Twisted Complications by Nikita Parmenter
Chapter Thirty-Three
“I’m in.” Jensen agrees.
“We’re all in. Fucking hell.” Trick growls, his hand a death grip on mine.
“That was fucking hard to watch.” Rage growls his eyes tracing my features and drinking them in like he can’t believe that I’m still here.
“The way they came for you, they definitely were intending to cause serious harm at the very least.” Peter comments looking disturbed. “Sorry guys, I should’ve warned you it might be hard to watch, I had no idea that it was that bad.”
“Can you slow it down, frame by frame. It’ll be easier to watch, and we’ll be able to see it in more detail.” Luc suggests.
“Yeah sure, I won’t be able to do anything like zoom in. I don’t have the software for that.”
“That’s fine. Hopefully, we will be able to see something if not, I can send it to a guy I know, he’ll have the software to sort it.” Atty replies.
Peter slows it down for us and we watch it through a couple of times in slow motion, Peter bless him, stops it each time before they witness me getting thrown over the hedge, there’s not really anything more we can see after that bit anyway.
“Why do I recognise the red car?” I mutter.
“Take it back a second?” Trick asks, moving closer to the screen. “Isn’t that the same car that was following us when we went to see Clint?”
“I mean it could be, it’s the same colour, make, and model. But there’s no plates or anything and we can’t see the faces of either driver.” Cash replies.
“So, we’ve hit another fucking dead end.” I grumble, as the doorbell, rings.
“Looks like the pizza’s here, just in time.” Peter chuckles as he gets up and goes to get it, Atlas trailing behind him.
“Let’s leave this for now, today’s supposed to be a day to chill out.” Trick suggests.
“Okay, fine. I’m just fed up with hitting dead ends.”
“I know, Sweetheart, but we’ll get it sorted.”
I’m distracted from my reply when Peter and Atlas walk in carrying the most enormous pizza boxes I have ever fucking seen. Each box is a metre squared, and I’m not exaggerating.
“Dude, I didn’t realise when you said you had giant pizzas on the way that you were speaking literally.” I grin, making grabby hands at them. “You’re the best!”
“I know.” He smirks fluttering his eyes at me.
We spread out on the bed, the couch which I’m realising I’m damn grateful to have in here despite never having used it before now and the floor. I’m happy to report that the pizza tastes delicious and it’s not style over substance.
Halfway through eating the pizza, Atlas gets a call and we all unashamedly quieten down so we can listen, he rolls his eyes with a smirk but doesn’t leave.
“Hey, everything alright?” He asks.
The longer that they talk on the phone the deeper his frown gets; I’d be willing to bet that its Alaric on the other end of the phone. Eventually he hangs up and we all look at him expectantly.
“Do you remember the journalist, Rebecca?”
“Yeah, did he find her?” Cash asks.
“What journalist?” Peter adds, sounding confused.
“We found a news article from when the kids went missing, there was nothing in national news only this one in the local paper. It was obvious that some stuff had been deliberately left out, so I asked Atlas to get his guy to look into it.” Cash explains.
“Right, got it.” Peter nods.
“My guy couldn’t find her anywhere, like you know. He kept trying though and he managed to find a relative of hers that is in law enforcement, Luke. Apparently, it took a lot of convincing to get the guy to even talk to him and when Luke finally agreed he insisted it was in person. When they met, he was armed to the teeth and had back up, sat around the little diner they met in.”
“Clearly he knows how dangerous Phoenix is.” Trick mutters.
Atlas nods before continuing, “He definitely knows. My contact had to tell him what we had found and what we were trying to do before Luke would tell him anything. He then opened up and told him that his niece had come to him, beaten, black eye, split lip, cradling her ribs and covered in bruises. She only had to say one word, Phoenix. Luke knew that he couldn’t go through the police because Phoenix had reach everywhere, but since he was in law enforcement he had connections, he arranged it so that so had a new identity and set it up so she had a safe place go. He told her to move regularly at least three times and not to tell him where she was or have any contact with him. He hasn’t seen or heard from her in all these years.”
“Fucking hell.” Jensen, comments. “Phoenix definitely had involvement in the article then.”
“Definitely, it’s a shame that she didn’t tell Luke what her attackers looked like.” I mutter. “We need the masked guy to make an appearance again and give us another hint at what direction we’re supposed to go in.”
“We can go over more of the blueprints and see what we can find there’ll be a connection there I know it.” Peter adds in, “The fact that so far none of them are still in business is too much of a coincidence.”
“Tomorrow, we can work on that tomorrow. Today we are resting.” Trick says firmly, looking over at me and raising his eyebrow, daring me to argue.
I seriously consider it, just for fun because I like pushing his buttons but instead, I blow him a kiss, making him grin.
*******
Rafe
Over the last few days our priority has been, Ever. Getting her better and keeping her entertained so she doesn’t do too much. She’s healed really well, and although she’s not back to one hundred percent she is up and about a lot more than she was, which means movies and board games aren’t cutting it anymore.
“It might be a good idea to bring the targets up.” I mutter, to Atlas motioning over to Ever.
We both grin as she spins one of her knives through her fingers as she sits on the couch. In fairness we may have been a little overbearing these last few days, Jensen still waits outside of the bathroom for her, despite the fact that she hasn’t needed help since the first couple of days and she’s back down to taking normal painkillers instead of the hospital ones.
“I’ll go get it.” He grins.
We’ve all been bringing work home for her and now that she’s had some help from Peter to explain things, she’s blasting through it quickly. It’s looking like she’s going to be well caught up by the time she goes back. Atlas brings the target into the sitting room and her face lights up as she sits up straighter.
“I trust that you can hit the target without breaking anything else in this room or do we need to set it up in one of the other rooms?” He asks.
“I want a go.” Jensen says excitedly.
“Me, too. I’m a bit rusty, it might be good to practice.” Riot adds.
“I’m not too bad with knives.” Peter grins, he’s pretty much been here every day after school this week and I know that Ever appreciates the company and help.
“In that case, it might be a better idea to do it in a different room.” Rage mutters.
Atlas picks the target up and we all follow him down the hallway of doors to an empty room, just a couple of doors down from Rage’s room. He sets it up at the far end and Ever’s grin is huge as, as soon as he’s out of the way she launches her knife hitting the bullseye first try.
“Don’t overdo it, il mio Cuore.” Cash says gently and she rolls her eyes and sticks her tongue out at him.
Making me chuckle quietly.
She’s a force to be reckoned with, which she proves repeatedly as she starts doing trick shots hitting the target every time. The more she throws the less tension is radiating from her and I’m glad that she’s finally getting better. I am so fucking fed up of seeing her hurt. We very easily could’ve lost her; we knew that when we found her but watching that video of it was fucking hard.
I know that I won’t ever be able to unsee that and I’ve been waking up in a cold sweat, when my nightmares decide to show me what could’ve happened. Riot or Ever are usually there and it helps. I lost her once, I absolutely can’t lose her again. None of us could deal with that, not even Rage. We can all see how much he cares for Ever, but we’re leaving it and letting them figure it out on their own. Any interference from us is just going to backfire, each of them have their own issues they need to deal with.
Peter, Luc, and Cash have nearly finished going through the blueprints and we’re hoping that once they’re done there’s going to be some sort of fucking link between them all, that could point us in the right direction. Liam hasn’t got in contact again, but I highly doubt that he’s just let Ever go, I wish we knew what he wanted her for. Why he’s looked out for her over the years. It’s yet another frustration, to add to the growing list.
After a while of playing with the knives, I leave the room to get dinner started. When the guys first found out that I could cook I used the excuse that I didn’t want to do it every day. Turns out that I am absolutely loving it, to the point that several of them have offered to cook and I even offered to help teach them. But I’ve started to turn them down finding it difficult to let anyone else in what I’ve been thinking of as my kitchen.
Of course, that doesn’t apply to Ever, she can use my kitchen whenever she wants and one of my most favourite things to do is to cook with her. It’s very quickly become my happy place but then Ever has always been my happy place.
Something by the front door catches my eye and walk over to it, picking up the envelope off of floor, we don’t get mail here. Any mail is delivered to the academy and we have to pick it up from there, not only that, but we don’t get mail because no one knows we’re here.
The front of the envelope is blank, and I get a sinking feeling in my stomach this can’t be good. I carefully slice it open, taking a knife out of my belt to do so, so I don’t damage the contents. I pull out a photograph and growl as I stare down at it, Ever lying twisted on the floor, Rage’s panicked face as he holds his phone to his ear. Stamped over the whole thing is a Phoenix and when I turn it over, the words on the back read, ‘First warning’.
Fuck.
I storm back down the hallway and towards the room where all the guys are.
“What’s wrong?” Trick asks as soon as I enter.
“Someone pushed this through the door.” I reply, well aware that my voice is now more growl than anything else, I hand it over to him.
They all come and have a look and Ever curses launching her knife without looking at the target on the left in her frustration.
“Why is it always creepy ass fucking photos.” She curses.
“What?” Rage asks, sounding confused.
“My stalker.” She explains simply and Rage looks at Atlas in question raising his eyebrows, and Atlas nods. I guess that’s the confirmation that he took the fucker out then.
“So, it was Phoenix that tried to take her out then and followed us when we went to see Clint. How do they know that we’ve been looking into it unless someone here is still a part of it?” Luc guesses.
“Or multiple someone’s, we never looked into seeing if any of the teachers here taught back then or if any of the students came back as teachers.” I point out.
“So how do we find that out?” Riot asks.
We all know Ever’s not going to let this go, and the fact that they felt the need to threaten her just makes me think that we’re getting close. Besides we’re not the average group of teenagers, if anyone can take them on and succeed it’s us.
“They keep all the records of the past staff in the library, they have everyone there from the very beginning it’s like a tradition or some shit.” Peter speaks up, abandoning his go, Ever monopolised the target for a while letting out some of her frustration so the guys have only just started to have their go’s. I was curious to see whether Peter is any good, we all are curious about whether he can handle himself, we know from the bedroom when he had the mini fight with Jensen that he’s okay with fighting and is willing to learn which is a bonus so it won’t take him that long to get on the same level as the rest of us. It’s not all about fight skills though, there’s also weapons.
We want him with us, but we don’t want to risk his life, his computer skills are above anything any of us could achieve even Luc and Cash. He would be a real asset and has already proven himself to be loyal and trustworthy. However, what we do now is dangerous as hell and none of us want to risk his life. Before we let him in completely, we need to know that he can handle himself and anything else that our lifestyle might throw at him, there’ll be more time to figure it out though.
“Let’s go.” Ever grins, “And I swear if one of you mentions me not being up for it, I’m going to find very creative ways to make your lives hell. I’m fine, healing nicely and I’ll even rest when we get back.”
“I don’t think anyone here is brave enough to argue with you after that threat, Sugar.” Peter chuckles, holding his arm out for her, she grins and takes it while we watch them walk out the door and presumably towards the cars.
“I think it’s safe to say she’s done with taking it easy.” Cash chuckles and we all follow them out.
The drive to the school is quick and I start to wonder if it’s even open since school let out an hour ago and it’s a Friday.
“The library is open later for anyone wishing to study, it’s open weekends too.” Peter says to Ever whose just asked the question that I was thinking.
“Awesome. That’s good to know, it might be nice to change it up and study here instead of in the house all the time.” She replies.
“I’ve got to say, considering you’ve just been threatened your surprisingly upbeat.” Peter points out curiously, leading us into the academy and down the wide hallway to where the Library is.
“The reason is twofold, one it’s not a new thing, it happens more regularly than you think and two, I know that we can handle whatever they try to throw at us and if it looks like we can’t, we’ll pull back. I am really bad at being told what to do though so it’s just made me more determined than ever to figure it out.” She replies.
“Fair enough. The workers here are volunteers and tend not to mind you talking quietly so long as there’s not a lot of people studying and since it’s a Friday night, I highly doubt there will be a lot of people in here so we can talk.” Peter explains.
Not much has phased him so far, which is a massive tick in his favour.
He leads us through the stacks of books and right to the back of the library. Apart from the odd student the place is practically abandoned. His fingers brush over the spines of several leather-bound books before he pulls one out and puts it on a nearby table, opening it up and then moving so that the rest of us can see.
“Okay, so this is the year that it happened and the teachers that were on the faculty at the time. I think it’s safe to assume that at least one of them was a part of Phoenix.”
“Do you guys recognise anyone?” I ask Peter, Rage, and Atlas.
There’s no point the rest of us trying to see if we do, we haven’t been here long enough to really know any of them.
“Not one of the main teachers.” Rage frowns, “Do they have a list of the teaching assistants?”
“Hang on, here.” Peter grins flicking through.
“That’s Mr. Remy, he teaches equine studies. He looks really young here though, he can’t have been much older than students.” Atlas says.
“Is he still here?” Ever asks.
“Yeah.” Peter replies.
“Let’s go talk to him then, he could be the guy in the mask?” She replies clearly excited to have a lead finally.
“We can’t. There’s a chance that he is the one threatening us not the one that’s helping us. We need to go in with a plan.” Trick points out and Ever deflates.
I pull her into my side gently and kiss the top of her head.
“It’s still more than we knew an hour ago and it’s still a lead. We just need to be a bit more careful about how we approach him.” I point out.
“Besides, he’s not back in school until Monday. He told us all today he’s going away for the weekend since its parents’ day tomorrow.” Peter explains.
“There’s our in. Peter’s in his class we can use that to see how he reacts. It might be a good idea to put someone else in with him, I don’t like the idea of any of us doing anything to do with Phoenix by ourselves.” Trick muses.
“That’s easy enough, it’s an elective, you missed choosing because you guys arrived late, but I know there’s space.” Peter replies, as we all make our way back out of the library and head home.
“So, who can ride?” I ask.
“I can but I haven’t for years, mom used to take me.” Ever says, sadness clouding her eyes for a second.
“I can ride.” Rage adds. “It was a requirement in my household.”
“Any triggers?” Atlas asks seriously as we walk through the front door.
“No, I loved it.” Rage grins, slightly surprising me.
“Good, Ever, I’m not that comfortable with you going in if he is the one that targeted you and caused your accident.” Cash mutters.
“I know but I’m capable of looking after myself, I’ll have Rage and Peter with me and not only that, but I’ll make sure that I don’t put myself in any situation where I’m alone with him.”
“She makes a good point and as far as her healing, it’ll take a week or so to get it all arranged. So, she should be at the very end of healing, she’ll just need to make sure that she doesn’t fall.” Peter says.
“I can work with her before that to get her used to being on horseback again.” Rage offers.
“Awesome, it’s settled then.” Ever grins clapping her hands.
“Any sign of trouble and you’re out, okay?” Trick points out.
“Fine, I promise.” She easily agrees.