Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3)

by Caroline Peckham

  My dad’s voice filled my head once again, “I didn’t want you, your mother didn’t want you. You’re a plague on this house, boy.”

  Shawn’s fists were cracking against my flesh again, but it was my father’s hands I felt. And I wished they’d just wrap around my throat and end it, place me into the dark where I could disappear forever. Being nothing would be far easier if I was dead.

  Eventually the beating stopped and my flesh hummed with what felt like a thousand fresh bruises. There was barely a place on my body that didn’t hurt, but the worst place of all right now was my mind. I was a child in a cold house, facing the wrath of a man who smelled like beer and smoke and seemed so large he consumed everything I could see. His yellow teeth were bared at me and his eyes were flared with malice, hate. I tried to remember what love felt like. Objectively, I knew it was my boys and Rogue on a sandy beach with a thousand careless dreams, but I was finding it harder to grasp them now. They’d forgotten me and I was losing my hold on me too.

  I am hated.

  I am nothing.

  I am no one.

  “Finish it,” I forced out in a challenge, my mind clearing just enough to hook on this one desperate desire. “I’ll never tell you anything, so just kill me already,” I ordered in a fierce tone that sounded nothing like that small boy. “Finish it!”

  His warm hand rested on my flesh, moving from one wound to another until it flattened over my furiously beating heart.

  “Oh no, pretty eyes,” he said in a low tone. “I won’t be doing that. Not yet. Do you know why?”

  I grunted and he took that as a cue to keep talking.

  “Because I may carve up your body on the outside, but in here is my goal.” He walked his fingers up my neck and to my temple. “And here. I’m gonna crawl into those cracks I see in you and you’ll never get me out. I know the taste of pain, Chase Cohen, and it ain’t the wounds on your flesh that cut the deepest. It’s the ones that creep between your veins and burrow into your skull to mark themselves there forever. I’m your infestation, the rats who’ve moved into the walls of your home, scratching and chewing and gnawing at the beams which hold your house up. And I’m here to stay.” His touch left me and I cracked open my good eye as he walked away, heading to the door and leaving me there on that hook as my shoulders ached and begged for relief.

  He kicked the door shut with a bang and headed out of the basement, his footfalls thumping back upstairs.

  I tried to get my foot on the chair just in front of me, my toes grazing it, but I couldn’t get purchase.

  “Come on, you piece of shit,” I hissed.

  I tried to swing myself toward it, but it hurt so fucking much that I had to stop and I hung my head, my hair falling into my eyes and my breaths coming unevenly.

  The door sounded and my head snapped up in confusion as it swung slowly open. Shawn always locked it when he left, but I guessed this time he figured I wasn’t going anywhere so he hadn’t thought to do it. But as a slim, shadowy figure slipped into the space, my heart juddered and I wondered if I’d lost my mind completely. It looked like there was a room adjoining this one through that door and I caught a glimpse of an old rocking chair and a bed beyond it. Was I not the only prisoner down here?

  She moved into the light of the single exposed bulb hanging from the ceiling and my brows pulled together at the wrinkled old woman standing there in a white blouse and navy skirt. Her hair was a shock of white and her skin was almost as pale, but I knew her. Her eyes were those of a long, lost friend, one I’d grieved, stood at the grave of.

  “Miss Mabel?” I croaked in shock, blinking my working eye as I tried to clear this vision. She’d lived in the Rosewood Manor a long time ago when I’d been a kid. Me and the others had done odd jobs for her on the estate while she turned a blind eye to us sneaking onto her property and using her summerhouse. She’d been the one to give us the keys to the Rosewood crypt. She’d been the only adult in our youth who’d shown us true kindness.

  “Chase Cohen,” she said in an ancient, croaky voice, her hands shaking as she moved closer and reached out to touch my arm.

  “I thought you were dead,” I rasped, wondering if my body had given up and I was in the middle of crossing over or some shit, because this was a serious headfuck.

  “My nephew has everyone fooled,” she said bitterly, then moved to the chair and dragged it closer so I could stand on it. As soon as I did, I lifted my hands off of the hook and sighed my relief as I lowered my arms, wincing as pain radiated through my entire torso.

  Mabel started tutting, looking me over with a frown as she untied my hands and I untethered my ankles. “That Shawn boy is an evil fellow.”

  I stepped down off of the chair and stared at this tiny woman who’d been so important to me once upon a time. “How are you here? And how old are you?” I asked in dismay.

  “I’m a hundred and six,” she announced. “Death is a good friend of mine, we made a deal me and him.” She winked, taking hold of my arm and gesturing for me to sit down. I kinda felt like I should be offering her a seat, but she seemed sturdy on her legs and standing was causing me all kinds of fucking agony since Shawn had burned the soles of my feet with a lighter the other day.

  “Can we get out?” I looked to the open door with an echo of hope in my chest, but she was already shaking her head.

  “The door at the top of the basement stairs is always locked with many bolts and keys,” she sighed and that little flame of hope in me snuffed out as fast as it had ignited.

  I lowered onto the chair, breathing through the pain as she moved closer to push my hair out of my face and examine my fucked up right eye.

  “Oh that little asshole,” she said in a warbling tone, shaking her fist. “I’d give him what for myself if I could.”

  “How fucked is it?” I asked, unsure if I wanted to know or if it even mattered.

  “It’s…exceptionally fucked, my dear,” she said and I released a breath of amusement at this frail old woman swearing like that.

  “How are you here Mabel? I don’t understand.”

  She took my hand, squeezing it tight and the comfort of that gesture was so strong that I clung onto her and didn’t want to let go. She was a good piece of my past, something tangible right here in front of me, and it helped to draw the darkness back in my mind and let some light in.

  “Kaiser faked my death so he could get his greedy hands on his inheritance. He paid off some dodgy official to forge a death certificate and bury an empty coffin,” she snipped. “That little shit locked me down here in the rooms adjoining this storage space.”

  “I’m in the Rosewood Manor?” I gasped, my head whirling with all that meant. Kaiser Rosewood and Shawn Mackenzie must have been allied.

  “But he couldn’t get it all, see?” she said with a wild glint in her eyes. “He can’t have my diamonds.”

  “Your…diamonds?” I asked, my head struggling to catch up with what was going. I was still half convinced I was delirious.

  “They’re hidden,” she said with a grin. “And I’ll never tell them where they are because that inheritance isn’t for him. In fact, none of it is.” She gave me a twisted kind of smile which reminded me of the feisty old woman I’d known all those years ago. Her smile fell away and she caressed the good side of my face with her withered hand, the feel of that kind touch meaning so much to me in that moment. “But he’s too much of a coward to kill me so I suppose one day I’ll die with the secret, because I’ll never give it up to the likes of him.”

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, sad that her fate had been so cruel in the end. Maybe Sunset Cove was cursed for people who wanted to live a better life. Maybe we’d all end up bleeding in the dark one day.

  “There’s no need for that,” she said firmly, her eyes watering as she stared at me. “Poor boy, there’s such pain in your soul and something tells me it’s not because of your wounds.”

  I thought of Rogue, my final moments with her and the words
that had spilled from her lips. “I’ve always fucking loved you and that’s the problem, isn’t it?”

  Those words often circled through my mind and taunted me. They were a riddle I couldn’t solve, because she couldn’t love me, that wasn’t possible, so why had she said it?

  “Do you still see those friends of yours?” she asked hopefully. “Fox, Johnny James, the sweet girl Rogue and Maverick?”

  “Yeah,” I said heavily. “Sort of.”

  She frowned. “What’s happened?”

  “So much, Miss Mabel,” I sighed. “They’re not my friends anymore.”

  Her thin white brows pulled together. “That can’t be true. You were all attached at the hip.”

  “I ruined it,” I muttered. “And this is the price of that.” I gestured to my wounds. “I deserve all of them.”

  “Goodness,” she cursed. “Don’t talk like that. No one deserves this.”

  “I do,” I said seriously, feeling those words right down to my core.

  “Well I may be old but I’ve still got good ears, and they’ve been missing the company of a good story for a long time. Will you tell me yours, Chase? Give an old lady something to think on down here in the gloom.”

  I slid off the chair with a groan, laying down on my side on the cool concrete and letting it soothe away some of the fire in my skin.

  “Only if you sit down,” I urged and she moved shakily onto the seat.

  “Such a good boy,” she said and emotion clawed at the inside of my chest.

  “I’m not a good boy,” I told her, preparing to tell her exactly why. All of it, from the moment Rogue was forced out of town to the second I pushed her into that safe and stole the most bittersweet kiss of my life. “I’m the Devil in this story. You won’t like me by the end of it.”

  I lay in my bed in my trailer with the window wide open, the sea breeze blowing in and making me feel at peace. Mutt was chomping on a Boneo thingy at the foot of the bed and I was trying not to drown in my grief.

  It hit me worst when I was alone like this - if having ten armed men hanging around outside could be counted as alone - but in the silence, my pain found me.

  It wasn't that I didn't feel it at all times. More that I'd made an art out of putting on a brave face over the last ten years, so I knew how to fake it until it almost felt real.

  But when I sat in the quiet like this, it cut me more deeply, carved into my heart even sharper and made me feel all the worst kinds of pain.

  "Run," Chase urged, grabbing my hand and damn near yanking me off my feet as we hurtled down the corridor away from our English teacher's classroom.

  I threw a glance back over my shoulder just as the fuse burned down to the end and the string of firecrackers started banging loudly as they exploded one after another, the sound seeming like gunshots in the empty hall.

  Chase yanked me around the corner just as Mr Parker screamed and a laugh tore from my lips.

  We kept running all the way through the school until we were racing across the asphalt out front and tearing down the street.

  I swung into an alley that ran down the back of a convenience store and tugged Chase after me so hard that he fell over his feet and crashed into me.

  I tumbled back against the huge dumpsters lined up there and he slammed into me, cursing and apologising as I was crushed beneath his bulk.

  "Sorry, little one," he half laughed as he tugged me upright again and suddenly we were standing too close to one another, my chest brushing his and my hair falling into my eyes as our laughter fell away.

  Chase reached out to push my hair aside and I stilled, blinking up at him as my gaze fell to his mouth for a moment and the insane desire to push up onto my tiptoes and close the distance between our lips consumed my thoughts.

  "Rogue," he murmured, his hand lingering on my cheek as whatever words he had for me caught in his throat.

  "Yeah, Ace?" I breathed, wanting to hear what he had to say to me so desperately for some reason. My heart was racing and my skin was tingling where he touched me but neither of us seemed to know where we were supposed to go from here.

  "I-"

  "There you assholes are," Fox called and Chase flinched away from me like he'd been burned. "We finished egging his car, did you guys pull off the firecrackers?"

  "Yeah, man," Chase agreed, stepping back and scrubbing a hand through his dark curls as he moved towards Fox and avoided my gaze. "You shoulda heard him scream."

  My mind kept running over that day, the answer to what I'd been wanting so clear to me now when it had seemed so unclear back then. I'd been a kid growing into a woman, falling in love with her best friends and unsure how to adjust to that shift in our dynamic. I'd been a mess of hormones and in denial because I hadn't wanted anything to change and yet now, I wished I'd just taken that fucking kiss. I wished I'd seen him smile more often. I wished I could have been the one to save him from the hell of his home life. I wished so many things that could never come to pass now…

  "Hummingbird?" Fox's voice made me flinch and I sat up sharply, ignoring the tears which coated my cheeks because it was already too late to hide them from him. And I didn't want to anyway. My grief was his grief even if he still felt conflicted over Chase's betrayal of me on that ferry. But I didn't. Because the more I thought about it, the more I understood. Chase had had so little good in his life. Fox and JJ had literally been the only constant thing he could claim for his own and he'd just been scared that I would ruin that. And he'd been scared far too often and for far too much of his life.

  "I miss him too,” Fox said softly, taking in the state I was in.

  I nodded, patting the bed beside me and shifting along to make room for him. The trailer door had been standing open for Mutt, so it was no surprise he'd just walked on in.

  "Did you need something, or..." my question trailed off as my thoughts spun around the boy we'd both lost again.

  "Yeah, actually. I'm sorry but the cartel have called a meeting and Luther is insisting you attend with me. Fuck knows why, but he was adamant so here I am."

  "Now?" I asked and he nodded.

  "Do you want me to tell him to get fucked or-"

  "No. It's fine. I don't hurt any less no matter what I'm doing, so I may as well be taking part in gang bullshit." I stood and headed to my closet, choosing to swap out the clothes I'd been wearing on the beach this morning for a fresh crop top and shorts combo, ducking into the shower to rinse off before changing into it.

  Fox was waiting for me when I emerged and I reached for his hand, my gut twisting guiltily as he looked down at our woven fingers in surprise.

  "You're still my boy, Fox," I told him. "Even if I'm not your girl."

  "You're a walking, talking mindfuck, you know that?" he teased.

  "You wouldn't want me any other way."

  We got into his truck which he'd once again forced down the small walkway which divided my trailer from those surrounding it and he drove us directly to The Oasis where the mysterious cartel contact would be coming for this meeting.

  Fuck knew why Luther wanted me here, but I'd shown up - granted I was probably underdressed, but he should have given me a dress code if he'd wanted me looking fancy and Fox didn't appear to be dressed any differently than usual in his board shorts and black tee.

  "Don't mouth off with these people," Fox said to me in a low, serious voice. "I'm not kidding here, Rogue. It's best you say as little as possible and believe me I'll be doing the same. We do a bit of business with them, give them an in to the country for their drugs and we keep them happy. We don't wanna get any deeper with them than that. And we definitely don't want to piss them off."

  "I'm not a fucking idiot, Fox," I replied as we started up the stairs which led into The Oasis Clubhouse. My gaze hooked on the newly repaired windows and the patch jobs that had been done over the various bullet holes in the wood. Once it got a fresh lick of paint that whole night would be as good as forgotten.

  "I know, baby, but I can't
help but worry. If I had a choice in it, I wouldn't want you anywhere near these people. And I'd rather not deal with them myself either. But the cartel wants in via our town and we aren't dumb enough to think we could stand against them in refusal even if we wanted to. And with the money they pay, Luther didn't want to."

  I nodded, my shoulder bumping against his bicep as we walked close to one another and my mind wandered back to that night years ago which had come so close to destroying us all.

  "Oh shit," Chase gasped and we all looked around from our laughter and celebrations at the serious tone to his voice. "I just figured out whose boat this is." His face was pale and his hand shook a little where he held the champagne bottle.

  "What is it, Ace?" I asked him, moving closer with a frown. We weren't afraid of anything or anyone, so I couldn't figure out why the identity of some rich assholes was making him look like that.

  Fox moved up behind me as we looked at what he'd found and a cold, sinking feeling filled my chest as fear crept through my veins like poison.

  "Put it back," I breathed, feeling death's fingers clawing their way closer to me with every passing second.

  "We're gonna die," JJ gasped as he saw it too and Chase quickly dropped it, but as I looked around at the fucking mess we'd made of this place, I knew that wasn't going to be good enough.

  "Holy fuck," Rick said, snatching my hand and dragging me backwards like he thought he could protect me from this when he knew as well as I did that that was our deaths right there. There was no fucking way we could run from them.

  "We'll just tell my dad we didn't know," Fox reasoned. "He'll be able to smooth it over. We didn't know. How could we have known?"

  I blinked away the memories, knowing that losing myself in them now would only be more likely to make me fuck up here. But I wasn't stupid. I knew how dangerous the cartel was and I had absolutely no desire to mix it up with them in any way, shape or form. In fact, I hoped they didn't even notice me here because I wanted to stay as far from their radar as possible.