threaded his fingers through mine, lifting my hand to his lips to kiss my knuckles. “Come on, Princess. I’ll walk you to your next class.”
“Thanks.” I tightened my grip on his hand, letting his touch soothe me.
As we headed down the hall, I noticed Mr. Tyson’s door close softly, the latch clicking into place with a dull snick.
A little bubble of concern rose in my chest.
If it were any other teacher at Slateview, I wouldn’t worry about it too much. But like Jessica had said, Mr. Tyson was more invested and observant than most of the people who taught here.
My head turned slightly as we walked past, trying to peer through the small window in the door, but I couldn’t catch sight of him.
Shit. How much did he hear?
Six
As soon as we left school that day, Bishop explained to me that Luke Carmine was a rival of Nathaniel’s. They each controlled about the same amount of territory in Baltimore, and generally speaking, they stayed out of each other’s way. But the relationship between them was definitely antagonistic, and knowing that one of Luke’s lackeys was at Slateview seemed to put all the Lost Boys on edge.
The drive back home was tense, and I wished there was something I could do to ease the lines of stress etched into their faces. On top of everything else that’d happened, on top of worrying about Flint’s death being discovered, they didn’t need another thing to worry about.
But I didn’t know what I could do to help. I was in over my head in all of this, treading water and slowly learning to swim in this strange, vast ocean I’d been thrust into.
I was barely keeping myself from drowning, but I sure as hell wouldn’t let the Lost Boys go down either.
My hand found Bishop’s on the center console, and I squeezed it once before reaching for the door handle. “I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah. See ya later, Coralee.”
Some of the tension melted from his face as he gifted me with a smile, and I glanced into the back seat to say my goodbyes to the other boys before slipping out of the car and heading inside the house.
> I dropped my school bag on the couch and headed into the kitchen for a snack, but my footsteps slowed before I could reach the fridge.
“What the hell is all of this?”
My voice rang out in the empty room as I stared at the small pile of envelopes on the kitchen table. They all bore the same return address: the state prison where my father was incarcerated, waiting for his trial. All had been opened, rather messily.
Sinking down into one of the wobbly wooden chairs, I picked up several of the letters and read through them. They were all from Dad, and the tone of each letter seemed to grow increasingly irritated. There had been several times that he had tried to have visits organized, and it sounded like every one had fallen through.
This was news to me. Mom hadn’t said a word.
“What was that, Cora?”
Mom emerged from her room a few minutes later, proving that she had, in fact, heard my question. She had a slightly annoyed expression on her face, and she cocked one brow at me. It was perfectly penciled in, which meant she had spent some time doing her make-up today, which meant she had plans.
My jaw set. Why was nothing around here making any fucking sense anymore?
“What are these, Mom?” I picked up the small stack of letters, waving them in the air.
She glanced at the table and shrugged.
“Oh. I was just about to toss those out,” she said dismissively. “Just some updates from your father.”
“They say that he’s been trying to make visits happen?” I dropped all but one of the papers and rose to my feet, pushing my chair back. “But you haven’t been returning any correspondence. Why didn’t you say anything? I went once a while ago, but we could have gone again. Maybe there’s something he needs to tell us—”
“If your father needs anything important relayed to us, he can tell Isaac, who can tell us. There haven’t been any updates, Cordelia, and I don’t know why you’re in such a state over this. I let you go see him once. Do you want to spend more time in prison, surrounded by a bunch of criminal thugs?”