“Amen,” I murmured.
Each of us shook hands across our wounds.
And when it was all done.
I turned to my cousin and fucking bowed.
Chapter Thirty
Junior
Nobody asked the older cousins anything when we all asked to crash at Nixon’s a second night in a row.
They didn’t know that we’d made a blood oath to let Ash lead us into the future, our future.
The bosses didn’t know that the very monsters they were trying to keep at bay—had just been set free by the tip of Ash’s knife, by the blood of Claire’s death.
We needed each other.
But we also needed a plan of action because as much as I knew Ash was losing his shit—he was right. We couldn’t go on carrying the sins of our fathers, and we couldn’t go on punishing innocent people out of fear.
We’d always been known as the Elect. Some said we were a secret society; others knew we were mafia.
Last night, we had become both.
An almost religious experience had happened between all of us as we’d realized that we couldn’t do this alone, and we couldn’t do this with the bosses constantly breathing down our backs.
We had to have our own rules. Our own terms.
Or we wouldn’t survive.
We would end up just like Claire.
That morning, the ride to school felt different.
For the first time since going to Eagle Elite, we rode in two SUVs.
For the first time since enrolling, we all packed, no matter what.
And for the first time since stepping foot on campus—I fucking held my girlfriend’s hand.
Because the blood bond between all of us trumped the one I’d given her own father.
I had my family.
I was looking at them.
I had my future.
I was holding her hand.
We made our own rules.
Because death made it so you didn’t give a fuck anymore.
For the first time since I could remember, I smiled as I walked to class with my princess by my side.
It was turning out to be the perfect day—until lunch happened, and Annie, as she always had with Claire, tried to come up to Ash and talk to him.
“Hey!” I pulled Ash away from her. “Cool off, man, give it some time.”
“It’s your fault!” Ash roared.
Annie flinched and then ducked behind Tank, who was trying to mediate the out-of-control situation while the rest of us waited for the inevitable, for Ash to snap and for Annie to cry or just run in the opposite direction.
Instead, she shocked the shit out of me, jerked away from Tank, marched right up to Ash, and slapped him across the face shouting. “You have no idea what you’re talking about! She was my friend! The only person who offered to help me.”
“Help?” Ash roared. “How the hell did she help you!?”
With tears streaming down her face, Annie pulled off her cardigan and tossed it to the ground, stomping all over it like it pissed her off.
I wanted to make a joke about how relieved Ash should be, and then I froze when I saw the bruises on her arms, bruises that were covered by the sleeves of her cardigan in the hospital.
Ash completely paled. “Annie, what the hell?”
“No.” Her lower lip trembled. “You don’t get to give me that look. She was helping me. Trying to get me s-safe from them! And now…” She sniffed. “Now—”
Ash just stood there while Tank pulled Annie into his arms and hugged her. I couldn’t fathom what had given her that many bruises, but I was ready to kill someone.
And by the looks of Ash and the rest of the guys… they were in.
Some of the De Lange kids witnessed the exchange with fear in their eyes, and then I just wondered what the hell we were doing with our lives if we weren’t protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.
I slammed my hand down on the park bench before I could stop myself and screamed. “WHO!”
Annie jumped a foot. “Wh-what?”
“Who did this?”
She gulped, her face white. “Leave it alone.”
“No.” Ash took a tentative step toward her and then, in an eerily possessive voice, whispered, “Tell me who touched you so I can break their hands off. Tell me who marred your skin so I can mar their faces. Tell us so we can fix this; otherwise, I’m going to start randomly beating up people who look like pieces of shit who feed off of innocent women.”
She gulped and seemed to pull into herself as she whispered. “My adoptive dad was always nice to my adoptive mom, really nice and then…”
Ash shook his head, grabbed his gun, handed it to a confused Annie, and said, “You get the right to kill him. We’ll cover it up.”
“What? NO. I could never!” Annie tried to hand the gun back. But Ash wouldn’t have it; instead, he pulled her into his arms and whispered something I will never forget.
“To be who you’re meant to be—you must. When power’s taken—it must be stolen back.”