Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter
Chapter Three
Trick
We all grab our bags on the way to the wide staircase and Ever shoots me a look when I pick up one of hers. I know that she’s healing really well from her stalker’s attack, but I still worry and if I’m honest, I would’ve picked it up regardless, she’s my girl and I’ll treat her like she’s a goddamned queen. That line of thinking reminds me that the bastard stalker is dead and there is no doubt in my mind that Atlas was responsible.
I’m just not entirely sure how he pulled it off. I haven’t even thought to question whether he’s the one responsible. The way he lost his shit when she had that panic attack was extreme and squashes any doubt, I may have had that it was him. When he finally gets in contact with us again, I plan to have a very long conversation with him about what the fuck is going on.
Enough is enough, its time he brought us in.
“Wow, the rooms are just as lush as the downstairs. It looks like they’ve all got their own bathrooms too.” Ever says excitedly, pulling me from my thoughts. “We didn’t explore all the rooms downstairs but there were quite a few shut doors.”
She’s not wrong, the rooms are huge. Each with their own sitting areas like Cash has at home and each immaculately decorated in masculine tones. It’s obvious which rooms are empty since all of the doors are open except one at the end.
“We can explore more later. I’m more interested in checking out this guy’s room.” Cash says, impatiently.
None of us are keen on there being an unknown man in the house with Ever. Especially one that causes the level of fear that Peter was obviously giving off. The more we can find out about this guy and prepare, the better. I’d like to say that it’s probably nothing to worry about, but this school is fucked up, I’ve already gotten that vibe off of it and we haven’t even had a proper tour, met the students or met the teachers.
Not a great sign, but nothing we can’t handle.
We all dump our bags in random rooms. I have a feeling we’ll end up in Ever’s most nights anyway, at least one of us will.
“Alright, let’s do this.” Jensen says excitedly as we gather outside the only door up here that’s shut, and he reaches for the handle.
“It’s locked.” He pouts and Ever grins at him.
“I should be able to open it, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea?” Jensen offers.
“He has a point, if we unlock it, he’s going to know that someone’s been in his room and that will definitely create a problem where there might not be one.” Ever adds. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not that great at re-locking the doors that I break into, never had the need to learn.” She smirks.
“So that’s it?” Rafe asks, his voice rough. “We just leave it until he comes back and hope for the best?”
“We don’t really have much choice. It’s either we break in and find some information on him, and then he’s going to know that we’ve been snooping and absolutely get pissed with us which could mean that we’re put in a dangerous situation, or we leave it locked and see what we can find out about him tomorrow at school. It didn’t sound like he’d be back by the morning, since Peter was happy to pick us up.” Luc sums up logically.
“Fine, second option is probably the smartest.” Jensen grumbles and I repress my smile.
“I’m exhausted, I think I’m going to go to bed.” Ever says as she lets out a yawn that nearly takes up the entirety of her face.
My gaze sharpens as I take her in, since we got back from the cabin, she hasn’t quite been the same. My heart pangs as she reaches up to play with the ring that Atlas gave her. A sad look crosses her face as she slides it along the chain around her neck. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s worn that ring and never taken it off. I asked him about it once, but he became very cagey and almost disappeared into his triggered state, where he becomes completely un-emotional and barely speaks or reacts in any way. After that, I decided it wasn’t worth it to question him. I have a feeling that him giving it to Ever has a meaning of great significance though.
“Sleepover in Ever’s room!” Jensen yells as he races off to his room to no doubt get something to sleep in, Ever’s laughter fills the hallway as she watches him.
It’s because I’m watching her so closely that I notice her posture straighten, a lightness overtaking her features when Jensen mentions us sleeping in her room. Almost as if she was worried, she’d be sleeping alone, despite what she said over dinner earlier.
Like we’d ever let that happen. So long as she wants us, one of us will always sleep next to her.
“Alright everyone, go and get some pyjamas, blankets and shit, and meet back in Ever’s room. If it’s okay with you‚ Sweetheart‚ I think at least one of us should stay with you until we get this roommate guy figured out?” I say to her‚ repeating what I told her at dinner, as the others all disperse, Cash lingers, watching her worriedly.
“Of course.” She replies. “I’m going to get changed.” She adds moving towards me and placing her small hands on my chest as she tilts her face up to mine. I dip my head as my lips capture hers. She nips my bottom lip and I feel her smirk against my lips as my chest rumbles with a growl, she drives me fucking wild. Her tongue tangles with mine and by the time we separate, we are both breathing heavily and my heart soars knowing that I affect her as much as she affects me.
“Go get changed.” I say, gently moving a piece of hair off her cheek and tucking it behind her ear.
“Yes, sir.” She smirks, her eyes blazing with heat as desire pierces me.
My hands flex on her hips and I hear footsteps approaching us.
“You’re playing with fire, Il Mio Cuore.” Cash warns, desire clear in his voice as he steps up behind her, pressing in close and reaching his arm around her, his hand gently gripping her throat.
Her eyes widen as he flexes his fingers and she smirks, pushing her ass further back into Cash as she pulls me closer to her front.
“I think our Ever likes that brother.” I growl huskily.
He grins as he kisses up her neck and I take her mouth hungrily; she meets me stroke for stroke. When we both step back, her eyes are glazed with desire and I’m fairly certain the only thing that’s holding her up, is us.
My smirk widens into a full-blown smile.
“Now, go and get your pyjama’s on. The others will be back soon.” Cash orders.
Ever’s lips tilt up into a smile as she steps away from us, we watch her go admiring her delectable ass, just as she gets to the door Cash nudges me.
“Good girl.” He praises, testing the waters.
I raise my eyebrow as she stops dead and worry that we might’ve pushed her a little bit too far until I see a slight shudder travel through her.
“Damn.” She mutters. “I’m going for a cold shower. Who fucking knew two words could have that affect? Damn vagina, everything seems to turn you fucking on these days.” She finishes muttering as she finally enters her room.
Surprised laughter startles me and I can’t help but join in with the guys as they gather back in the hallway having caught the tail end of Ever’s little rant.
“What the fuck did you guys do to her?” Riot smirks.
“I told her she was a good girl.” Cash’s lips tilt in a wicked grin.
“Well damn.” Jensen chuckles.
“Come on, let’s set everything up while she’s in the shower.” Luc suggests, smacking Jensen on the chest as he starts to open his mouth, no doubt to say something about joining her.
When Ever exits the bathroom in a cloud of steam, all of the beds are set up, with me and Luc sharing her bed with her. We haven’t gotten into a disagreement about who sleeps where yet and I think that it’s because, as weird as it sounds, it just seems to come naturally to us. We have all known that we want to be with her from a young age though, so maybe that’s helped. I’m brought out of my thoughts when Luc nudges me, I look at him with a raised eyebrow and he nods in the direction of Ever. Sure, enough now that I can see her without the cloud of steam surrounding her, her eyes look red and puffy and she’s sniffling like she’s been crying.
Thankfully, Jensen seems to be too into the tv show we’ve put on to notice because I can guarantee he’d freak out and I have a feeling that the last thing Ever wants now, is to have attention brought to the fact that she’s been crying.
She crawls up the bed to lie between me and Luc, we immediately wrap our arms around her, and she sighs heavily like she’s got the whole weight of the world on her shoulders. Fear pierces through me as it occurs to me that she could’ve been crying because of me and Cash in the hallway.
“Sweetheart, if we did something you didn’t like . . .” I start trying to stay quiet so the others don’t realises what’s going on, I don’t get far though because in an instant she’s rolled over so she’s straddling me and takes advantage of my shock to kiss me hard and fast, it gains the attention of the others who all turn to look at us, smirking.
“Trick, I promise you, all of you.” She says looking at the rest of them before focusing on me again, “That if you ever do something I don’t like, I’m not keen on or even just suggest something I’m not into, I will tell you. We’re in this together and communication is the only way we’re going to be able to make this work. I fucking loved it, just so you know.” She smirks before kissing me once more and settling back down between us.
Relief floods my system; I was genuinely terrified that we’d upset her.
“Why are you upset then?” Luc asks, forgetting that we still have the attention of the others and Jensen immediately jumps up‚ his eyes wide.
“I’m absolutely fine, Jensen. Don’t freak.” She smiles and he studies her for a second before sitting back down, a worried frown on his face.
We all look at her expectantly, she’s not getting off that easily especially after she just said that communication is key in making our relationship work.
“I miss him.” She says in a tiny voice and it breaks my heart.
Atlas would be in pieces if he realised what effect his absence was having on her. I think I might need to mention to the guys that when he does get in contact with us, it’s not going to be a good idea to let him know exactly how bad it got for Ever when we left him. At least not until we know he’s not going to have to disappear again.
“Me too.” Jensen agrees, his voice serious for a change, the darkness that sometimes consumes him flashing across his green eyes turning them almost black for a split second.
He’s finding it harder to control than he has for a long time, and I think it’s because of a mixture of reasons, the first being that the girl he is head over heels in love with has been in danger and hurt far too often over the last few weeks and that we now have it confirmed that Atlas is in some major and dangerous shit.
We always kind of suspected that he was, but now that he’s told us himself that he is, it made it all too real and wiped away the hope that we were just being paranoid. The whole situation has been playing with Jensen’s demons a bit too harshly, and I think the only thing keeping him grounded is Ever. I have a feeling that if she wasn’t around, we would be pulling him out of another kidnap situation or judging from the frequency of the appearance of his darkness.
Worse.
When he gets really bad, he has a tendency to act out his own kind of vigilante justice. That normally ends up with the sick fuckers in hospital with a signed confession stapled to their foreheads. We’ve helped him a few times when he’s refused to back down, and none of us can walk away when a child is being abused or anything similar. I know Ever shared with us that she used to do something similar, but we’re twisted fuckers when we have to be and I’m not sure she’s quite ready to hear those stories. We’ve never had to worry about getting repercussions from the law. Either they are too busy dealing with the signed confession and have no damn sympathy for the fuckers, or the fuckers in question have been absolutely terrified shitless by Jensen and his very graphic description of what will happen to them if they mention us to the cops.
As far as telling Ever though‚ I’m not sure any of us are ready to share quite how deep our darkness runs.
Ever launches herself at Jensen as his darkness starts to consume him. His eyes blank and his face loses all expression. It’s truly terrifying but immensely impressive at the same time. Ever’s seen glimpses, toned down versions of Jensen’s darkness‚ mainly due to the setting we’ve been in. You can’t really beat someone senseless and break bones in a school cafeteria. Far too many witnesses not to mention our parents would become involved and so far, we’ve managed to pretty successfully keep this from them.
“I know,” She says softly as she gently cups his cheeks in her palms and he grips them tightly holding them to his face, his eyes close as he struggles for control. “Hopefully, we’ll hear something soon.”
“I could message him with the burner phone?” I suggest, wanting to ease the hurt that we’re all going through.
Ever smiles softly at me over her shoulder and takes a deep, shuddering breath.
“No‚ it’s okay. I can wait. I don’t think it would be a good idea to distract him, we know he’s in a dangerous position and he told us not to use the phone unless it was an emergency. We could make his situation a hell of a lot more dangerous.” She explains.
“That’s a really good point, I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Rafe says with a curious lilt to his voice.
“I’ve had it happen to me.” A dark look crosses her features and makes us all tense. “Fucked up thing is, it was my father that called the fucking phone. He knew where I was, he knew how delicate the situation was and yet, he still rang because he felt it was amusing.” She growls.
“What happened?” Riot asks, his voice deceptively soft considering the anger swimming in his eyes.
Every time she tells a small piece of her past, it shows us just how fucked up it was, and it makes me worry about things that we don’t know about.
“Nothing I couldn’t handle.” She grins viciously‚ a proud glint in her eye.
That grin is always Jensen’s undoing, whenever she shows her more brutal and violent side, he fucking ignites. He kisses her hard, gaining a surprised squeak from her that quickly turns into a moan. He nips her lip and she tugs on his hair hard enough that it has me wincing, but he growls as he pulls her tighter against him. They’re volatile when they’re together and its hot as fuck.
Me and the guys try to start a conversation to give them the illusion of privacy but we don’t get very far‚ all of our attention keeps being dragged back to Jensen and Ever, it gets to the point where I actually have no idea what the fuck we’re talking about. Ever suddenly pulls back from Jensen and bursts out laughing.
“What?” Luc asks, as confused as the rest of us.
“Where you guys seriously just talking about llamas?”
We share a confused look before Riot smirks and answers her.
“I’ve got no fucking idea‚ Sunshine‚ we were all a bit distracted by you.” He says bluntly and pink tinges her cheeks as she grins.
“Alright, you horny fuckers. Let’s get some sleep, tomorrow’s going to be a shit show of a fucking day.” She says getting up off Jensen and crawling back up the bed, settling between me and Luc.
“What makes you say that?” Rafe asks, tilting his head slightly as he watches her curiously.
“Just a feeling.” She replies, through a yawn.
“Night, Baby girl.” He replies chuckling as her eyes are already closed.
I think she’s right; I am damn curious to know what the big deal is with this school and the roommate.