It hurt too bad to even think about the three boys who had once been mine though so I closed my eyes, stripped off every scrap of clothing I wore and moved to climb into the hot tub with a determination in my soul which swore to keep me moving until I could break in peace. Because that was where this night ended. I was going to break all over again unless I could lock it down and I sure as fuck needed something dark to cling onto to make sure I didn’t. Something like revenge. "I guess I should make the most of limbo before I'm dragged back into hell."
S moke coated my tongue as I heaved down lungful after lungful of cancer and pictured my insides turning black and hollow. My fingers were locked around the spare phone I’d taken from home, my gaze set on the windscreen of the black Ford I’d boosted as rain beat heavily down on the glass. I remembered sitting here in my mom’s car in the rain after I’d stolen the keys in the middle of the night all those years ago. Rogue had been texting me, saying she wasn’t tired enough to sleep and Rosie’s snores were sending earthquakes through her pillow, so I’d told her I’d come pick her up. I’d thought I was real fucking cool driving that car and heading off to save my girl.
“Come on,” I called out the window, smirking my ass off as Rogue ran towards me across the grass in front of her group home. She had a denim jacket held over her head as the rain beat down on her and I swung the passenger door wide. The second she was in, I hit the gas and tore down the road like I was some badass getaway driver.
“Holy shit,” Rogue laughed, scrambling to get her door closed and tossing her wet denim jacket into the backseat. “Your dad’s gonna kill you.”
“He’ll never know,” I said dismissively, but the tug in my chest said he would. But I didn’t care, I just wanted to live in the moment and face his fists tomorrow.
I drove us up to Carnival Hill and blasted the heating to dry Rogue off. The wind made the car sway a little and I grinned at the chaos of the night.
My stomach growled almost as loud as the thunder that crashed through the sky a second later, speaking of a missed dinner. And alright, lunch too. Momma had said Dad was coming home with some fish, but by the time he did, it was almost ten and he was blind drunk, no fish in sight. I hated the relief I’d felt when he’d stumbled in the door, grabbed Momma by the hand and dragged her upstairs, not paying me any notice at all. Momma said she was happy, but I knew happy. Happy was surfing with my friends and feeling like there was nothing you could say or do that would make them hurt me. Not being afraid of your own words or even the looks you gave someone in case they lost their shit over them.
“Here.” Rogue produced some gummy bears from her pocket, holding them out to me in an offering.
“They’re yours,” I said dismissively, pushing them back at her. I was well aware she didn’t get three square meals a day herself.
“Share them with me,” she demanded, tearing into them and placing the bag between us in the cupholder. I couldn’t argue with the insistence in her eyes and gave in, taking a couple of them and savouring their sweetness on my tongue. We’d soon devoured every last one of them and the packet lay abandoned between us as we chatted about nothing and everything.
As Rogue started bitching about how Mary-Beth had found a pack of cigarettes in her jeans and taken them away, I gasped in realisation of something. I climbed through into the back seats of the car, opening the middle seat and reaching through into the trunk.
“What are you doing?” Rogue climbed after me and a second later, I had a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in my hand, waving them at her.
“One of dad’s stashes,” I announced with a mischievous grin.
“You’re so dead, Chase Cohen,” she warned and I shrugged, opening the pack and pushing one between my lips.
“You can’t stop living life just because you know a storm’s coming,” I said and lightning flashed through the sky as if to agree with me, lighting up our little haven in the back of my mom’s car for a split second.
Rogue took a cigarette as I offered her one, grinning to herself. “I guess you’re right. So does this make you brave or stupid?”
“Neither, little one,” I said. “It makes me all powerful.” I put on a ridiculous voice like a super villain and she laughed. I drank in every drop of this moment, not letting thoughts of tomorrow ruin a single second of it. There was just here and now and us.
I fell prey to that memory and ached with the desire to go back. Fuck, I’d do so many things differently. I’d have driven that car to my friends’ houses, picked them all up and headed on a road trip across the country to somewhere we’d never return from.
I looked down at the phone in my hand in frustration.
Call me, motherfucker.
Every muscle in my body was coiled and knotted, the only part of me moving the frantic, furious animal in my chest which was my heart. It wanted to escape me, fight free of this treacherous body and return to the girl it belonged to. But my heart didn’t get a say anymore. I’d locked it up in my chest along with everything it desired a long time ago. And it could thrash and hurt me all it liked now, but it was too fucking late.
What have I done?
What have I fucking done?
My phone buzzed violently in my hand and I answered it instantly, taking the cigarette from my lips in the same moment.
“Tell me good news, Quaid,” I snarled down the line at my shady ass lawyer.
“The deal is done,” he confirmed in his nasally voice and the breath went out of me, my lungs practically collapsing.
“She’s gone?” I demanded, needing to know, desperate to be sure she was finally out of our lives while equally panicking over the thought of never seeing her again.
“Yes, sir, she took the money and the car and I followed her to the edge of the town to make sure she left. She seemed quite confident she would never come back, Mr Cohen. In fact, as soon as I bailed her out, she seemed keen to take anything I had on offer to get her away from Sunset Cove.”
Fuck. It’s done. She’s gone.
That had been easier than I’d expected but I guessed she just wanted this over now that she’d seen how bad this life could get.
My heart rioted and I promised it oblivion in the form of alcohol soon enough. It was pretty much all I could do for it now.
“Good,” I said heavily. “Night, Quaid.” I hung up, tossing my phone onto the passenger seat before grabbing the brown paper bag in the footwell with the rum in it.
I took the bottle out, shoved the door open and stepped into the hammering rain as I twisted the cap off and started guzzling as much as I could get into my system. I swallowed mouthfuls down until half the rum was gone and the alcohol burned in my stomach.
The rain poured over me in a sheet and I gasped down the wet air as I took the bottle from my lips and stared out over the edge of the cliff I was standing on. One, two, three, steps was all it would take to dive off of it. The wind was at my back, urging me to do it. And maybe I should have. Mother nature clearly wanted me to. She could see exactly what I was; a tarnished soul escaped from hell to reside here and suffer over her.
I spun one of my leather bracelets around my wrist. This was my prison, my home, the only place in the world where someone wanted me. Without Fox and JJ, I was nothing. A desolate island where nothing could grow.
I just had to keep assuring myself that I’d done the right thing. It had only been a matter of time before Rogue ripped us apart again. If Fox had found out about her and JJ, it would’ve been game over for them. And then what? Would I have been forced to choose between them? Lose another of my brothers? Another member of my family? They were all I had in the world and they’d suffered over Rogue as much as I had. She would ruin us if she stayed here. So this was the right thing to do. But then why did it feel like carving my heart from my chest with a blunt knife?
“Take it!” I roared at the sky, the alcohol flooding my body but doing nothing to dull my pain. The only way out now was sleep, but I’d have to drink and d
rink until that was possible. “Have my fucking heart if you want it, but don’t take my brothers!” I roared at no one. Because no god in this world listened to the people of Sunset Cove. This was a lawless land where gods were made. And so long as I had Fox and JJ, I was one of them. I could make a mark right here. I could be…something. The only thing worth being in my pointless existence. A Harlequin. One of them. My boys. And I’d vowed a long time ago when Luther had dragged us out to the woods and made us become a part of his gang, that I would protect my brothers at any cost. But the price that was being paid now was the worst yet. Because losing her again, hurting her, betraying her, was unbearable. So I welcomed the pain that cursed my heart, and let the icy rain chill me through until I was shivering. Then I drank until my mind was just a blur of rainbow hair and hateful eyes. She despised me before and I just gave her a dozen more reasons to despise me deeper. So what did it even matter?
And with that thought spinning in my mind, I stumbled back to the car, fell inside and passed the fuck out.
***
An incessant buzzing sounded in my aching brain and rattled around my entire skull. I grunted, disorientated as I came to and lifted my head, finding my phone beneath it with ten missed calls from Fox and several text messages from JJ.
Fox was calling again and I blinked groggily against the morning sunlight as it poured through the car, pushing myself upright and glancing back at my soaked feet which were sticking out of the open door. A seagull swooped over and shat on my leg and I mentally saluted it, unsurprised by the local wildlife offering me a casual fuck you. Animals could always sense shitty people. It was why the stray cats near where I grew up never came sniffing at my father’s door for scraps. That and the fact that he threw a shoe at them once.
Rogue and I had made a shelter for them out of old driftwood and blankets we stole from her group home. A cat had had kittens in there one summer and we’d taken them to the animal shelter in a cardboard box, riding the bus all the way up there with bare, sandy feet and stupid smiles on our faces while we named all of them. We’d half wanted to keep them, but we knew they’d be better off out of the Cove. I squeezed my eyes shut and held onto that memory as tight as possible, feeling it slipping away already as I wished I could go back to that moment and keep riding that bus into eternity.
I shoved myself upright, tugging the door closed and flexing my neck which was stiff as hell. The pain didn’t have anything on what I felt in my heart though, but at least the alcohol was working overtime to keep it distracted.
I grabbed my cigarettes from the dash, tucking one into the corner of my mouth and lighting it up before answering my phone.
“Hey,” I said, my voice sounding like a fucking eighty-year-old man’s with throat cancer.
“Where are you?” Fox demanded, a note of concern in his voice. Good ol’ Foxy.
“The Ventosa Cliffs. I passed out. You okay, bro?” I asked, pain flashing through me at knowing how hard this was gonna hit him. But it had to be better than if she’d stuck around and fucked us over later.
“Come home,” he ordered, not answering, but the sharpness to his voice said it all.
He was in meltdown mode. And I had no doubt he’d been out searching for her long into the night, trying to figure out which precinct she’d ended up in. But I’d gotten her out of dodge long before he would have found that answer.
Lying to my brothers was up there with betraying Rogue when it came to my shittiest actions. I officially despised myself. The checklist of my redeeming qualities was set at an unsurprising zero.
Bile rose up in my throat as my own body rejected itself and before I could answer Fox, I lunged out the door, vomiting on the dirt.
“Ace?” Fox called, the phone still loosely held between my fingers.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, slumping into my seat as Fox called out to me and I managed to lift the phone to my ear again.
“I’m alright,” I slurred. Another lie. How’d that one taste, motherfucker?
“Just get home,” he growled. “We’re gonna regroup. Someone’s gotten her out of the precinct.”
“What?” I rasped, feigning surprise. But that someone had been me and I’d sent her on her merry way with a pocket full of cash and every reason to keep running and never look back just like I’d planned. She had to believe we’d all decided to betray her, and no matter how fucked up that might have been, at least this way I knew she’d never return to Sunset Cove. Fox would hunt for her of course. But Rogue Easton had made a life out of being a ghost and I was certain she’d be able to evade his best efforts.
“Just get home,” he barked and hung up.
I grabbed the rum, taking a swig, swilling it around my mouth and spitting it onto the ground to take the taste of vomit away. My life was real pretty.
The seagull who’d shat on me came down to land and made a feast out of my puke, so I guessed at least someone was benefiting from my existence this morning.
I coughed heavily, my lungs feeling like they were gonna pop as I started up the car and turned it around, my gaze hooking on the seagull in my wing mirror as it rejected the free meal. Yeah, I don’t blame you, bud. Nothing in there but regret and alcohol.
I drove back to town, bleary eyed and hanging outa my asshole as I finally made it to Harlequin House and headed through the gates. I parked up in the garage, stumbled towards the stairs and paused as my phone buzzed in my pocket.
I hooked it out and read the message waiting for me.
Quaid:
Slight issue.
It turns out the girl I bribed the cops to release got arrested again last night over in Hawksville for drunk driving.
My heart froze. My brain took several seconds to comprehend those words and in that time, Quaid sent over a mugshot of the girl and my lips parted in confusion.
Hang the fuck on…
Chase:
That’s not her. Is that the girl you bailed out??????
Quaid:
Yes. She was the only girl at the north precinct, sir.
Chase:
YOU FUCKING MORON. WHAT PART OF RAINBOW HAIR DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!????
Quaid:
She had some pink in it…
Chase:
FUCK YOU QUAID!
I fought the urge to throw my phone at the wall and took a breath as my alcohol-infused brain tried to figure out what had happened. Fox said Rogue was free. So if my lawyer didn’t get her out, who the fuck did? And how the fuck did they get there before me?
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I hissed, carving my fingers through my dark curls as my heart beat out a panicked tune. Where is she? Who is she with?
Maybe she called someone. Maybe one of her trailer park friends got there first, somehow put the cash together to bribe the cops…
Not good. Not good. Not good.
My heart beat out a hopeful little tune at the idea of her still being in town, of seeing her again, even with utter rage in her eyes. But I smothered that hope like it was my blood-bound enemy and let my brain think on that further. If she was still in town, she could tell Fox and JJ we got split up, that I didn’t go back for her. That I fucking left her there.
No, no, no.
“Ace?” The door wrenched open at the top of the stairs and JJ appeared there with Mutt in his arms.
The dog started yapping at me and I couldn’t blame the beast for hating me, the look in its shiny little eyes telling me it knew the kind of monster I was. He knew what I’d done without having to hear the words or see the truth.
I jogged up the stairs, my shoulder bashing against the wall as I made it to the top.
“Are you drunk?” he growled, yanking me out into the hall close enough for Mutt to sink his teeth into my arm. I let the little dog go to town until it drew blood and JJ yanked him out of reach.
JJ slapped me hard across the face and I focused my gaze on him, wincing against the sunlight streaming through the hallway.
“Get i
t together,” he demanded. “Fox is losing his mind. And I’m not far off it either. We’ve searched everywhere we can think of, I’ve called every one of her friends, but no one’s giving her up. Did you find anything?”
“No,” I grunted, dropping my gaze.
In the wake of the guilt, the panic, the fear, came the worst thing of all. Shame. I’d lied to my brothers. And now I was so deeply wrapped up in this lie that I could never let it out, because it held the weight of my entire family with it. If it got out, I’d lose them. No doubt about it. They’d never forgive me for this. And I wouldn’t fucking blame them.
“We’ll get her back, brother,” JJ swore to me, clapping his hand down on my shoulder and my features pinched as I said nothing. “I know you two have issues, but you care about her just as much as me and Fox. You don’t have to admit it, you can even tell me to get fucked, but I know you. And I know us. We all loved her once, that doesn’t just go away. We’re just all dealing with it…differently.”
I tried to swallow the hard and unyielding lump in my throat as I gazed at my brother and felt so unworthy of his understanding, his love, that I just wanted the floor to open up and drag me down to hell already.
I managed a nod and he broke a sad smile before turning and leading the way down the hall.
Fox was in the kitchen with a map of Sunset Cove spread over the counter. He was striking out sections of it with a pen, marking each and every place they’d already searched from Rejects Park to Afterlife, Sinners’ Playground, Carnival Hill, all our old haunts. Fox looked as worn out as JJ, both of their eyes ringed with dark circles speaking of a night without sleep.
Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2) Page 2