Chapter One
Harley
If there’s one place I don’t want to be on the night before school starts, it’s the docks of Mounts Bay.
We’re headed to the southern end of them where not a whole lot of actual boating happens, but there’s plenty of dilapidated warehouses in that area that are now a staple in the party scene of the Bay. I’ve been to enough of these things to know exactly how fucking bad it is that my dickhead, psycho cousin has run off here for a hit.
Obviously his dealer wouldn’t deliver to the hotel.
The longer we drive, the more uncomfortable I become in my own skin. It’s like they can all see exactly how fucking shitty my entire existence is once we’re looking at the streets I grew up in, and it makes me a fucking dick to be around.
I snap at Avery, “What the fuck is he doing down here? Floss, this is the fucking slums and if he’s down here then we’ll be scraping him off the fucking sidewalk because there’s no way he hasn’t run his mouth and been stabbed for it.”
“There’s nothing I can do about Joey being down here. What do you want me to do, try and reason with the sociopathic asshole? We’re lucky Lips found him for us,” Avery snaps back from the front seat, and it’s like a slap to the face.
My attention is firmly on her because Joey can fucking die for all I care, but what the fuck is the Mounty doing down here?
She never goes to parties at Hannaford or shows any interest in drinking, so why the fuck is she at one of the most dangerous fucking places for a girl to be in the entire country?
I’m pissed.
Ash side-eyes me so hard it’s like a physical thing, a fist to the side of the head. I ignore it because he’s been pissy since I got home from my grandfather’s place, ready to argue about any fucking thing, but from the moment we realized Joey was gone he’s been savage.
Fuck knows why.
“I’m not leaving my car down here to go get Joey… it’ll be gone by the time we get him back,” Blaise drawls, still half asleep and driving like a reckless fucking dick.
Avery shrugs as she taps away on her phone. “Lips says she’ll meet us out the front with him so no one has to leave the car.”
“And how the fuck do you think she’s getting him out of the party, Floss? How can you not see it?” Ash sneers, and I struggle not to roll my eyes at him.
It’s obvious to everyone except Ash why exactly he’s so fucking focused on her being a danger, but I don’t want to think about just how far she’s managed to dig herself under the skin of each and every one of us.
Even Morrison is fucking doe-eyed over her.
“Pull up at the gate; he’ll let us through,” Avery says, pointing exactly where she needs Blaise to drive like he’s completely fucking blind.
He doesn’t comment, too fucking tired to bother with the inevitable fight, but when he stops in front of the gate and rolls down the window, it’s fucking clear that we’re not getting in.
“Too late to get in, the party hour is over.”
Fuck.
The ‘party hour’ means it’s a very specific type of Bay party, one that the members of the Twelve have put together for a very specific reason, and it makes the entire situation a hundred times worse.
I share a look with Ash but he’s just looking fucking livid. Fuck.
How the hell do I fix this?
Avery leans over Blaise to speak to the guy, her voice that icy tone that strikes fear into anyone with half a brain. “We’re here to pick someone up. As if we’d want to attend a party in the slums and catch some Mounty disease.”
Fuck me.
The guy’s lip curls, but Avery already has her phone to her ear. “We’re here but the guy at the gate won’t let us through.”
She pauses for a second and then hands the phone over to the guy. He snarls, “Listen here, kid, we don’t let extra in after the open hour. Now you need to tell these little rich fucks to get on out of here—”
His spine snaps straight so fast I think he might’ve fucking shit himself.
What the fuck?
He fumbles over his words like they’re burning him on the way out. “Sorry. I didn’t know they were with you. If they had’ve just said I would’ve—“
He stops talking abruptly and hands the phone back to Aves, mumbling an apology under his breath and stalking around the car to open the gate. It’s fucking weird, his movements are all jerky like he’s barely holding his shit together.
“What the fuck is going on?” Ash murmurs to me, as if I’d have a fucking clue, but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess.
Blaise drives down to the warehouse and we find dozens of gangsters hanging around, all of them staring at the Maserati like they’re trying to calculate just how much damage they could do to it.
Thank fuck we didn’t come in one of Ash’s cars.
Then my eyes land on the Mounty and I might just lose my fucking mind.
She’s naked… or she may as fucking well be with how little she’s wearing. She’s standing there in underwear, shimmering as she moves with glitter everywhere and her hair pulled up in a way that makes her look both younger and older at the same time. She’s too fucking skinny, the weeks of being back in the Bay have melted away the tiny bit of weight she’d put on by the end of freshman year, and that hits me full force in the gut. Avery has taken care of every last one of my needs from the moment she bailed me outta juvie. I haven’t had to worry about where my next meal was coming from or outgrowing my clothes.
Lips has been alone, starving and hanging out at the slums of the Bay.
The guy standing next to her would have to be in his mid twenties and is grinning at her like he’s in love with her, and there isn’t a fucking chance I’m leaving her here.
Nope.
Fuck that.
I barely register that Joey is passed out and slumped over some guy’s shoulder as he walks him over to Ash, my focus entirely on getting the Mounty in the car and the fuck away from here but as I help shove Joey into the car she bounces over to Avery’s window with a smirk, murmuring with her like they’re besties.
Fuck, I guess they are now.
She finally takes stock of each of us; Blaise watching the gangsters we’re surrounded by and Ash struggling to get Joey strapped in the car. When she finally looks up at me, I’m pretty sure she can see just how fucking pissed I am.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
I’m not sure what I’m expecting from her but it’s definitely not what comes out of her mouth. “Watch your fucking tone, we are not at school.”
It’s like a slap to the face and my head snaps back. A quick look over my shoulder and sure enough, every last fucking eye is on me. Who the fuck is she hanging around with down here that I need to be sweating over talking to her?
Could tonight get any fucking worse?
I roll my shoulders back and shut the car door, stalking over to where she’s still standing there with Avery. I can feel the eyes all following me and my jaw just about snaps, I’m clenching down so hard.
She watches my every move, her body tense, and Avery curses under her breath at me but I ignore her. I’ve been on her shit list for months over the Mounty, what’s another night of pissing her off if I can find out what the fuck is going on.