The Raven Game by Jessica Sorensen

Raven

By the time Hunter and I make it near the doorway, Jax has stepped back into the garage. Suspicion is written all over his face as he glances from me to Hunter. I resist the urge to cover my lips, as if he can actually look at them and tell I’ve been kissing Hunter.

Jax stays in the doorway as Hunter makes his way past him. Jax looks at him, his expression neutral, and Hunter goes rigid, but neither of them say anything. Then Hunter walks into the house, glancing at me briefly before he does.

Jax stays where he is, his gaze traveling back to me as I move to walk into the house, too.

“You and I are going to have a talk,” Jax says.

I pause. “About what?”

He crosses his heavily inked arms, strands of his inky black hair hanging in his eyes. “The rule you broke with Hunter.”

“Oh.” Which time? “Are you gonna kick me out of you guys’ group?” Do I even care?

Yeah, okay, I kind of do, and that scares me.

Instead of answering me right away, Jax considers my question for an unnerving amount of time, his gaze never wavering from mine. It’s kind of intimidating, but I don’t let on. I steadily carry his gaze.

“No,” he finally says. “But there’s going to be consequences for your actions.”

Great. Why did I agree to be in their group again?

Oh yeah, because I’m apparently desperate for friends … if that’s even what we are.

“What sort of consequences?” I ask.

He lifts a shoulder, his gaze never wavering from mine. “That’s for me and Zay to decide.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he places a finger to my lips, something he does a lot, and yet it never gets any less annoying.

“When you agreed to the rules of being in our group, you agreed to the punishments that come with them if a rule is broken,” he reminds me.

“Hey, that was never specified when I agreed to the oath,” I stress, my lips moving against his finger.

The corners of his lips quirk. “It was in the fine print.”

My lips part then shut. Did he just make a joke? If he did, his facial expression does not match it. Nor does his tone.

Maybe he’s being serious?

He looks like he is. But he almost always looks like that.

“Are you being serious?” I ask.

“I’m always serious.” He absentmindedly grazes his finger along my bottom lip ever so slightly, with his brows furrow as he dazes off. Then he quickly shakes his head and lowers his hand as if he didn’t mean to touch my lips. “Now go inside. We have a lot of stuff to do today.”

Just to make sure he understands I’m not going to obey him on command, I make sure to stand in the doorway for a few seconds with my brow quirked. Then I cross my arms for added emphasis.

His eyes darken as he watches me. “Are you challenging me right now?”

“Not challenging,” I stress. “Just proving a point that I don’t have to listen to you.”

For a faltering moment, his eyes widen in surprise, but he hastily recovers, putting his mask of indifference back on as he steps toward me, so close that the tips of his boots brush mine.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he says in a low tone. “You took an oath that said you would.”

I resist the urge to step back. “No, I took an oath that said I’d follow this group’s rules. And none of those rules stated that I’d listen to everything you told me to do.”

The muscles in his jaw pulsate as he leans in, getting so close that the heat of his breath dusts across my face.

On the outside, I play it cool, but on the inside, my heart is hammering against my chest, and not in the same way it did when Hunter kissed me. No, this time it’s out of worry. The look on his face, it’s like he’s veering toward losing control. It has me feeling a bit unsettled, yet extremely curious.

Yeah, I’m all sorts of fucked up.

“Trust me, Raven,” he warns in a soft, but startling eerie tone. “You don’t want to play this game with me.”

I could back down. It’s not like this conversation is important. But I don’t. I’ve spent way too much of my life being controlled.

“I’m not playing a game. I’m just stating a fact. I’ll obey the rules, but I’m not going to let you boss me around.” Then I reach up and lightly pat his cheek while flashing him my pearly whites.

Maybe I shouldn’t have done it—touched him and taunted him when I know he’s a dangerous guy who is the son of a mafia boss. And as his breathing quickens, I kind of regret my decision, enough that I almost apologize. But before I can get the words to leave my lips, he wraps his fingers around my wrist. I think he’s just going to remove my hand from his cheek, but then he backs me up until I’m pressed against the wall just inside the doorway, pinning my hand against the wall beside my head.

Both fear and something else, something I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before, courses through me. And that sensation only amplifies when he grabs my other wrist and pins that hand against the wall beside my head, too.

At first, neither of us say anything, and our soft but audible breaths fill the silence. Then he slants forward, putting his face too close to mine. Our chests touch, and that feeling I’m not familiar with swells through my body even more.

It’s weird how I’m reacting this way since I hate being pinned down. My uncle does it all the time to hurt me, and while Jax looks like he might just do that, I get the weirdest feeling that he won’t.

“I’ll never hurt you.”

The voice filling my head isn’t my own.

What the shit?

“There may not be a rule stating that you have to obey me,” he breathes out with a slight quiver in his tone, “but it’s an unwritten rule. It’s why I make all the final decisions. It’s why Hunter and Zay listen to what I say.”

I gulp down a shaky breath and will my voice to come out even. “And what happens if I don’t listen to you?”

He shakes his head, wisps of his inky black hair falling into his eyes. “Then you get punished.”

“I’ll never hurt you, Raven.”

The voice comes out of nowhere again.

I try to shove it out of my mind, since hearing voices isn’t a good thing.

“You mean, like you punished Hunter for kissing me?” I question. “Because, as far as I can tell, all it looks like you did was scold him, which doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me.”

He doesn’t speak right away. “You’re trying to test my patience,” he bites out. “And that’s fine. Just know that it’s a lost cause. I’ve spent years learning how to be in control, even when shit pisses me off, so I’m a fucking pro at it.”

“I’m not trying to test your patience. I’m just stating facts. And here’s another fact: you don’t look very in control right now.” The words just sort of fall off my tongue, and I instantly want to take them back as anger flashes across his face.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

My heart is beating deafeningly inside my chest. I’m afraid. I should run, right? I’ve seen what these guys can do. I was warned about how bad they are by that girl at school … and by them.

And yet, I stay where I am.

“I’ll never hurt you, Raven, ever. No matter what happens.”

“No, you’re trying to get under my skin,” he grits out.

“No, I’m not.” My tone is losing a bit of its confidence as that voice keeps echoing inside my head, distracting me. “Like I said, I’m just stating facts.”

He pauses, a crease forming between his brow. Then he removes one of his hands from my wrist and trails it up my arm to my shoulder. “Why’re you not afraid of me?”

That question throws me off enough that I actually blink. “What?”

He continues to move his hand from my shoulder, along my side, and finally coming to a rest on my waist. “Why are you not afraid of me? Everyone is. And it’s been that way since forever. And that’s how I like it. And yet, here you are. I have you pinned against a wall, threatening you, and your pulse isn’t even racing.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe it is.” It’s not. Not even a little.

Yeah, like I said, I’m all sorts of fucked up.

“Maybe.” Chewing on his bottom lip, he places a finger against the side of my neck.

His touch sends sparks of heat through me, and I feel my heart jolt.

“Now it is,” he mutters, searching my eyes. “But I don’t think it’s out of fear. And I don’t know how that’s possible. We forced you to jump off that bridge, which should’ve been enough to send you running away from us. And yet you’re closer to me than most sane people prefer to be. And you’re okay with that.”

“Okay might be a stretch. I’m just not freaking out.” I take a slow breath. “And technically, you didn’t force me to jump off that bridge. I chose to do it instead of being you guys’ servant.”

He considers this, drifting his fingers down my neck, down my arm, and back to my side, right along the fresh cut my uncle carved into my flesh last night.

Disappointment.

A whimper falters from my lips as pain sears through me.

His gaze drops to my side. Then he stares at his hand on my waist, his grip now softer as he scrolls his gaze back up to meet mine.

While I’ve shown Hunter what my uncle did to me the other night, I never told Jax or Zay. As far as I know, Hunter hasn’t told them, either. But they all saw the scars when they had to strip off my clothes so I wouldn’t get hypothermia.

He stares at me, his expression unreadable. “What word did your uncle cut into you last night?”

Wait—how did he know?

“Hunter told you about that?” The hurt is clearly evident in my tone, and I want to kick my own dumb ass for letting that emotion slip through.

He shakes his head, his gaze searing into mine. “No, it was just a guess. But now I have my answer.”

My jaw ticks. “Well, good for you. Now let me go.” I reach up with my free hand, place it against his chest, and shove him back.

He’s caught off guard enough that he stumbles slightly, but he quickly catches himself and steps back toward me, pinning my arms against the wall again.

Holy freakin’ shit. Maybe this is where I should get scared. In fact, I know I should.

Why am I not scared?

“I’ll never hurt you, Raven, ever. No matter what happens. You’re part of our group now.”

I blink as the voice once again floods my thoughts.

Why does that keep happening? And why do I get the strangest feeling the voice belongs to Jax? But that doesn’t make any sense. Jax has never said those words to me.

Then my thoughts drift back to that dream I had that felt so much like a memory—the one where I saw Zay as a kid.

Have I met these guys before?

“You’re walking a very dangerous line,” he warns, struggling to breathe evenly.

“And what happens if I keep walking it?” I ask quietly, too distracted by the voice in my head to think of something more clever. “Will you hurt me?”

For the strangest moment, I actually expect him to say the same thing that the voice inside my head has been saying. But when he doesn’t, disappointment trickles through me.

“Maybe,” he replies tightly.

“Good luck with that,” I say, annoyed. “I have a high pain tolerance.”

He stares at me like he’s not quite sure what to do with me. He moves his hands to my arms, but not to let me go; to hold me tighter. Then he skims his thumb along the inside of my wrist, right along my scar, the one I put there myself.

“You have so many scars,” he mutters.

It’s like he’s ripped off my shield and shattered it with his bare hands. My heart is beating so loudly I can hear it, and he must feel it since he rests his fingertip against my pulse …

The boy with hair like raven feathers takes my hand.

“I’ll help you get out of here,” he tells me as we walk through the forest.

I clutch his hand, feeling his pulse racing through his fingertips. “Okay … But why are you helping me? I thought you weren’t supposed to. I thought you guys were gonna hurt me.”

He quickens his pace, towing me along as he walks quickly down the path. “We just decided to break the rules,” he mutters then looks at me. “I’ll never hurt you, Raven, ever. No matter what happens. You’re part of our group now.”

“Oh,” I whisper, trying not to get too excited.

But if they’re breaking the rules, then that means they won’t hurt me. And that means I won’t have to hurt them, either. Or, try not to. I’ve never really been able to hurt him, which is why I have been losing this game.

As we reach the end of the path, he slows to a stop and lets out a whistle.

Two other boys emerge from the trees; one with hair like snow and the other has a raven perched on his shoulder. I don’t know their names, but I know them very well.

“We’re not going to play this time?” the boy with hair like snow asks, his gaze skating between the boy holding my hand and me. He seems hopeful that we’re not going to play the game anymore.

I’m hopeful, too.

But that hope is squashed as the boy holding my hand shakes his head.

“No, we’re going to play.” He turns to me, remorse briefly flickering his eyes. Then the look evaporates, and all I see is betrayal.

It’s all I see anymore—

Jax jerks back. So do I. Of course, the wall is right behind me, so I end up banging my head on it. Hard.

“Ow.” My eyes water as breaths rush out of me.

What did I just see? Was that boy holding my hand Jax? If so, does that make the other two boys Hunter and Zay? Hunter told me that Zay once had a raven … It has to be them. But why am I suddenly having memories about these guys? Where do I know them from? And what game were we playing?

What I desperately want to find out the most is if they’re aware that they’ve met me before.

With the way Jax is looking at me, almost horrified, I wonder if he just remembered the same thing I did. But how would he? How could he remember the same memory as me at the same time without either of us saying anything aloud?

I want to ask him. I just don’t know how. And he never gives me the chance.

His expression wiped clean of all emotions, he turns and heads deeper into the house without uttering another damn word.

I almost turn around and run. In fact, I want to. The only reason I don’t is because I have nowhere else to go. So, I step inside the house, almost feeling like a bird that’s just flown into a cage.

A really dumbass bird.