"What do you think I'm going to do with you in the bed right next to us?"
His head snaps up. "You better not do anything whether I'm here or not. We didn't risk everything to get her away from Damien to give her to you."
"No one is giving me to anyone," she says, sneaking up behind me.
"That isn't what I–" Lucien starts to explain.
She holds her hand up. "I don't give a shit what you meant. You need to hear me right now. I will live my life the way I want to live it. No man is ever going to tell me what to do again. If they try I'll cut off his balls and shove them down his throat. Feel me?"
He glares at me. "She's starting to sound like you."
I smile, and laugh to myself. "I think you'll learn to survive, princess."
One of the Boys
Raven
Moments after I lay down, the exhaustion overcomes me. Despite the awkwardness of sharing a bed with Sin, I'm able to fall almost instantly asleep. It doesn't last long, however, as his tossing and turning wakes me up after only a couple of hours of sleep.
He whimpers in his sleep, and instinctually, I roll over toward him. A lock of his longish hair falls into his face as he starts to thrash around. Without thinking, I brush the hair from his face.
I've barely touched him and he locks his hand around my wrist and rolls me over to my back. While he hovers over me, I stare into his wild sightless eyes. He's not fully awake yet, but primed to protect himself.
"Shh," I croon. "It's me, Raven. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
He blinks, and his pupils slowly focus. He releases my wrist, but otherwise doesn't move. For a long moment we both hold still. There's a yearning passing between us. Sin's eyes show me how badly he wants to accept the comfort I'm offering him, but it only lasts a second. We both know he won't give into it.
"Don't ever sneak up on me, or startle me awake," he warns. "I–" he inhales, "I have nightmares."
I nod. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make it worse."
Sin moves off of me, but this time he doesn't try and inhabit the far side of the bed. Holding still, I feel him inch even closer to me. The warmth of his breath tickles the back of my neck.
"I can't trust you won't creep up on me when I'm sleeping, but if I hold you still, you won't startle me, and I won't end up hurting you," he whispers into my ear.
"If it will help you sleep," I murmur, and try not to let him hear how excited I am having him so close.
His arm drops around my stomach, and he pulls me close to his chest. We fit together perfectly, my head under his chin and resting on the pillow he managed to pull along with me.
I lay still and listen as his breathing slows down. The panicked rhythm of his heart slows as well, and I feel the moment he drifts off to sleep. The even cadence of the rise and fall of his chest lulls me into a deep sleep.
"What the fuck!" Lucien shouts, startling me awake. Sin stirs, but settles back to sleep.
"Stop yelling," I whisper.
"He said he'd behave himself," Lucien growls.
"Fuck off," Sin mutters, waking up.
"Why do you have your arm around my sister?"
"To keep her from trying to wake me up from a nightmare again."
Lucien stops pacing and drops down to sit in the one chair in the room. "Shit. I didn't think about that. Maybe I can share the bed with her tonight."
"The two of you could share a bed. I mean you both know each other much better than either of you know me."
"No," they both say at the same time.
Sin finally moves his arm, sits up, and rubs his eyes. "She stays with me."
"Let's just find somewhere else to stay. We can't live in motels," Lucien points out.
Sin grabs his phone from the nightstand and enters a code to unlock it. "Do you remember that program you developed several months ago to spy on some of the targets we were sent after?"
Lucien nods.
"Did you ever tell anyone about it?"
"No, you know I hate those guys."
"Good, because we're probably going to have to kill them if we hope to survive."
"What does the program have to do with them?" Lucien asks.
I sit in stunned silence listening to them discuss killing people they've known for years as if it is nothing more than taking out the garbage.
Lucien will survive. Sin told me this last night, but I had no idea when he spoke of survival it meant someone else would not. I'm finding myself at a serious disadvantage trying to venture through a world I don't understand the rules of.
The sound of Sin's voice pulls me out of my internal freak out. "I altered the virus software Damien uses so it wouldn't detect it, then embedded it into texts and emails in pieces so they never noticed the download or the slower speed all at once. We should be able to monitor anything that uses the private server in the basement."
"That'll come in handy. Where are those dumb fucks at now?" He pauses, and looks at me before he speaks again. "Not that it matters. They have never been able to outmaneuver us," Lucien says.
Despite his words, I'm starting to recognize the false bravado he puts on for my benefit. He doesn't want me to think there's anything to fear.
Sin crosses the room and digs out a small laptop. Using his phone as a hotspot he logs on the computer and then switches over to a secure browser I'd never seen the likes of before. It looks like random strings of letters and symbols to me, but he seems to understand each string of text as if it were a line in a book.
After another few minutes he looks away from the screen. "They are fanned out around Devil's Crossing. There are two teams in this general direction, but they are a couple of hours from here. No one seems to have any idea where we are or what direction we travelled."
"Still too close," Lucien comments. Sin nods, and without another word the two of them start sweeping through the room and eliminating any trace we were ever there. I had been thinking of them as friends, but they really were a team.
"What are you doing?" I ask when they start wiping down the surfaces of the room.
Lucien stops cleaning, and kneels in front of me like he's speaking to a child. "We need to disappear. When they don't find us, they will start sweeping the most likely places we would have gone. As far out of the way we are, they will eventually find this place, and if they get a hold of the room, they'll have a better idea of the direction we are traveling. From this moment forward, you can't contact anyone. No friends. Nothing. Everything from your life before is over."
I nod. "You don't have to worry. There's nothing to go back to, there never was."
Rather than dwell on the total absence of a life I've had to this point, I start pulling all the linens off the beds. Once I get them off I head for the door. Sin runs across me and blocks the door. "Where in the hell do you think you're going?"
"You guys are wiping down everything we've touched. There's skin and hair on these blankets."
"What are you going to do with them?"
I tip my head toward the door. "Come with me."
Sin steps aside and throws open the door. "After you, princess."
There's a maid's cart a few doors down, but I walk past that one for one that is around the corner. The vacuum is whirring in one of the rooms with the door propped open, leaving the cart unattended. There's a load of blankets already inside. I drop the blankets from our room and swap them with the ones from the cart. Then I take the others with me, trying not to think about what nastiness might be teeming all over them.
"What are you going to do with those?" he asks.
"The maid might get suspicious if there aren't any blankets in our room. If these guys you were talking about show up, they are going to try and direct their search to rooms where people matching our description checked in, correct?"
He nods.
"Okay, well there won't be a single finger print or hair to link us to this room."
He fights a smile. I've managed to impress him. The idea ma
kes me feel ridiculously proud of myself considering he generally fills me with either lust or fury depending on what comes out of his mouth.
"I'm impressed. Not how I expected the princess of Blackthorne to react."
I roll my eyes. "I'm not a princess. I'm merchandise. Easily stored away and exchanged for something of more value to father dearest."
"He's good at seeing people as things to be traded."
I don't ask, because I know he won't answer, but I don't sense Sin has had any power over his life. It's a feeling I'm all too familiar with.
Sensing he's about to shut down on me, I change the subject back to why I thought to replace the blankets. "I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't have a life. When all of my classmates were going to dances and things I never had permission to go. I didn't have any friends, so I became the weird loner girl who spent Friday nights watching true crime shows."
"I think we might teach you to be one of the boys just yet," he mumbles.
"Just what every girl wants to hear."
In an instant he spins me around and has my back pressed up against the rough wall of the hotel. The blankets drop to the ground, tangling around my feet. I'm trapped, but I wouldn't move even if I could. Not while I can feel the heat of his body seep into mine.
"You can't be a girl to me. You really need to get that through that stubborn head of yours."
"You say that, but I keep finding myself plastered against you," I say and tip my chin up in defiance.
"I'm working on it," he grumbles and pushes away from me.
The moment passes, and we hurry back to the room. I drop the new blankets in a pile at the foot of the beds. Lucien gives me a puzzled look, but otherwise says nothing. He silently hands Sin one of the bags and takes the other two himself.
I move to the bathroom, but Sin grabs my elbow. "I already grabbed the towels. We'll drop them in one of the carts on the way to the truck. I don't think they'll think about how many there were to begin with."
Lucien grabs the keys off the table, and we file out of the room. "We need to find somewhere to bunker down for a while. What are the odds either of us know of somewhere like that the rest of the guys don't know about too?" he asks Sin.
"Slim, I'd say."
Lucien tosses Sin the keys to the truck. "I drove the last leg, it's your turn."
"I do know how to drive," I protest.
Both of them ignore me, and Sin continues around to the driver's side. Lucien is already near the passenger door, and gets in immediately, clearly forgetting I need to sit in the middle of the bench seat.
Sin holds the driver's side door open, and wordlessly waits for me to go around the front of the truck and jump in on his side. I reach for the handle on the door frame, but it's missing. Next, I try to pull myself up by the seat, but that doesn't work either. The truck is slightly lifted just enough that my five-foot-four self struggles to get in.
He gives up watching me struggle to get in the cab, grabs me around the waist and practically throws me inside. I scoot across the seat and secure the lap belt. Lucien winces when he realizes why I'm getting in on the driver's side.
"Sorry, I'm not used to there being anyone with us."
"Where to then?" Sin asks as he slides behind the wheel.
"Probably someplace remote. What about northern Idaho? Lots of trees, we can probably find an abandoned cabin to squat in for a bit," Lucien suggests.
A small noise escapes me, and Sin looks at me from the corner of his eye. "You don't approve?"
Chewing on the corner of my lip I consider whether or not I should speak up. They both have much different experiences than I've had. To be honest, I have virtually no experiences.
Ultimately, I decide to speak. I'm tired of being the patient and obedient Raven Blackthorne. "No, I don't agree. If we go stay outside of some small town, even if we only go into town a few times for necessities, people are going to be curious about us. We will stand out. We need to go somewhere with a lot of people and blend in. The more people around you, the less people actually look at each other."
Sin nods. "She's got a point. We can hunt, but there's no way we can get everything we need from the land, at least not initially. It might be better to disappear into a crowd."
My brother is quiet for a few long seconds, then he also nods. "Take the interstate west towards Playa Pacifica."
Death as a Babysitter
Sin
We don't stop for longer than to grab gas and food on the way to the coast. Raven was right, people in the small towns along the route do remember anyone that lingers longer than a pit stop. They aren't your typical tourist stops, and anyone that stays over is noted, especially if you are traveling with a woman who looks like Raven.
I huff out a breath and try to banish all thoughts of her out of my head. Easier said than done with her pressed to my side in sleep. Every breath she takes brushes her breast across my arm. Ignoring her is much harder, with the constant reminder of how perfectly her body molded to mine the night at the motel. Shifting her off proves impossible, and her hand that was trapped between us lands in my lap.
The sudden movement startles me, and I swerve the truck. Lucien's head slips and hits against the passenger window. Once he's fully awake he notices how his sister fell asleep.
"What the fuck!"
"She fell asleep. Move her," I say, my teeth clenched together.
He slides her over, which ends up waking her up. She stretches, straining her thin t-shirt across her chest, and I squeeze the steering wheel.
"Are we there?" she asks groggily.
"Almost," I reply. We need to decide where we are going to stop.
Lucien gives me a suspicious look, but chooses not to say anything further. Instead, he pulls out his new phone. "About that. I think I've got a solution, but it depends on how well your fake ID's are going to hold up."
I glare at him, and he holds his hands up. "Yeah, okay. Stupid comment. I know they're going to hold up."
"Well, out with it then," I snap. "If you've got a solution, let's hear it."
"I found a bar that needs a bouncer and an apartment nearby. The apartment is low rent, and less likely to demand references. I've set up an untraceable email account and reached out to both."
"We can't both be away from Raven at the same time. I'll look for a job in the daytime," I tell him.
"I'm sitting right here," she grumbles.
"And?" My tone is annoyed. I need to go out alone and blow off some steam. Finding a woman so I can release some of the tension created by being around Raven nonstop is essential before Lucien loses his shit with me.
"I don't need a babysitter. Neither of you appear to have noticed, but I'm not a child," she says to both of us.
Oh, I've noticed. That's a large part of my problem. I can't notice her. There were very few lines I haven't crossed in my life. Going after my best friend's sister is one of them, and I wouldn't lose my only friend to satiate hunger any woman could fill.
"We know you aren't a child, but you don't know father the way I do," Lucien speaks to her as if he does think of her as a child. "He won't give up. If he thinks using you will get him ahead, he will keep looking for you."
Lucien looks at me, and I can tell he's conflicted. "If I'm working at night, I'm not going to be any use as a body guard during the day. We're going to need money, so I'll work. Can I trust you to take care of my sister?"
"Still. Right. Here," Raven asserts.
Again, Lucien gentles his expression and tone. "You said yourself you don't have any experience. You don't need to learn about life at the hands of a killer."
That settles it. I'm definitely heading out alone after we settle in someplace. Luce and I have fought before. We grew up together, and the training we were given was intense and encouraged our more violent tendencies. Even then he never treated me like I didn't belong. I didn't though.
He was lord of the manor, prince in waiting for the empire his father created. I was a chil
d without parents. I had a name, but barely. It was given to me by whoever sold me to Damien Blackthorne.
Sold.
Blackthorne built his empire on the backs of the most vulnerable. He bought and sold children. Some were lucky enough to go to parents who couldn't have children and found the adoption process difficult. I was not one of the lucky ones.
He filled my life with violence and blood. One day I'd return the favor. Until then, I'd bide my time and try and protect what innocence was left in this world.
Lucien wanted to know how he could trust me with his sister? Her remaining innocence wouldn't be taken by me. As we become adults, we are all forced to shed the lingering notions of goodness that makes children different, but I wouldn't be the one to teach her the ways of the world.
Raven, watches me with those observant blue eyes. Her fingers twitch, likely wanting to offer me comfort. I won't let her. I'm beyond helping, and she should learn that right away. He was right; he took her away from one killer and put her in the hands of another one. He shouldn't leave me alone with his sister.
Taking lives isn't something I ever had a choice in. My life has been kill or be killed. I excel at the tasks I was given, which likely doesn't say anything good about what kind of person I am. There's a power in holding someone's life in your hand, and while I perform the act, someone else pulls my strings.
Leaving wasn't just to save Raven. This is my first shot at freedom in all of my twenty-one years of life. He doesn't need to worry about Raven, because I understand how important this chance is.
The landscape changes from the flat plains of the Midwest to the rolling hills and steep mountain peaks as we move further west. After I drive for twelve hours, we pull off in the national forest, far from the designated camping grounds.
This isn't the first time Luce and I have camped off the grid, and we immediately get out and search for tire tracks and other signs of the forest service routinely patrolling the area. When not so much as a twig indicates anyone has been through this area recently, we pull off into a copse of trees to hide the truck.
Pretty Monsters Page 5