Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2)

by Caroline Peckham

  "I'll fucking kill him!" he roared, releasing me so suddenly that I stumbled back a step as he stalked away with intent.

  "Wait," I gasped, hounding after him. "You haven't even heard me out. Maverick had no fucking right to tell you that. I didn't want you to know. It wasn't his place to tell you. Chase was-"

  "Don't try and protect that piece of shit!" Fox shouted at me as he ripped a drawer open and yanked a pistol out of it.

  "Shit, Fox, wait a second," JJ implored, moving between me and him and I could see why he was trying to get between us. There was nothing of the boy I'd once known in Fox in that moment. A stranger stood there before me now, a machine moulded in the image of his father, a monster carved in the likeness of the Devil. This was the man feared throughout the Cove and beyond. This was the man who had earned the brutal reputation that followed him.

  "What do we do to traitors in the Harlequin Crew, Johnny James?" Fox demanded, his eyes so dark in that moment that I couldn't see anything light in him at all.

  "This is Chase you're talking about," JJ protested. "He's our brother. You can't just-"

  "He's no brother of mine. And believe me when I say I can." Fox took off towards the door and I shoved my way around JJ, diving in front of Fox and placing my palms against his chest.

  "Stop," I begged, digging my heels in as I fought to hold him back, but I knew I couldn't really. He was so much bigger than me and if he wanted to push me aside he could do so easily.

  Something shattered in Fox's gaze as he met my eyes and my heart lurched as he hesitated there.

  "I swore nothing would ever take you from me again, hummingbird," he snarled. "You know I can't let this stand."

  "Fox," I breathed, my voice cracking at the darkness in his eyes, the determination, the way he held that fucking gun and exactly what I knew he was planning to do with it. "Don't do this. There's no coming back from it if you do. I know he fucked up, I know he's an asshole, I fucking know. But he's also the boy I loved once. He's the boy I know you still love. He's-"

  The sound of the front door opening stole Fox's attention from me and a lead weight fell into the pit of my stomach as my chance at stopping this slipped through my fingers. Because there was only one person who would be coming through that door and the look in Fox's eyes said he was about to find his death waiting for him here.

  M y heart was still catching up with the decision my brain had made. I wouldn’t run. I wasn’t a coward, and running didn’t equal freedom to me anyway. The only place I belonged in this world was here. Harlequin House. Among my family. So if that was no longer an option then I had to face my fate.

  I’d done this. I knew that. I’d fucked up, betrayed my brothers. I hadn’t meant for it to go like this, but maybe it was always gonna go down this way. I’d just wanted to protect them, to keep us all together, but I’d ended up ripping us all apart instead.

  My breaths came heavily as I stepped through the front door and I half expected to die there and then. Fox slammed into me, throwing me against the wall and pinning me in place with his forearm as he pressed a pistol to my jaw. The sound of Mutt barking reached me, but I couldn’t see him, all I could focus on was a cloud of my own mistakes falling over me.

  My heart thrashed as I stared into his dark green eyes and found my betrayal there like cracked glass. He saw me differently now, saw me as a snake in his home, one who’d tried to get rid of his girl. And that was exactly what I fucking was.

  “You know that I know,” he snarled in realisation and I nodded.

  “Fox, let’s just talk about this,” JJ begged and I threw a glance down the hall, finding him holding onto Rogue, keeping her back, both of their eyes written in fear.

  “How could you?!” Fox bashed his hand against the wall beside my head and for a moment I thought the gun had gone off, my soul trying to leap out of my body.

  “I just wanted to protect you and JJ,” I said but it sounded so fucking weak now. My plan had been a raft riddled with holes, and every one of them had let the water in and taken me down into the depths of the sea. “It wasn’t meant to go like this.”

  “How was it meant to go then, huh?” Fox demanded through his teeth. “You wanted to send Rogue off to prison, you piece of shit.”

  “No, I was gonna get her out,” I tried, but I didn’t know why. My fate was already written, I could see it in his eyes. And what was worse than anything was knowing how much I’d hurt my brothers, hurt Rogue. “I’m sorry, man, I’m so sorry.”

  He stepped back and shoved me down the hall, pressing the pistol to the back of my head and sending a wave of fear slicing through me.

  “Fox, stop it!” Rogue screamed as JJ pulled her out of my way, looking to Fox and knowing he couldn’t intervene. Mutt stood beside them, barking furiously and I couldn’t tell if he was cheering Fox on or telling him to stop.

  JJ shook his head at me, his features full of hurt and I hung my head, marching through the house as Fox guided me past them toward the basement. When I was outside the door, panic reared up in me and I turned back to my brother, my heart lurching as I came eye to eye with the barrel of his gun.

  “Please,” I said in a low tone. “Not down there. Do it on the beach,” I begged.

  His jaw ticked and pulsed and his eyes were a chasm of pain that I hated myself for.

  “JJ, let go of me!” Rogue yelled from down the hall as she fought to get out of his arms.

  “You hold onto her,” Fox barked. “That’s an order, JJ.”

  JJ gripped her tighter and I threw her a glance, wondering why she was fighting so hard. I wanted to hate her for this, but it was impossible when my life had just been reduced to a few minutes at most. All I felt in my heart was regret. Over all of it. I’d made bad choices my entire life and it probably shouldn’t have come as a shock that one of them was about to finally put me in the ground. But I’d never wanted to hurt my family. They were the only people who’d ever been there for me.

  “I know I don’t deserve it,” I said as Fox still refused me an answer. “But I don’t wanna die somewhere I can’t see the sky or the sea.” My voice came out choked because I had the feeling he wouldn’t indulge me on this. I deserved to die in the dark and the cold, between four stone walls and a roof that let in no light.

  “Fox, stop, please stop,” Rogue begged as tears lined her cheeks and I hated that my little one was crying for me again. Her coming back to town had triggered a fear in me that blinded me. Because the problem was, we all loved her, and we’d all tear the world apart for her, even if that included each other. I’d known that for a long fucking time now. It didn’t make it right, or good what I’d done, I’d just hoped it would save my boys from this. But I’d gone and made sure I wrecked us instead. At least they’d all have one less bad thing tainting their lives when I was dead.

  Fox jerked the gun to direct me down the hall, a flicker of agreement in his eyes. “Move.”

  I stepped past him toward the others and met JJ’s gaze as desperation filled his eyes.

  “Chase, tell him you’re sorry. Tell him you didn’t really want Rogue gone, that you fucked up,” he demanded of me, but I couldn’t tell Fox that. Because I had wanted Rogue gone. Maybe only with the darkest pieces of my soul, but they were the sum total of me now. I was destructive like my father, a plague on anyone I was meant to protect. And maybe the world would be better off without me.

  My gaze moved to Rogue as she reached for me, grabbing my arm and trying to pull me toward her. Her cheeks were stained with tears and the emotion in her eyes confused me as she tried to pull me out of harm’s way. Mutt jumped up at my leg and for once he didn’t savage me, he just whined like there was something he wanted from me. But it was far too late for me to give it to him.

  “You’re sorry, aren’t you Chase?” Rogue sobbed. “Tell him, please tell him.”

  “It’s too late for apologies,” Fox snarled, yanking my arm out of her grip and shoving me along.

  My heart thumped to
o hard, too painfully. There was a crushing, suffocating sense of fate surrounding me as I walked my final steps to where I’d die. This life had been hard and painful and sometimes unbearable, but there was good in it too. And that was what was hardest to let go of.

  As I walked, I thought of all of us as kids, laying down in the cool shade beneath the pier, loving each other with our entire hearts. I saw Rogue’s laughing face as she buried JJ’s legs in the sand, my cheek still stinging from the impact of my father’s fist that morning. She always made the pain hurt less, it was something in her smile, the way she made the shadows withdraw. I used to believe a piece of the sun lived beneath her flesh because every time I looked at her, she seemed to have this glow about her which I couldn’t look away from.

  I stepped out through the back door and my frantic heart calmed a little at the sight of the waves lapping against the shore. It was a perfect day in Sunset Cove, the wind gentle, the gulls soaring through an azure sky, the water coloured brightest blue. I walked down from the porch onto the beach and drank it all in one last time.

  “Fox, I’ll do anything, please!” Rogue screamed.

  I walked towards the sea and tasted the wind on my lips and felt the sun beating down on my face. Countless times I’d experienced this and yet the sun had never felt so warm and the whole world seemed to shine with this golden shimmer I’d never noticed before. It was the perfect place to die and yet I found I didn’t want to gaze into the waves when I went. So I turned back to face my family, focusing on them as Rogue screamed and begged Fox to listen to her.

  It’s too late, little one.

  “You knew I had to do this,” Fox spoke to me in a broken tone as he levelled the gun at my head. “You fucking knew it would come to this if I found out.”

  I nodded, my chest too tight as I gazed at this man I loved with all my heart. “I don’t blame you,” I said earnestly. “I’d do it too.”

  His eyes glinted wetly and his jaw tightened in pain as he gestured for me to kneel.

  I lowered down and my gaze slid to JJ who was shouting something at Fox which I couldn’t hear through the roaring fear in my skull. Then my gaze found Rogue’s and my fear fell away like it was nothing. My regrets turned to ash in my chest, because none of it mattered anymore. Wherever I was going was far from here, maybe into a pit of nothingness, or maybe to hell where the Devil would make me pay until the end of time. Either way, I wanted to hold tight onto my favourite pieces of this life and pray I could take some slice of them with me into the dark.

  Mutt came running over, biting Fox’s ankles and my brother bellowed, “Get back!” at him, sending the little dog scampering away with his tail between his legs to re-join JJ and Rogue. I guessed he didn’t like all the confrontation but it was gonna be over soon enough.

  I gazed at Rogue for a long moment, wanting her to be the last thing I saw as she screamed my name and battled to get to me. Then I turned my head to the sky and wondered why this world I’d loved so fiercely had never loved me back.

  I closed my eyes and waited for the bullet to come, drowning in the memories of my past and remembering a time where we’d all been happy, together and full of hopes of something better.

  My pulse pounded in my temple and the waves seemed to steal away the rest of the noise in the world.

  “Chase Cohen,” Fox growled in a fierce tone that sent a tremor through my bones. “You’re no longer a Harlequin. I rid you of your bonds to the Crew. You’re banished from Sunset Cove and if you ever come back, I won’t hesitate to kill you. You’re outcast from my family as punishment for what you’ve done. And you’ll never lay eyes on us or our home ever again.”

  I opened my eyes, in shock as quiet pressed in on me from all sides. Fox had his gun hanging loosely in his hand, his expression broken. He didn’t look at me, he just gestured for me to leave and I looked to JJ and Rogue as I took a breath I hadn’t expected to still be able to take. Rogue turned in JJ’s arms, sobbing against his shoulder as he hugged her, my brother gazing at me over her head with loss in his features, but utter relief too.

  I got to my feet, looking to Fox, but he just turned away and my heart shattered to pieces. I took one last look at them all and walked back into the house, breaking into a run as I headed through the familiar corridors and out the front door where my motorcycle was parked.

  I swung my leg over my Suzuki and started her up, my chest cleaving apart as I went, trying to process what had just happened. In the wake of the shock over still being alive, panic set in at what my life was about to look like. I was banished, cursed to live on the outside of this town and I suddenly realised that was a far worse fate than death. My pulse raced frantically as grief closed in around it. Fox had realised death was too kind a punishment for me, that I deserved to be outcasted from the only thing I wanted on this earth. I was as good as dead, but cursed to live on in the wake of everything I’d lost, never able to grasp it between my hands again.

  I drove to Raiders’ Gym which was closed, parking up in front of it, finding my hands shaking as I headed inside and strode into the office.

  I grabbed my spare gym bag by the desk and opened up the safe in the corner of the room, shoving the cash into it which I had stashed there before heading to the locker room and grabbing a bunch of spare clothes and some weapons I had in a locker. When the bag was full, I dropped it to the floor, catching sight of my reflection in the shiny locker as I shut the door.

  My upper lip peeled back and I threw my fist into it, again and again as hatred poured through me for myself. My knuckles busted and as I kept punching and denting the metal, blood smeared across it and I didn’t stop until I physically couldn’t do it anymore.

  I dropped my hand as blood dripped steadily to the floor and I focused on the bite of pain radiating through my knuckles, relishing the punishment. I should have been dead, torn from this body and put to rest. But instead I lingered on and my heart battled to get out of my chest and leave me behind. I didn’t blame it. I’d disregarded it for too long, the way it beat for Rogue and no other girl, the way it pounded at the sight of her and begged me to do right by her. But I never did. I fought my instincts and made her life more difficult, more impossible, like if I could just be significant to her in some way then it would matter that I existed. Because I knew she could never love me, so I’d decided to make her hate me instead.

  I grabbed my bag and unzipped it, taking out the gun I’d put there and stalking into the bathroom at the end of the locker room. The fluorescent lights were blinding as I switched them on and I moved to face my reflection once again in the mirror above the sink. I placed the gun against the underside of my jaw and stared unblinkingly at the failure in the glass.

  This is what you get. This is what you deserve.

  My father’s voice blended with mine inside my head.

  Weakling.

  Nothing.

  No one.

  Useless.

  Pathetic.

  Coward.

  Leaving this town was worse than death. So maybe this was what it came down to, dying in a room that stank of piss, staring myself in the eye and owning what a waste of space asshole I was.

  My finger kissed the trigger and I didn’t look away. I looked at him. The one who’d done this. Who deserved it.

  “Chase?” Rogue’s frantic voice filled the air and my heart lurched as I lowered the gun.

  I stepped out of the bathroom, finding her there, her face still wet with tears and panic in her gaze.

  She ran at me, colliding with my chest and wrapping her arms around me, her ear to my heart like she was assuring herself it was still beating.

  “I didn’t want this to happen,” she said breathlessly and I wondered if she’d run all the way here.

  “Why do you even care?” I muttered and her grip tightened on me.

  I couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched me like that and I wondered what fate was up to now, getting high on fucking with my head even further toda
y. I wanted to close my arms around her, but they just hung there leadenly, my hand still locked around the gun.

  “Because you’re Chase,” she croaked. “You’re the boy who gave me his sweater whenever I got cold, the boy who carried me three miles to town on his back when his bike got a puncture up on the cliffs, you’re the one who managed to smile through all the pain your father threw at you.”

  “You were the one who made me smile, Rogue,” I admitted, tossing my gun onto the nearest bench. Fox was right, death was too sweet a punishment for me.

  She looked up at me, her eyes reddened by tears and blazingly blue at the same time. My breathing hitched as I stared at this girl, looking so young right then, just like the Rogue I’d loved when I was a kid. My heart beat to a powerful tune that it reserved just for her and I knew I wasn’t strong enough to deny its wants anymore. I was just some nothing boy who had nothing to lose.

  “I hate you for what you did,” she said in a tight voice and I cupped her face in my palm, my fingers sliding into her hair.

  “That makes two of us then,” I growled, my fingers twisting into the strands.

  “But I also don’t hate you,” she breathed, her nails tearing into my bicep. “I don’t hate you so much it burns me up inside and sets me alight.”

  “I don’t hate you too, little one,” I admitted, because what was the point now? I had to leave. It was over for me anyway, all of it. I was still angry at her, angry she’d come back, angry I’d ruined her coming back, angry I’d tried to make her leave, and angry that I’d wanted her to stay all along. She was my real death, this girl, this creature who lived beneath my skin and ate away my strength.

  “Ten years, I’ve held onto a hurt over you that I’ve never shared with anyone,” I admitted in a rough tone. “And I’m done holding onto it, I’m done with it eating at me and reminding me that I never could have had you. Because I realise now that I was never an option anyway. I never could have been enough for you, little one. You’re a star shining in a dark sky seeming so close at times, but when I reach for you, I remember I still have my feet firmly planted in the mud and nothing’s ever gonna change that.”