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February 20 - February 20, 2023
The last words I ever should have heard as he squeezed and squeezed until my ears were ringing and darkness closed over my vision and I fell into the deepest depths of oblivion. I’d thought I was dead. Hell, maybe I was.
I wasn’t dead. But I was buried.
The Harlequin boys had broken my heart once and I had no intention of ever giving it out to anyone again.
But all that came back to me was that one, all important thing. I was a dead girl walking. And Shawn could never find out about that unless I wanted to live to see that fate brought to reality. Of course, if I managed to get to him before he got to me…
When they’d cut my heart out and left me bleeding and alone, I’d done what any self-respecting runaway brat did best and ran the fuck away. But maybe it was time I stopped running. Ten years was a long time to bear a grudge and I still held the key to their dark, dirty little secrets. Perhaps it was time I claimed what we’d locked away…
From the painted skulls dressed in flowers to the stingrays circling my bicep, the pair of angel wings on my back and the other creatures and images which marked my flesh, each of them meant something to me far beyond the obvious.
Big girls don't cry and all that jazz. Or maybe broken girls didn't feel. And dead girls didn't hurt.
I hadn’t always felt dead inside about killing. The first time hadn’t been like this. The first time had changed me. It had been the catalyst to my heart turning black.
“Penguin’s don’t fly,” he muttered and I snorted. “They do if you throw ‘em hard enough.”
So I'd found myself a nice red Jeep which was older than I was and had plastic windows which I could open with no effort at all. Of course the thing wasn't at all comfortable and the non-windows had let the cold ocean breeze in all night long. It was also seriously low on gas and had made a weird grinding noise when I changed gears, but beggars can't be choosers and all that.
When I squinted, I could just make out my name carved into the wood surrounding one of the thick beams which held it up, just beneath the edge of the pier itself. JJ had done that way back when life was peaches and cream and the worst thing I had going on was a neighbour whose eyes followed me a little too often and whose touches lingered a little too long.
JJ's name was up there too of course, right beside Fox, Chase and Maverick as always. I wondered if they ever came down here now?
I wandered closer to the GT, admiring the interior and smiling as I spotted a pair of designer sunglasses with black frames and pink lenses just sitting there begging for a new home.
"Who...is that my shirt?" he asked with a frown as his gaze trailed down me before snapping back up to my face. "And my sunglasses?"
I had to focus on where I was going as the mutt raced along beside me and by the time I could look back, JJ was nowhere to be seen.
"Let's go and see the boys," he called cheerily from somewhere beyond my sweltering prison. "JJ Brooks, let me out of here right now!" I screamed as I kicked and thrashed.
I wasn’t covered in them like some of the Harlequins were, I’d chosen each one because it represented an important moment in my life. The good, the bad, the good that had turned bad, the bad that had gotten badder. It was all there. A story only I knew how to read, though JJ and Chase would have had the best chance at translating my flesh. But not all of it. Some of my marks were secrets. And there was only one girl in the world who knew their meaning. Even though she’d never be around again to see them.
The ink on his back was a treasure map, covering almost every inch of his flesh, and it was a place I knew well. Sunset Cove. Our home. Twisted into art was an X that marked the spot located right here. At Harlequin House. The beach kissed the back door and a security perimeter ringed this whole property. It was like a private resort, but the people living on the inside weren’t vacationers looking for their next cocktail, they were three dark princes who ruled this land with an iron fist. I took in a few more of my favourite places on earth as Chase continued his set, from Sinners’ Playground
...more
She was the girl who’d gotten away. The girl who I’d had to accept would never, ever walk back into my life. Until she had. Right this fucking second.
My eyes kept roaming her features and the shock of finding her before me gave way to horror at the bruises shadowing her face, her neck. Someone had hurt her. Someone had laid their filthy fucking hands on her and marked her. Rage and vengeance collided inside me, twisting into a cold and hungry creature which longed for the death of the person responsible for this. It didn’t matter if a whole lifetime stood between the last moment I’d seen her and this moment of her return. Nothing changed my desire to protect her. From everything and everyone who sought to hurt her. I will make them pay.
“You’re not going anywhere, hummingbird,” I growled, using the nickname I’d once given her, the same reason I had a hummingbird with gold tipped wings tattooed on the inside of my left forearm. It
“I used to spend a lot of time thinking about what I’d do if you ever came back, Rogue. And the long and short of it is, baby, that I’m never letting you get away again.”
“Missed you?” I spat, stalking toward her, gripping her shirt in my fist and yanking her closer so the little dog was pressed between us where it started growling. “Those words are a fucking mockery of what I went through when we lost you. What we all went through.”
At least that was one good thing to focus on. Rogue Easton was under my roof, locked up tight in the place I'd dreamed of bringing her to a million times. She'd been in my dreams since I was eight years old. And she'd laid claim to my soul long before then. Now she was back, I was finally going to do what that little boy had never been able to. I was going to make her mine. And I was never going to let her go.
"Because I haven't had a home for ten years. But you guys know all about that, don't you?" I said icily.
"You had a home," Chase replied without so much as a flicker of remorse in his gaze. "It's not like you were cast out onto the streets."
"It's not like that," he protested. "We couldn't find you Rogue. You were meant to stay in Fairfax and you ran."
"Just tell me, Rogue," JJ insisted. "Tell me what he did to you and if you want, I'll keep my fucking mouth shut and you can just go right on back to bed. Tomorrow we can act like you never said a word and if you really don't wanna tell me who he is then I'll accept that. For now. But I need to know what happened to you, sweetheart."
"He squeezed so hard I couldn't breathe and then squeezed even harder while I fought back with everything I had and found it wasn't even close to enough to stop him. Then he told me he was sorry and that he was really gonna miss my ass and I blacked out somewhere around the moment he delivered those parting words. When I came to, I was in a shallow grave not too far from here and I just walked my ass back to the one place in the world I never wanted to see again and the people I hate most in this world."
We’d all loved that girl once, and the mark she’d left on us was everlasting. It was just a fact of life now. Even if she hated us and would gladly watch us burn for her, we’d drag her enemies into the flames as we went.
"Fuck me, rainbow child, I really hope you didn't expect this look to turn Fox off of you because I can assure you, you’ve failed spectacularly. You make me wanna find out what the rainbow tastes like,"
"No need to go overboard on the thanks, sweetheart. I got you everything you might need though - panties, bras, bikinis, shirts, shorts, dresses, shoes, a vibrator, socks, a couple of hats, a-" "Back the fuck up there, did you just say you got me a vibrator?"
"Why angel wings?" he asked in a low voice, his lips almost brushing my ear with the closeness of him. "I liked the idea of someone having my back, even when I knew I was all alone,"
"Leave me alone, J!" I shouted. "I just need it in my mouth. Let me put the foot long in my mouth. Stop trying to sandwich block me!"
JJ grabbed hold of my hips as he tried to drag me back and he half climbed on top of me so that he could attempt to steal my sandwich. But no man came between me and a foot long. Ever.
But then I remembered standing there in the rain as he took the only things I'd ever cared about from me. Took the only thing I'd ever been from me. And left me all alone with nothing and no one for ten fucking years.
"Dead girls don't belong to anyone, Fox," I hissed, my heart pounding and thrashing with too fucking much of everything which I refused to try and process. "Dead girls don't even have a heart to offer out."
Damn beautiful ghost tits. She is not getting in my head. "You should really try chilling out sometime, Nathan."
We'd abandoned her as deeply as she'd abandoned us. I knew I wasn't innocent in any of this. But I'd also watched my friends shatter over her for years. Fox had never let go, always searching for her, always sure the next lead would take us to her. But all the trails inevitably ran cold.
"He went down for six years – eighteen months in juvie and the rest served as an adult - and when he got out, he could never forgive us for abandoning him. Then some bad shit happened and...well he's gone now. He lives on Dead Man’s Isle, runs his own gang. The Damned Men. We're at war with them every fucking day. We don't go beyond The Divide and neither do they."
"I knew you couldn't forget my name, little one. It's carved on the inside of your skull just like yours is carved on the inside of mine. The five of us did a real number on each other, huh? But it all ended in tears. Did you cry for me, or did you only shed tears for the one of us you always planned on choosing?"
"You were the one who kept running," I snapped, my voice echoing off of the walls and she just glared at me with venom in her eyes. "You're the worst thing that ever happened to us, ghost," I said through my teeth. "And mark my fucking words, I'm not going to let you happen to us again."
Harlequin Crew's symbol of a snarling skull wearing a harlequin’s hat painted onto the wall behind a large mahogany desk.
"You and me have been written in the stars for a long fucking time, Rogue. I know you used to feel it too. We're inevitable. Always have been, always will be."
"Whoever came up with the concept of never leaving a bitch behind clearly never had to put up with this shit," Di muttered but she dutifully helped us to drag Bella's ass into the trailer park all the same. Ride or die clearly meant something to these girls and I was here for that.
I stalked into the house, a possessiveness filling me that wouldn’t quit. Losing her wasn’t optional. I wouldn’t sleep until I found her. She’d walked back into my life and hell if I was going to let her run from me again. She might have hated me, but I didn’t give a fuck. I’d figure that out just as soon as I got her back. I couldn’t think beyond that. I just needed Rogue Easton in my home, in my life. She had to stay here or I’d fucking break. And I will not break for her again.
She was smiling so brightly that I swear it made my heart skip a beat and I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been able to get out on the water much wherever she’d been for the last ten years. We’d all used to joke that she should have been born a mermaid because she was so obsessed with the sea, and I really hoped she’d at least had this wherever she’d been.
"You think you really hate me that much?" he taunted, finding my hand and pushing the knife he held into my grip. I watched him in fear as he turned the blade in our combined grip and pressed it against his throat before removing his hand and just staring down at me. "So do it, then. Take your vengeance and rid the world of a monster while you're at it. My heart only beats for you anyway so if you want to carve it from my chest then you can. It's yours whatever way you want it."
"We're like the tide and the shore, hummingbird," Fox said in a low voice, leaning down to brush the words against my lips. "No matter how far the tide retreats, it can never stop itself from coming back for more."
"I want you to know you can trust me, Rogue. You've always been able to trust me, even when you thought I betrayed you...but sometimes trust means doing what's right instead of just blindly keeping secrets. And what's right is wiping the piece of shit who laid his hands on you off of the map. If betraying my word to you is what it takes to do that, then I will."
