“I’m Jax,” I introduce myself. “Who are you?”
She steps toward me. “I’m Willow.”
“Willow, like the willow tree?” I ask, and she nods, smiling at me.
And that smile … it was real. I think it may have been the first real smile I’d ever seen. And I knew in that moment, I wanted to be friends with her.
And we did become friends. Really, really good friends … until that day on the bridge that I still have nightmares about.
About the day I let her die.
And I will carry that guilt with me forever.
In fact, I promised myself that I would.
My penance for what I did.
When I reach the car, Raven tries to catch my gaze, but I refuse to look at her. Can’t. For reasons I can’t even comprehend.
Like when we drove here, I expect Hunter to make me sit up front so he can sit beside Raven. And unlike when we drove here, I’m okay with that, figuring I can use a break. But as I wait for Hunter to climb in, he doesn’t, telling me, “I need to plug some stuff in, so do you want to sit in the back?” He’s cautious, as if he can sense me veering toward the edge.
“I … Sure.” I swallow down a shaky breath then move to climb in.
“Are you sure?” Hunter double-checks.
I’m not, but I nod anyway and get in, leaving a bit of space between Raven and me as I settle in the back seat. She eliminates that space slightly, scooting closer to me.
“Are you okay?” she asks quietly with worry in her eyes.
I nod then turn my head before she can read the lie in my expression.
Then she does something that nearly shatters me.
She reaches over and places her hand on mine, giving it a squeeze. I did something similar to her today, and I’m not sure if that’s why she does it, or if she just senses that I’m about to break. Whatever the reason, I find myself grasping on instead of pulling away, like I normally would. Even with Lana, I was closed off. It’s one of the many reasons why we broke up.
Raven doesn’t say anything else, remaining quiet as we start the short drive toward her house, with me clutching onto her hand. Eventually, I start to relax and thread my fingers through hers. She briefly tenses, and I expect her to pull away, but she doesn’t. She just continues to let me hold onto her. And the scary part is I like it. I don’t know why. Why I feel this connection to her, but it’s freaking me out a little.
Maybe Jax is right.
Maybe we shouldn’t have let Raven into this group.
10
Raven
Jax is upset, and I’m still a bit uncertain why. I’m also a little unsure why I decided to hold his hand. Maybe because he did the same thing for me earlier? I don’t know …
Whatever the reason, the gesture does seem to relax him, enough that he scoots closer to me and laces our fingers together. He doesn’t say anything, just breathes softly while staring out the window as we drive toward my house. Hunter doesn’t talk either, too busy setting up the gear. Zay’s quiet, too, but I do see him glance at me in the rearview mirror a few times. Why? I’m not sure. What I am sure about is that these guys are really confusing.
The silence almost becomes maddening to the point where I’m kind of relieved when we park beside my house, something I never thought I’d ever feel. Zay parks in the trees where the car is out of view of anyone who pulls up into the driveway, but I can still spot the house through the cracks in the trees.
“Are we ready to go?” Zay asks Hunter as he turns off the car.
Hunter nods as he stuffs the last of the cameras and equipment into a backpack he brought with him. He keeps one of the iPads out and twists in the seat to look at me.
“However, this device goes to this pretty girl right here.” He grins at me as I take the iPad from him.
I roll my eyes. “And there you go with your cheesy lines again.”
“Aw, baby, I’m sorry,” he says innocently. “I forgot I said I was gonna try to stop.” He bats his eyelashes at me. “Please forgive me.”
I roll my eyes again but can’t help smiling. “I will, but only if you don’t call me baby anymore.”
“I’ll try my best,” he tells me with a mischievous smile.
“Great. That means you’re gonna call me baby a lot, doesn’t it?” I grimace.
He wets his lips with his tongue. “I think you’re catching onto my quirks, aren’t you, pretty Raven?”
“Quirks?” I question with my arms crossed. “Or obnoxious habits?”
He chuckles at that while Zay sighs and pushes open the door. “Make sure she knows how to use the app,” he tells Hunter before climbing out.
Hunter gives him a salute, his gaze briefly flitting to Jax, who hasn’t uttered a word and is still staring out the window. He momentarily frowns but erases it when he focuses back on me.
“All right, so all you need to do is keep this open.” He leans over so he can tap the screen of the iPad, strands of his hair tickling my face as he gets close.
As he pushes the buttons, his gaze strays Jax and mine’s interlocked fingers and freezes. He blinks, and I almost pull away but don’t want to upset Jax. When Hunter’s gaze skates back to me, he doesn’t look upset or anything, just curious. He offers me a smile before tapping open an unlabeled app. When the screen goes black, I glance up at him in confusion.
“What am I looking at?”
“Nothing yet,” he explains, rotating back around and pushing the door open. “We’ll set up a camera in the driveway before we break in. Once I power it on, you’ll be able to see the road and the driveway. If a car shows up at all, call my cell ASAP, okay?” He waits for me to nod then climbs out of the car and flips the seat forward so Jax can get out.
Jax doesn’t get out right away. Hesitancy consumes his face as his eyes slide from me to Hunter. “Maybe I should stay with her, so she won’t have to be alone.”
Hunter’s expression crams with sympathy. “You know we need your help setting up the cameras. Raven will be fine. If I thought she wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t leave her out here by herself.”
When Jax continues to remain hesitant, I try to reassure him. “I’ll be fine. I know how to throw a punch if I need to.” Of course, I don’t know why I’d need to punch anyone in this situation, but Jax seems worried.
His gaze meets mine, and I want to retract my initial statement.
Jax doesn’t seem worried. Jax is extremely worried.
“I just … I don’t like the idea of you being in the car alone when we’re doing this sort of stuff,” he offers an explanation. “And the car’s parked in the woods.”
“I’ll be fine,” I continue to try to alleviate his worry, but I’m a bit perplexed over what specifically he’s worried about. “I promise.” I smile, hoping that’ll help, but it only causes him to start bouncing his knee up and down like crazy.
Hunter sighs. “If you want, you can keep her on the phone with you,” he tells Jax. “That way, you’ll know exactly what’s going on.”
Jax wavers for a heartbeat before nodding. “Okay, yeah, let’s do that.” He turns to me. “I’m gonna call you, okay? And then keep you on the line with me. That way, if anything goes wrong at all, I’ll know ASAP.”
To lighten the mood, I give him a salute, but I have to wonder what he’s so worried about, what he thinks might happen. The guys said this town was sketchy, that their fathers are, too, and the idea of me even meeting Jax’s father is what I think caused him to take off out of the living room. But I doubt that could be a risk of happening while I’m hanging out in the woods, playing spy … right?
Hunter smiles at my salute, and even a trace of one touches Jax’s lips. But it swiftly fades as he slowly gets out of the car.
Hunter lowers his head and looks at me. “Are you good?” he double-checks.
I nod. “Yep, let’s do this.”
He smiles again, but this time it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He’s worried, too, but is hiding it bett
er than Jax. Again, why? Why are they so worried?
He stares at me for a beat before closing the door. A second later, my phone rings, and Jax’s name flashes across the screen. I answer, “So, what’re we supposed to talk about? Or do we need to just be quiet and listen to each other’s heavy breathing?”
A soft chuckle drifts through the phone. “Talking should be fine since no one’s around.”
“Cool.” I recline in the seat. “So, what do you want to talk about?”
“Hmm … How about why on earth there’s a collection of creepy-ass gnomes lined up in the backyard?” he replies with hilarity in his tone.
I snort a laugh. “That’s my aunt’s collection. And she’s super weird about them. Like, she once caught me moving one of them out of my way so I could water some of her flowers, which FYI, she asked me to do. But anyway, when she saw me move it, she freaked out. Said some crazy crap about how they all had their proper positions in the yard and I had messed it up.”
“Seriously?” Jax says. He sounds as if he’s feeling a bit better, and I’m glad. “What a weirdo.”
“She really is,” I agree, my thoughts drifting to something I’ve often pondered.
Does she know what my uncle does to me? Sometimes, I think she does and doesn’t care. If she does, then she’s just as bad as him, in my opinion.
“Maybe she thinks they’re alive,” Hunter calls out.
“I’ve wondered that, too,” I reply then ask, “Am I on speakerphone?”
“Yeah,” Jax says. “Wait. Hold on.”
I hear a muffled conversation, and then Jax gets back on the line and asks, “Can you see the video feed on the iPad now?”
I glance at the iPad and, sure enough … “Yep.”
“Awesome,” he tells me then says to either Hunter or Zay, “She’s good.”
The line goes quiet again, but I hear one of them say something every so often.
Finally, I can’t take the quietness anymore.
“Are you guys in my house yet?” I wonder.
“Yeah,” Jax answers. “Zay’s setting up a camera in the kitchen, Hunter almost has one up in the living room, and I just put one up in the upstairs hallway.”
Crap. There’s one in the upstairs hallway? That could be close enough to my room where they might overhear something. But I know if I say anything about it, he’ll question why.
“Which one’s your room?” he asks.
I chew on my bottom lip. “Um … Why?”
“I was just curious what it looked like,” he tells me. “It’s okay if you don’t want me to go in there.”
I relax a smidgeon. “No, it’s fine if you want to go in there … It’s the second door on the right.”
Jax doesn’t say anything right away and, for some dumbass reason, that makes me nervous.
“There’s not a lot of stuff in here,” he finally says.
“I know … My aunt and uncle made me get rid of a lot of stuff when I moved in with them. And I haven’t really gotten a lot of new stuff, so …” I shrug, even though he can’t see me.
“You should have more stuff,” he mutters, but I’m unsure if he’s talking to me or himself.
“It’s fine … I mean, I wish I had some of my old stuff, like my dad’s old record collection, but that’s long g—”
“Where did you get this photo?” he suddenly cuts me off, his tone trembling.
I’m beyond confused, not just by his question, but by his reaction. “What photo?”
“This one with the man and woman and a little girl in a purple dress?” His tone is equally, if not more, shaky now.
“That’s a photo of my parents and me, when I was little, obviously. It’s the only one I have left of them. My aunt threw away the rest, said I didn’t need to dwell on the past or some shit like that.” Tears burn my eyes as I remember how angry I was when I watched her toss all the boxes of my family photos in the trash. She said it was making me too emotional whenever I looked at them. “She didn’t know I kept that one. I hid it in my shoe. If she did, she’d probably freak out.” I give a short pause as something dawns on me. “Jax, you don’t think she made me toss them because I’m off the grid or whatever, do you?”
“I don’t know.” His voice is barely a whisper now, and I’m not positive why, what’s making him so upset.
“Jax, are you okay …?” I trail off as the driver’s side door opens.
At first, I assume it’s one of the guys since I didn’t see a car pull up to the house, but when the person ducks their head into the car, I know I’m in deep shit.
Because they’re wearing a ski mask.
I immediately scoot over to the other side of the car to hightail it out the passenger side, but that door opens up, too, and that person is also donning a ski mask. Panic soars through me as I put the phone back to my ear.
“Jax,” I hiss but get no response, so I open my mouth and shout, “Jax—”
The person on the driver’s side dives over the seat and smacks my face hard enough that my ears pop and I drop the phone onto the floor. I’m fuming with rage as I hurriedly fumble to pick up the phone, but the people have already flipped the seats up and are grabbing at me from both sides. I put up a fight, kicking and screaming, throwing punches. I manage to clock one of them in the face, and they curse, leaning back for a moment. I try to shove around them, but the person behind me wraps their fingers around my throat while pinning me against them.
Before this point, I wasn’t quite certain what was going on, but now I get it. Whoever these people are, they are trying to kill me. I scramble to get free, but the person I punched has recovered and climbs on top of me. I attempt to kick them, to no avail.
In the back of my mind, I question why Jax didn’t answer me when I screamed into the phone, and while I don’t want to think it, I wonder if perhaps they’re behind this. I mean, they are the ones who had me sit out in the car. I didn’t see anyone pull up to the house and the car is hidden in the forest, so how did these people know I was here? Unless this was a setup.
“Shh … sweetheart,” the person who’s holding my neck whispers. “No one’s gonna hurt you as long Jaxon, Hunter, and Zayden give me what I want.”
Okay, maybe the guys didn’t have anything to do with this—
Suddenly, the person basically sitting on top of me shoves a pill into my mouth. I start to spit it out, but they hold my mouth shut. I wiggle and thrash around, trying to get the fucker off me while keeping the pill in my mouth. It dissolves, and then I start to feel a little dizzy.
Panic whirls through me as my arms start to go limp and slump to my sides. As they do, I feel my fingers brush against my phone that I dropped on the floor. With every ounce of strength I have in me, I pick it up and discreetly put it in the pocket of the hoodie I’m wearing. Hopefully, they won’t search my pockets so that maybe I can try to call someone when I get a chance … unless they’re just going to kill me.
Maybe the drug is going to do just that, is the last thought I have before dizziness overtakes me.
Then I pass out.
11
Jax
I’m trying not to freak out, but I’m not doing a very great job.
The photo I found in Raven’s bedroom … the girl in it … she looks just like Willow. No, not just looks like. It is. Even though it’s been years, I can remember her face as clearly as I know my own. What I don’t understand, though, is why Raven is saying the girl in the photo is her. Willow died that day on the bridge. She fell in, landed in the river, and she didn’t know how to swim. I tried to save her, but my father’s minions caught me before I could.
I cried and screamed and fought to get away from them, to save her. I had promised I wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and I had broken that promise in the worst way possible—by letting her die.
My father told me so that day, told me it was my fault, and that the guilt I would feel for the rest of my life would be my punishment. And it has been. Willow was th
e only good thing in Hunter’s, Zay’s, and my life. She was one of our best friends. She was our light in the darkness that plagued our lives. She was sweet, funny, and cared about us, even when things got really bad, which was a lot.
Back then, our fathers made us do awful things, and Willow’s father was part of it. It’s why she came to our house in the first place. The stuff that happened … I’ve blocked most of it out, except for the good memories of her.
“Jax, you’re the sweetest boy I ever met,” Willow singsongs as she skips around the tree.
Hunter, Zay, and I are sitting in the grass just beside the tree, and Zay snickers when Willow says this.
I give him a dirty look. Then, to Willow, I say, “No, I’m not.”
She skips over to me, ducks down, and whispers in my ear, “Liar.” Then she kisses my cheek and laughs.
Zay snickers again and starts teasing me, so I pretend to be grossed out and wipe my cheek off. But the truth is, I liked the way the kiss felt. Real. That kiss was real—
I jerk from the memory and sink to Raven’s bedroom floor, pulling at my hair and struggling to breathe.
“Jax, what the fuck?” Zay enters the room, taking in the scene and shaking his head. “What’re you doing?”
“I … She’s in the photo … and I don’t know what to do.” I rock back and forth.
“What photo?” Zay asks, approaching me like a skittish cat.
“The … one I found …” I look at the photo laying on the floor in front of me. Part of me wants to pick it up and examine it more, but the other part is scared of seeing it again, of remembering.
Zay walks over and picks it up. “What the hell …?” His gaze snaps to me. “Where did you find this?”
“In Raven’s stuff,” I whisper hoarsely.
He looks at the photo again and goes visibly pale. Seeing his reaction makes this real.
This is real.
Raven has a photo of Willow in her room. And she said that Willow was her. Well, not in those words, but still …
The Rules of Being Friends (A Pact Between the Forgotten Series Book 2) Page 10