Crooked Crows by Elena Lawson

“You think Bri will be there?”I asked Becca as we got in her Audi, the all-black interior swallowing us up before she started the ignition and the dash came to life, painting her in shades of blue.

Becca pulled out of the school lot, giving me a curious look. “Why? You miss her?”

Turned out she went on a shopping trip to LA. Or at least, that’s what Becca thought. Bri went every year around this time for some big annual sale a designer put on in the fall. It would be just my luck if she got back in time for the party.

“So much it hurts,” I replied, my voice dripping sarcasm.

It was a relief not having to deal with Bri the last few days, but I’d still had to weather the Crows this morning. I’d have been lying if I said I wasn’t just a little bit on edge walking into homeroom, not knowing whether or not Grey would hold to his word to keep last night’s unfortunate rendezvous between us.

It seemed he had, though. Corvus was his usual quiet, menacing self. Rook looked almost...serene. And Grey? Grey just kept on fucking staring at me. Not even bothering to try to hide it, either. Earned himself a solid jab to the ribs by Corvus at one point, too. Though I didn’t know why.

Best not to question it.

Not to even think about it at all.

Banishing all thoughts of the Crows from my mind, I sank back in the seat, letting the supple leather conform to my curves. “Hey, nice car by the way.”

“Thanks.”

I took note of how the passenger side seat was slid all the way back and lowered, as though someone tall frequently sat in it. I wanted to ask, but it wasn’t any of my business. I wondered if he was handsome. Older, I was betting. Maybe a teacher?

Becca had the air of someone much older than she was. I could totally see her banging a teacher. I just hoped it wasn’t that Harry Potter wannabe from homeroom. Ugh. Or Mr. Williams from AP math. That guy gave me the creeps.

“What?” Becca asked after a few minutes of quiet driving. “Do I have something on my face?”

I laughed. “No. You’re good.”

“You clean up pretty nice, yourself,” she said, giving me a smirk as she jabbed some buttons on the center console, connecting it to her phone, and Halsey came on. I should have known we’d have similar music tastes.

“It’s amazing what a bit of mascara and a new dress can do, am I right?” she asked.

Well, she wasn’t wrong. Even though I was loath to admit it.

The dress fit unlike any second hand one ever could. Hugging my body like it was made for me. The deep ‘v’ showed off just enough tit to be sexy, but not enough to be straight up slutty. The length was perfect, too, not so short that I would have to keep tugging it down, but not too long that it bordered on prudish.

The short heels Becca lent me to go with it, and the small miracle she worked on my unruly hair, really brought the whole thing together. I looked fucking amazing and I knew it. All thanks to Becca.

“So, anything I should know before we get there? It’s at the docks, you said?”

Becca turned the music down a click as we veered off a main road and onto a side one without any streetlights. Though it was harder to see in the dark, she didn’t slow. She clearly knew the road well, even though it wound and curved down the hillside.

“It’s an old pier. Been abandoned for a few years now. It’s basically just an old warehouse building on stilts over the lake.”

“Sounds super safe.”

“Not really,” Becca said, checking her lipstick in the rearview, signaling to me that we were almost there. “But only one person ever actually drowned. Lots of close calls, though.”

Noted.

“Just stay away from the balcony on the far side,” she continued. “The boards are rotten. Bri got her heel stuck in one once, almost broke her ankle.”

“I’d have paid good money to see that.”

Becca lifted her shoulders and sighed like she got a case of the warm and fuzzies. “It was glorious.”

I laughed, reaching to turn up the music as my current fave came on.

“You like Primal Ethos?” Becca asked as I hummed along. “Not many people have heard of them.”

“I’ve been listening since his really old stuff.”

“I heard he’s on the radio now. Oh! And there’s a show in Lodi next month. You have to come with me. It’s going to be epic.”

“I didn’t think he was doing any more shows?”

She shrugged. “Guess he changed his mind. People are dying to figure out who he is. There’s this whole online forum dedicated to sleuthing his true identity.”

I wasn’t surprised. I had to admit I didn’t really care as long as he kept making music, but even I was a bit curious. When the video went up of his first live show, his face was done up in killer skeleton makeup, black hair slicked back. Eyes covered in whiteout contacts.

He was a mystery.

Honestly, I was no expert, but it seemed like nothing more than a great marketing ploy.

“No shit. Who do they think he is?”

She snorted. “A prince.”

“A prince?”

“Yeah, like of some European country. Hiding his identity and coming to Cali so he can do what he loves without the royal family breathing down his neck.”

“I would’ve pegged him as an ex-con or something. I mean, have you paid attention to his lyrics?”

I turned up Gravedigger so the next lyric could play loud and clear, proving my point.

“Maybe he’s just a twisted prince? Like that one from Game of Thrones, oh fuck, what was his name?”

“Joffrey?”

“Yeah! That fucker.”

She had a point. “Maybe. Power does go to your head.”

As we wound around another sharp curve in the road, the docks came into view and the thumping bass of music in the distance warred with Becca’s playlist in the car. She turned it down as we drove down and into a parking lot running along the water’s edge.

The pier was alive with a crush of people in the parking lot smoking and chatting. Others walked down the narrow planks out onto the water where the building perched on stilts loomed at the end.

It didn’t look as beat up as I thought it would. But I should have expected that. If it was too atrocious the students from Briar Hall wouldn’t dare go near it. As it was, the ‘docks’ seemed like they would be something of a novelty to them. Like rich folk who spent their weekdays in condos and their weekends ‘roughing it’ in cottages on the lake.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Becca said as she turned off the radio and parked.

I nodded. “Not bad.”

The rough plank exterior of the building was done up in swirls of graffiti. I thought I caught the signature fleur-de-lis tag of the Saints amidst the blocky letters and vulgar art. Discernible from the religious symbol by the elongated bottom, formed to look like a blade. There was an A, too. The gang tag used by the Aces. Though it’d been badly covered over in artwork.

Clearly this was disputed turf. Noted.

The whole roof was strung with hundreds of little lights on strings—the only light illuminating the area for miles save for the moon and flashlight beams on camera phones.

The music grew louder as we stepped out, the sound of it echoing off the lake making the bass reverberate in my breastbone. I only recognized a few faces from the school, the rest looked a bit older. Anywhere from late teens to late twenties seemed to be in attendance.

Thorn Valley didn’t seem a particularly large city though, and I was willing to bet there was very little this exciting happening here on any given Friday night.

Becca looped her arm through mine, taking my cell phone from my hand to pop it into her purse since I didn’t own one of my own. “I don’t see Bri’s car,” she said excitedly as we made our way to the dock leading out to the pier. “That’s a good sign.”

I hadn’t seen the Crows yet either.

Could it be that I might actually have fun tonight? A smile pricked at my lips as we waded into the sea of bodies walking the plank.

The floor shook under our feet as we crossed into the large building and I instinctively put my arms out to stabilize myself.

Becca laughed at the expression on my face. “Trust me, it won’t fall,” she shouted over the music. “There’ll be twice this many people here within the hour. Then the floor really shakes.”

Jesus.

I let Becca drag me to an area to the right, weaving through dancing and chatting groups of people, many already piss drunk. The colorful strobing lights made their movements seem jerky and robotic with each flickering color change.

Despite the cool night air outside, it was fucking hot in here, and I was glad I’d accepted the dress from Becca instead of wearing the jeans and long sleeve I’d planned to.

She swiped a red cup off a stack from a table, and I snatched it from her, eyeing the punch bowl with horror. I could smell it from here. Artificial sweetener and way too much booze and likely a whole lot more than that.

It was wide open, ripe for drugging.

“You’re not seriously going to drink that, are you?”

She cocked her head at me, smirking as she drew a mickey of gin out of her bag. “I’m not drinking at all,” she said, pushing the gin and cup into my hand as she drew a joint out from between her tits. “And if I were, do you really think I’m stupid enough to drink that?”

No, I thought, a bit guiltily. I really didn’t think she was that stupid. I gave her an apologetic grimace, and she bumped my shoulder with a smile, lighting up her joint to take a long drag.

“Don’t worry about it. The punch is probably safe, anyway. This is Crow territory. No one would dare roofie the punch unless they wanted their eyeballs used as ice cubes in Rook’s bourbon. But still,” she shrugged. “Better safe than sorry.”

I grimaced, able to vividly imagine Rook poking out eyeballs with a skewer after hearing the screams from their shed last night. Ugh.

Biting my lower lip, I considered the gin and cup before handing them back to her. If the Crows were here after all, then I should tread lightly.

“Maybe in a bit,” I told her, stealing the joint for a quick puff instead. She shrugged and put it back in her purse, discarding the cup.

Me and alcohol had a rocky relationship at best.

Let’s just say my particular flavor of darkness liked to bathe in whiskey. I’d once blacked out a whole evening only to find out the next day that I’d apparently ripped a chunk of Bethany Vargus’ hair out and shaved off her brother Kenny’s eyebrows after he passed out drunk. Their crime? Not caring that their family dog went missing during their party.

I was only fifteen.

And I really liked dogs. I also thought I was letting them off easy.

It happened again last year, but that time someone wound up being taken away by ambulance. No one knew who hurt the guy, but I did. Even if I couldn’t remember. Those cuts could have only been inflicted by someone who knew their way around a blade. And mine were stained red when I woke up the next day.

Probably best not to see how gin affected me.

“Come on,” Becca called over the music, taking back her joint. “Let’s dance.”

She skipped through the party goers, finding a place in the middle of the floor, already rolling her shoulders with the beat.

All around us, warm, half naked bodies grinded against one another in time with the thud of the music. Lips met in sloppy kisses. Hips rolled and greedy fingers grasped and groped. These spoiled rich kids might’ve thought they were better than all the rest, but they were just as down and dirty as any you’d find in Lennox. Hell, maybe even more so.

I was pretty sure that girl over there was straight up getting finger fucked on the dancefloor, but by the way her head was tipped back against the guy’s shoulder in ecstasy, I didn’t think she minded the audience. Probably enjoyed it.

A group of scantily dressed girls next to us shouted cheers! and tapped their little white pills together as though they were champagne flutes, before swallowing them down with shrieks of elation.

A guy with a black backpack counted cash one of the girls stuffed into his hand and nodded toward the back of the building.

That was when I saw them.

The Crows roosted atop a raised platform at the back of the warehouse-like structure. With the majority of the overhead lights pointed at the dance floor, they were mostly concealed by shadow, little flickers of their faces visible with the brightest of the colors.

Behind them stood a pair of double doors, their square windows showing low lighting within. A guy, barely visible on the other side, pressed down on a pretty blonde head and then tipped his back in ecstasy. Uncaring that everyone outside could clearly see his slack jawed expression as the chick sucked him off.

“They call it the Red Room,” Becca explained, her voice rising over the din of music and conversation. “You know? Like Fifty Shades?”

So they had an orgy room…

Classy. I rolled my eyes before unintentionally letting my gaze fall back to them.

The Crows sat on a long black sectional, looking like kings overseeing their kingdom.

Rook, with his feet kicked up on a low table, took a swallow from a silver flask before passing it to Grey. I spotted a bit of white gauze poking out from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt and felt all warm inside. Knowing that marking was mine, and that it would likely scar, forcing him to remember me every time he looked at it.

Corvus leaned forward over his knees, his eyes laser focused as they dragged over the bodies crowding the pier. Until they found me, and stopped.

“Show me what you got!” Becca shouted, spinning in a circle as she shook her hips to a top forty song, oblivious to the eyes watching us. Now three sets instead of just one.

A muscle in my temple jumped as I clenched my jaw, willing them to look away. Nothing to see here. Move. The Fuck. Along.

Instinctively, my gaze slid to Grey, and I found him smirking, leaning back to settle in, crossing his arms over his chest in a move that told me he wasn’t planning on looking anywhere else anytime soon.

Fine. They wanted a show? I’d give them a show.

I came here to have a good time. Something I hadn’t had in too long to remember. And they weren’t going to ruin it for me.

I began to dance, feeling the music, letting it pull and twist and curl my body, closing my eyes to welcome it in and block them out.

“Damn, girl!” Becca said as she dropped the last of her joint on the wooden floor and stomped it out with the toe of her boot. “You can move!”

“Got my mom’s stripper hips,” I hollered back, regretting the admission as soon as it slipped out. I danced around Becca so my back was to the dais, and the Crows, but I could still feel them watching my every move.

Becca’s eyes narrowed for an instant, lines of confusion between her brows before she seemed to decide she didn’t care, or that it wasn’t her business.

I wondered what dive of a strip club my mom was undressing at these days. Or if, maybe, she was finally dead.

After what she did, she was lucky Dad didn’t kill her. Hell, she was lucky I didn’t. But that was before I became this.

This broken thing filled with hate, running on instinct and reflex like some kind of animal. Something less than human.

I didn’t know what to do when she hurt me. Or how to react. I hadn’t seen it coming. At least, not from her. She was always a druggie and a bad parent all around, but she hadn’t ever done that. Not until she got the dirty drugs, cut with who the fuck knew what, and decided I was the devil incarnate.

Explaining the bruises to Dad the next day when he came back after losing all our money at the racetrack was the hardest conversation I’d ever had. For a second, I thought about lying. Covering for her. But...I just couldn’t. I was done. Done covering for her. Done being the grown up at barely thirteen.

Dad made her leave that same day.

She never came back.

“Need a break?” Becca asked as I began to slow, sagging beneath the weight of the memory. Why did I have to bring her up?

I panted, my mouth parched from the heat and exertion. “I think I’ll take that drink now.”

She lifted a brow questioningly, but handed me the gin. I twisted the cap and drank straight from the bottle. Not too much, just enough to feel the burn of it slithering down my throat, pooling warmly in my belly. Fixing the ache there.

I recoiled from the taste, shaking my head to get rid of the lingering tang of juniper.

“Better?” she asked as I took one more swig for good measure and passed it back.

“Much.”

The air was clogged with the smell of smoke, both tobacco and pot. Thick with a muggy dampness that clung to my skin.

“Hey,” a deep voice rumbled into my ear and I spun, my pulse picking up speed, but it wasn’t a Crow who’d slipped into our tight twosome. It was a guy I recognized from my second period math class. “It’s Ava Jade, isn’t it?”

“Josh?” I tried, though I was good with faces, I wasn’t always as good with names.

His alcohol glazed eyes widened in appreciation at my memory before narrowing coyly, snaking down the line of my body. “Yeah,” he said, moving his hips in time with the beat, inching closer. “Want to get some air? I could show you my truck.”

Annoyance flared through me before I could fully stifle it. “Well, Josh, I’m dancing with my friend. Or did you not notice?”

Becca laughed, putting her hands on my hips seductively from behind, beginning to pull me away. “Sorry, Josh, this little birdy is all mine.”

“Catch you in class, then?” he called as Becca attempted to save me from being preyed upon. Little did she know it was a hell of a lot more likely she was saving his ass.

I almost slipped on a puddle of spilled beer trying to turn around amid a cluster of hot, dancing bodies. I caught myself on Becca with a yelp, who giggled as she spun me away from the mess to drier ground. And right into a bubblegum pink catastrophe.

“Lennox?” Bri sneered, her upper lip curled in disgust as she dissected my outfit with her eyes, casting an accusing stare in Becca’s direction. Because clearly it couldn’t have been me who put an outfit like this together. Ha! There was a difference between having style and having the money to fund that style.

“Barbie?” I countered, making my eyes wide with false surprise. “Thought you’d be taller.”

Her glossed lips pressed together as her little group of minions stopped what they were doing to stand behind her, their stares just as skeptical as their master’s when they recognized me.

“What? Never seen real tits before?” I asked the one on the right and her head snapped up, moving her line of sight where it ought to have been from the start. I mean, I was flattered but…

“You trailer trash hoe,” Bri said on a laugh, smug as fuck with her hands on her hips. And god that outfit was awful. So pink it hurt to look at. Paired with sky high stilettos that proved she hadn’t learned from the first time she almost broke an ankle here.

I grimaced. Damn, the hem of her dress was about two inches from showing the entire part of her lady bits.

She wanted to call me trash? While she was wearing that?

“Whatever you say, Malibu Barbie. If you’ll excuse us—”

I moved to brush past her with Becca on my heels but she stepped once to her right, blocking our path and forcing me to stop or plow her over.

She was lucky I was trying so very hard to be good, even though I could already feel the rush of that unnamable thing inside of me rearing its ugly head. Uncoiling like a snake.

Rising like steam until my cheeks flushed red and my scalp dampened with sweat.

“I don’t think so, Lennox—”

“It’s Ava Jade,” I bit out, interrupting her.

“You don’t need to be here, hon. Don’t make this difficult. Just go back to where you came from, ’kay? Nobody wants you.”

I opened my mouth to form a reply, but Becca beat me to it.

“Oh, fuck off, Brianna. I happen to like Ava. She’s much better company than you ever were.”

“You little fucking bitch—”

Bri made a grab for Becca and that was it. When her manicured claws curled into Becca’s hair, I saw red.

Letting go was always easy, even when I wished it weren’t, but this time it was a motherfucking pleasure. I bristled with ecstasy in the split second before I launched my closed fist at her ugly ass face.

She released Becca the instant my knuckles cracked into her nose, a stunned look making her eyes round and distant as she staggered back, blinking to keep from passing out.

I didn’t even realize I’d hit her again until I tasted blood on my tongue and realized I was splattered with it.

Someone screamed and hearing the sound of approach, I whirled, ready to take on whoever else wanted a fucking piece. I didn’t even want to use my blades right now. I would if I had to, but the sting in my knuckles was giving me life.

The blonde who’d raced forward to try to attack me backed off when she saw the look on my face. Everyone backed off. Even Becca. The music continued to thud even with a floor devoid of dancers.

In the blink of an eye I’d transformed them from carefree partiers to stunned onlookers.

One of my best tricks.

Let them watch, my darkness whispered. I wasn’t finished. Not quite yet.

I went back to Bri, who had fallen and was trying to get up on shaking legs, slipping on the smear of her blood. I gripped her by her hair like she’d gripped Becca’s and ripped her head back.

She screeched, clawing at my hands, but I couldn’t even feel it. The darkness was flowing freely now, blocking out the pain. Blocking out anything and everything I didn’t care to feel. Anything I couldn’t use.

“You’ll pay for this, Lennox,” she cried. “I’m going to fucking end you.”

I put my mouth level with her ear, twisting her wrist back behind her when she made a swipe for my face. “1323 Rochester Lane. Big white house. Blue shutters,” I whispered in her ear and reveled in the way her breath caught in her throat. The way her body stiffened.

It was easy to find her address, and one of the first things I did that very first day after the cow set her sights on me. A bit of social media sleuthing and reverse google image searching and voila. I had it. Just in case.

“Go ahead and come after me. See what happens.”

I threw her head down and let her clamber to catch herself on the floor, inhaling deeply as the rush began to wear off, lingering only in my twitching fingers and the heat licking up my spine.

Three sets of eyes found mine when I lifted my gaze.

The Crows watched from their makeshift throne, expressions of shock and hostility reigniting my embers to flames. Did they want a turn?

“Come on,” Becca said, and I flinched when she grabbed my bloodied hand. “We should get out of here, like now.”

I let her pull me out, drunk off the rush, and grinning ear to ear.