Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter
Chapter Ten
“What about these?” Trick asks, holding up a meter-long metal ruler. “There’s a bunch of them, if we doubled up, they’d probably be strong enough to leverage the board. At least enough that we can fit our hands in and lift it further.”
“Good, idea. Bring them over. You put pressure on them and try and lift it. Ever, Jensen, and I, will be ready to get our fingers under and help lift.” Cash explains, bending down and getting ready as Trick places the ends of the two long metal rulers under the edge of the boards. I get down next to him ready to do my part, and then look at Jensen.
He starts rapidly shaking his head from side to side, holding his hands up as he backs away. “Nope, not gonna happen.”
“What, why?” I ask, my eyebrows furrowed the confusion as I glance at Trick and Cash.
They clearly know what’s got Jensen in a spin, as they’re both trying unsuccessfully to hide their amusement.
“Why, she asks!” He repeats dramatically throwing his hands up into the air.
My eyebrows hit my hair line at his show of dramatics.
“Do you realise how many fucking spiders could be down there?” He huffs at last and I burst out laughing.
Jensen
“Idon’t know why you’re laughing at me; they could be fucking huge and you’re just going to stick your fingers in there, no thank you.” I say firmly.
I am being deadly serious; my fingers will not be going under those floorboards until I can clearly see what’s beneath them. However, I can’t help but smile at Ever’s laughter, even if it is at my expense. It’s nice to see her so laidback and carefree. We’ve had some pretty intense past few weeks and although we’ve had some amazing moments in between all of that, it’s clear that something about this mystery means something to Ever. Which you can bet your ass means that we’re going to investigate it, just for her.
I will not be putting my hands into a nest of spiders though, no matter how curious I am to see what’s underneath.
“Fine, you big baby.” Cash chuckles, “Me and Ever will do it.”
I stick my middle finger up at him, and Ever laughs harder.
“Alright guys, let’s get this done.” Trick interrupts, trying to get us back on track, not even trying to hide the amusement in his eyes.
Yeah, laugh it up fuckers.
I huff but stay silent. To be honest, I’m already feeling a bit embarrassed thanks to falling on my face in front of Ever, again. It’s not like I can help being so clumsy, half of the time I don’t even know what I’ve tripped over and I know that she doesn’t think I’m an idiot, but I can’t help the small thread of embarrassment that I get every time my clumsiness strikes in front of her. I walk behind them so that I get a better view of what’s underneath, one because I’m curious to see what someone’s gone to so much trouble to hide, and two, because if there is a nest if spiders down there, they’ll get to Trick and Cash first and I can pull Ever out of the way and get us to safety.
“It’s coming, nearly there. Guys get your hands under; I can feel the rulers starting to give way!” Trick grunts.
Slowly, the board starts to lift. Ever stands, her ass in the air as she bends over to lift the board, trying to get more leverage. My eyes trace her gorgeous ass, I resist the urge to smack it, barely and only because she could get hurt, if I distract her.
“Guys, you’re missing out on a delectable view right now.” I taunt the others and they both turn to look at me.
“Lucky fucker.” Cash growls.
My grin widens as Ever, being the minx, she is, starts to put extra sway in her ass. “You keep shaking that gorgeous ass in front of me, Angel, and I won’t be able to keep my hands to myself. Then who’s going to save you when all the spiders come rushing out?”
Her laughter is like balm to my dark soul. Unfortunately, she heeds my warning though, and stops shaking her ass. Looks like she’s not as unbothered by the thought of spiders as she made out.
Finally, the board comes loose, and they lift it up. I step back just in case and when nothing comes scurrying out, I move to get a closer look.
“It looks like a door.” Ever exclaims excitedly.
“Why the hell is there a door in the floor?” I chuckle, “That rhymed.”
“I guess we’re going to find out.” Trick, grins, completely ignoring my other observation.
Now that I know there’s not a nest of spiders down there, I help them lift the remaining floorboards. We end up having to move a couple of desks out of the way, the door beneath being bigger than we had realised. In no time at all, we’ve lifted all of the boards and made a giant mess. The door looks old, if I had to guess, I’d say that it was put in when the building was built, and this building is old as fuck.
I grab the handle of the door, chuckling as Ever bounces on her toes, her beautiful eyes lighting up with anticipation. No matter how hard I pull, I can only get it to lift an inch or so.
“A little help guys?” I mutter sarcastically.
They both grin like the assholes they are but come and help me lift the door. With all of us, it’s a lot easier but it still takes a lot of effort, it’s just so damn heavy.
“Oh, my fuck, there’s stairs!” Ever announces before taking a step toward them.
Trick reaches out and wraps his arms around her waist to stop her from going any further. The small frown that graces her features is adorable and I once again find myself resisting the urge to touch her. It still hits me sometimes; we’ve really got her back. We spent years missing her, until we were old enough to start looking for her, but by that point, we were becoming a bit hesitant. Our lives had taken a dark path and although we knew we could protect her, we were at war with ourselves about whether it was selfish to bring her into our world. If we had known that she was already deeply embedded into it, there would’ve been no hesitation whatsoever.
She’s perfect for us, in every way. She always has been.
“Before you wander down the dark staircase to who knows where, it might be a good idea to use your phone torch. So, we don’t get any nasty surprises.” Trick smirks, kissing the juncture between her neck and shoulder.
She sighs happily, her eyes briefly closing before she replies, “Good point, I just got really excited.” She shrugs.
She pulls away from Trick and fishes her phone out of her pocket, turning the torch on. She pauses on her way to the stairs and turns to me. She wraps her arms around my waist as she hugs me tightly and I drop a kiss on the top of her head. She’s always such a large presence, and so strong that its only when I hold her in my arms like this that I realise how tiny she really is. She only comes up to my chest and the word petit fits her perfectly. A quick whip of panic strangles my heart. I know she’s strong but she’s not invincible.
If I lost her, the world would fucking burn.
“Don’t worry, Trickster. I’ll protect you from the big mean spiders.” She mutters, smiling up at me cheekily.
The guys burst out laughing and I dip my head, pulling her lip between my teeth and biting. She moans, the sound going straight to my dick. I pull back, kiss her once and then step away, smirking.
“That was mean.” She chuckles, making her way back over to the stairs.
Pride fills me, as her legs wobble slightly. She’s so damn responsive and it’s the hottest thing ever. Before she steps down into the abyss below, she pulls out one of her knives, and at our questioning looks, she explains.
“We don’t know what’s down there, it could still be an elaborate trap or there could be fucking zombies. Either way, I’m not risking it.”
“Okay, while I agree that your first reason was sound. Zombies, seriously?” Cash asks, sounding both amused and incredulous.
“And you made fun of me for being scared of spiders.” I mutter.
“I did not, I just laughed.” She defends.
“Same thing.” I point out, as she starts to descend the stairs. I pull out one of my own knives. There are currently seven hidden on my body and I bet even the guys could only find five of them.
“No, it is not.” She replies, sounding distracted.
When we get to the bottom of the stone steps, a hallway extends off to the left, I tilt my phone torch up at the walls, made of the same stone as the steps. Lined along the rough wall, are torches meant to be lit. It looks pretty medieval. We follow the narrow hallway, there’s only just enough clearance for Trick’s head, Atlas, and the other guys would have to duck if they came down here. It takes about ten minutes until we reach another door, this one is easy to open since gravity isn’t working against us.
“I did not expect this.” Trick mutters as we enter a large room.
Its big enough that our torches don’t reach the sides of it. The rough stone floor has these deep grooves, in it almost as if it’s for drainage. What garners my attention though, is the long tables set against the walls that hold all sorts of things. There are piles of old dusty books, all of them have a picture of some sort of bird on the front. There are maps all over the walls, and masks painted to look like the bird on the books hung up on one of the walls. Another wall has jars of what resembles herbs and a burner. It’s a bit occult like, but I don’t think that’s the case here. I think it’s more secret meeting room rather than occult space.
There’s even a large and very dusty table surrounded by at least twenty chairs.
“It’s a phoenix.” Ever says, as she studies the front of one of the books.
“You okay?” Trick asks her, picking up on the note of unease in her voice.
“Yeah I’m fine, it’s just this place feels dark.” She frowns.
“Well yeah, there’s no light.” I joke trying to ease the tension.
She smiles, “That’s not what I meant dickhead.” She chuckles, “It feels, sinister, like something very bad happened here. You don’t feel that?”
Me and Trick both shake our heads.
“I do, it’s like all of my instincts are screaming at me to leave.” Cash mutters.
“Exactly.” She agrees.
Well fuck, Cash’s instincts have always been spot on.
“Hey!” Ever suddenly yells, rushing back towards the door.
She gets there just as it slams closed, pulling on the door and trying to open it.
“What the fuck, is going on?” Trick growls as he tries to open the door as well.
“Some fucker just locked us in here!” Ever seethes.
“Did you see what he looked like?”
“No, he was wearing one of the creepy phoenix masks.” She shudders.
“I don’t understand the reasoning behind shutting us in that classroom and then shutting us down here. It’s almost like they wanted us to find this place.” Cash frowns, his eyes distant as he thinks it through.
Ever wanders further into the room, shining her phone torch on the walls. Eventually, the torch lights up two doors on the wall furthest from the door we entered by.
“I think we should try and find a way out of here. We can get the guys and some matches to light the sconces so we can see better.” Trick suggests, taking charge.
He walks over to one of the doors, and I thread my fingers through Ever’s, holding her hand tightly. This fun little adventure has turned into something more sinister. There’s a reason that someone wanted us to find this place, we’ve just got to figure out what it is. If it was entirely up to me then I’d suggest that we leave it. We’ve got a lot going on at the moment, what with Liam being after Ever and finding out about Atlas’s plans for his fathers’ business. We don’t need any more dangerous situations, and although so far this hasn’t been dangerous but more of an inconvenience, I’m not trusting that it will stay that way. The stuff in this room practically screams of secret society shit and in a school as rich as this one, that means a lot of danger.
Just because this room appears to have been empty for years, doesn’t mean that whoever used it are no longer around. It could just be that they’ve decided not to use this one. Clearly, someone still knows about this place enough to have one of the creepy as fuck masks.
I get the feeling that Ever won’t let this go though. It’s a mystery and you can practically see her itching to solve it. Which means we’re all along for the ride, to keep her safe along the way. We’ll fit it in around everything else we’ve got going on.
While I’ve been lost in my thoughts, Trick has managed to pull open one of the doors, behind it is a long hallway, similar to the one that led us here.
“Well, it can’t hurt to follow it and see where it leads. At worst we’ll just have to come back here and try to find some other way out.” Cash shrugs, striding towards the door, me and Ever following behind.
“We’ve been gone for a couple of hours now,” I say, checking the time on my phone. “Classes will have ended, and the guys will be going crazy because they can’t find us.”
By us I mean more specifically Ever. Even Rage isn’t immune to her draw although he’s fighting it. Probably under the misguided view that we’d have a problem with him liking her. The only problem we’d have would be if he hurt her, at the end of the day, we all want her to be happy, if she ever decided she liked Rage in the same way that she likes us, we’d make it work.
He needs to pull his head out of his ass though.
“The floor is starting to tilt up slightly.” Ever comments.
“Hopefully, that means that we’re heading out.” I reply.
We walk down the narrow hallway for ten more minutes before finally spotting a small strip of light. Trick gets to it first and pulls, the door thankfully unlocked. The sunlight is practically blinding as we all exit the tunnels and I find myself blinking rapidly in an attempt to clear my vision.
“Where are we?” Ever asks.
“In the woods that surround the school.” Cash answers, without hesitation.
I really need to actually study the map of the school that we were given when we first arrived.
“Do you know how to get back to campus?” Trick asks, already tapping away on his phone screen, no doubt telling the guys what’s going on and that Ever’s fine.
“Erm, I think so.” He hesitates.
“Well, that wasn’t that reassuring.” Ever teases.
“If we head this way, we should come out near campus. I didn’t get to study it for too long.” He replies.
“Let’s go, I’m freaking starving.” She grumbles, her stomach growling. “And I really want to tell the guys what we found.”
“We might have to wait until tomorrow to come back and check it out, Sweetheart.” Trick threads his fingers through her other hand, as we all follow a mumbling Cash. “We need to talk about the job Atlas and Jensen are going on tomorrow evening and how we’re going to deal with Liam and his obsession with you.”
My body tenses when he mentions Liam, he may think that he’s untouchable, but Atlas is working hard to bring him down and you can bet your fucking ass that I will personally end him if he comes anywhere near Ever. Like she always seems to, she instantly picks up on my shift in mood and squeezes my hand tighter.
“It is the weekend though,” Cash calls back, “So we’ll have longer to explore.”
“I think I’m too tired and hungry to want to go back tonight anyway.” She shrugs.
We finally make it out of the woods, coming out on the left side near the front, as we make our way across the large expanse of grass, Ever suddenly pulls her hands out of mine and Trick’s and jogs up to some guy just exiting the building. As we get closer, I realise that it’s Peter.
“Hey guys,” He says cautiously, looking around like he’s expecting Atlas jump out at him.
“Hey, I was just wondering if you knew anything about a group that uses the symbol of a phoenix?” Ever asks.
Peter’s face loses all its color as he glances around frantically, he takes a step towards Ever and we step closer as well, ready to remove him the second he makes a wrong move.
“Shh, not so loud. You can’t mention them again where people can you hear you.” He says urgently.
“Okay, I won’t, but can you tell us what you know?” Ever asks. He hesitates and her face falls into a pout as she makes her eyes wide. “Please?”
“Shit, you’re good. I don’t even swing your way and yet I’m willing to do what you ask.” He grins warily.
“It’s a gift,” Ever chuckles, “You’ll tell us then?”
“Sure, but not here. I’ll drive you back to your house and tell you what I know on the way. Come on,” He sighs as he leads us across the front of the building to the parking lot.