Chaos by Sarah Bailey

Four

Francis

I moved Scarlett’s bag into the back of the car, allowing her to sit in the passenger seat. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out of the window. I stifled a sigh and set off, reversing out of the side road leading to the warehouse and turning around. When we got onto the main road, Scarlett let out a breath. I didn’t want to make things worse for her, so I was going to keep my mouth shut and take her back to Fortuity. Back to our home. She’d have to remain with us for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps I shouldn’t feel like shit for what we’d made her do, but I did. When West suggested it, I hadn’t objected. To be honest, I couldn’t. He wanted to punish her, sure, but it also gave us something to hold over her head. To keep her in line. It proved a fucking point too. The power we had over the girl we’d grown up with.

However, no matter our reasons, it didn’t make me feel good about it. Not after the way she’d lost it. Seeing her attack the guy in such a violent manner was like watching West butcher someone. It reminded me of why Scarlett had always been one of us. Inside her soul, there was a darkness lurking. An ugliness we all shared. One we’d revelled in as kids. She might have been our guiding light, keeping us from descending into madness, but she’d always been borderline on the crazy scale. It didn’t take much to tip her over the edge.

“Whose idea was it?”

I glanced at her but she wasn’t looking at me. She had told me not to talk but asking me a direct question meant she wanted an answer.

“To get you to kill someone?”

“Yes.”

“I think you already know.”

She traced her finger along the window.

“West. He wanted to hurt me.”

It had more to do with the fact he couldn’t hurt Mason than Scarlett being in the wrong. He had an extremely fucked up sense of justice, but West knew what he was doing. He knew hurting Scarlett would hurt Mason too.

“Sort of.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

I gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“West is complicated, Scarlett. You shouldn’t try to rationalise his actions. It won’t get you very far.”

She snorted.

“He’s a psycho. An actual full-blown psychopath.”

I would have disputed her statement, but there would be no point. Psychopaths lack empathy. West might not show it, but he had a shred of it somewhere inside him. I’d seen it with my own fucking eyes. It had been reserved for the woman beside me. Only she couldn’t remember the boy West had been. She only knew the man who could flip at the drop of a hat. If she regained those memories, she would see him differently. She’d see him like we did.

Yes, I’d come to blows with West many times, but it wasn’t because I hated the guy. We were best friends. All four of us were. There just happened to be a very good reason for his animosity towards me. One I didn’t want to think about.

“He’s too fucked in the head to know how wrong this all is.”

I didn’t try to refute it. She wouldn’t listen. He knew all right, he just didn’t care. Or maybe he did. West was a law unto himself.

“I hate him and I hate Drake and I fucking hate Prescott.”

It didn’t escape my notice that she hadn’t mentioned me. Perhaps I was the lesser of all the evils in her mind. At least, this evening. In mine, I wasn’t any better, what with using her in the car on the way over here. It had been so fucking sweet to have her mouth wrapped around my dick, but now wasn’t the time to be thinking of her in that way.

“I thought he actually gave a shit. He made me think he did. The way he looks at me like I’m precious to him, but then he goes and does this. Goes along with all this shit you lot concocted up to test me… well, fuck him. If he thinks he can worm his way back into my fucking knickers after this, he’s thoroughly mistaken. No way I’m letting him anywhere near me. He can get his kicks elsewhere.”

Her diatribe against Prescott didn’t exactly surprise me. However, I very much doubted Scarlett meant the last part. It was clear as day to me she had developed feelings. And I’m not sure she’d be very impressed if Prescott did indeed ‘get his kicks elsewhere’. He wouldn’t. He was too enamoured with her to contemplate seeing anyone else. None of us would stray from Scarlett now we had her back in our lives.

“And don’t even get me started on Drake. What the fuck is wrong with him? He’s got serious issues.”

I had some idea of what she might be referring to. I’d seen the glint in his eyes. It was obvious Scarlett being covered in blood had him all hard and shit for her.

“Do you know what he said to me? He fucking told me he liked blood. Who says that? Like what the fuck? And he asked me if I liked what I’d done. I didn’t think normal people actually enjoyed stabbing a man to death, but hey, apparently, I’m living in some alternate universe where this type of shit is perfectly okay.”

I held back a snort. Those were things I could well imagine Drake saying to her. He had a thing about blood and death. None of us judged him for it, considering what we were into, but we did like to rib him on occasion. He was always the last one of us to lose his temper. In fact, I’d only seen it a handful of times. None of them had been pretty. Drake could be as vicious as West when it came to people who pushed him too hard.

“Also where the fuck does he get off calling me a brat?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“If he wanted an obedient woman who doesn’t speak her own mind, then he should’ve picked another girl because that isn’t me. I’ll kick his stupid arse if he tries that shit with me again. Brat indeed.”

I couldn’t hold back my laughter this time. Scarlett glared at me.

“What’s so funny?”

I rubbed my chin before placing my hand back on the steering wheel.

“The idea of Drake wanting you to be completely obedient.”

“What do you mean? You’re the one who told me to be careful around him.”

I shook my head and smiled at her.

“Yeah, when I thought you might not be able to handle his… quirks. But I can assure you, he likes the fact you’re feisty.”

She was quiet for a moment, her fingers still tracing lines across the glass window next to her.

“You think I’m feisty?”

“You’re certainly not shy and retiring.”

“Do you like that about me?”

I nibbled my lip, wondering if I should admit anything to her or not. This was not how I envisioned this car journey going, but if she was in a mind to talk, then I wouldn’t stifle her. Perhaps she needed normalcy after what happened.

“I do.”

“You barely know me though.”

I wish I could tell you how well we all used to know each other. How you were our rock… our anchor. The one thing holding us together.

“I’ve seen enough.”

“Hmm.”

My eyes drifted to her for a moment. She was looking out the front window now. There was an air of melancholy surrounding her. I wanted to reach out and touch her, to soothe her somehow, but I refrained. She’d made it very clear she didn’t want to be touched. And I wanted to respect her boundaries.

Turning my attention back to the road, I hoped the others weren’t too far behind us. Even if Scarlett didn’t want to see them, we all needed to talk about her. About what happened this evening.

A few minutes later, I pulled into the underground car park beneath our building and stopped in one of our reserved spaces right by the lift. Scarlett sat there, staring at the concrete wall in front of us. I left her to it, getting out of the car and going over to the lift to press the button. Then I collected all her bags from the car, placing them inside the lift when it arrived.

“Scarlett, you can’t stay in the car all night,” I called to her from the doors.

She got out and gave me a dark look. I locked the car as she trudged over to me and walked into the lift. Stepping in, I entered the code for the penthouse and leant back against the mirrors. Scarlett didn’t say a word the whole way up. When the doors opened, she strode out and looked around the place. I took her bags out one by one and left them near the lift door.

“I want a shower,” she said when the doors closed behind me. “And where am I staying?”

I wished I didn’t have to be the one to tell her.

“With one of us.”

We didn’t have a spare room and we certainly weren’t going to put her in our play space. It wasn’t exactly sleep-friendly. Besides, she needed to be kept an eye on. We weren’t going to let her wander around our penthouse unsupervised.

“You cannot be serious!”

“Afraid so.”

She threw her hands up and gave me a dirty look.

“Well, that’s just fucking great.”

I picked up her nearest bag and pointed towards the stairs. She let out a huff but walked up them with me following behind. I assumed, given our conversation in the car, I would be her choice this evening.

When we got to my bedroom, I opened the door and flipped the light switch. Scarlett looked around, all traces of annoyance fading when she took in her surroundings. I set her bag down by the door and watched her walk around my personal space, her eyes darting this way and that.

I had a rather rustic style with my huge wooden four-poster bed sitting against a faux wooden wall. It had large brass rings sitting above the headboard, screwed into the wall. There was a stone electric fireplace on the opposite side with a TV above it. My wardrobe doors were the same wood as the accent wall, and beside it lay the door to my bathroom. By the window, I had a large, soft cream sofa. My bedroom was pretty neutral colour wise.

“This isn’t what I expected,” she said, coming to a standstill by the window looking out across the city. “I like it.” She turned back to me. “But I am not sleeping with you.”

I gave her a nod.

“Take the bed. I can sleep there.” I waved at the sofa. “It’s not a problem.”

It was comfortable enough to sleep on. It was also the least I could do after what she’d been through this evening.

I walked over to the bathroom door and opened it.

“Take a shower, Scarlett. I’ll get the rest of your stuff. We can organise it tomorrow, okay?”

She gave me a slight smile to acknowledge what I’d said before she turned back to the window. I made my way over to the door. There wasn’t anything in here she could mess around with. I kept that stuff locked up.

One last glance at her before I left the room told me she was finally coming down from the adrenaline rush of murder and sex. And I was pretty sure she would crash sooner rather than later.