Motherfucker.
The engine stopped, a door slammed, and two seconds later, Dexter walked in the front door, dropped a duffel bag at his feet, and smiled like nothing whatsoever was wrong. “Did I miss the fun?”
He spotted Liam and frowned. “Hey, you didn’t win—you don’t get to stay.”
“I know, I know. I’m just covering everyone’s tracks,” Liam complained.
“Still, Corbin and Atlas are gonna be pissed if you’re here and they didn’t get to come,” Dexter said.
I threw my hands up in the air. “What the fuck? Did you guys draw straws on who got to come?”
“Wrestled,” Jude stated, popping something into his mouth.
I turned and stared at him. He had pulled out… were those cookies? Was he eating fucking cookies? Where had he even gotten cookies? Had they been shoved down his pants? Or hidden somewhere in this decrepit, nasty-assed cabin? Because… ewwww.
Liam turned around and grabbed one, and I watched as Dexter walked over to join the circus.
“Yup,” he said. “We wrestled, and Jude and I won. We decided only three of us could come and three of us had to stay home.”
“You decided…” I said, trailing off.
Liam stopped trying to grab a cookie. “Yeah, we didn’t include Wilder. He probably knows what we’re up to, but he didn’t say anything, so we figured best not to mention it. Plausible deniability. Since there’s six of us in total, three seemed like a good compromise.” Liam shrugged, like that made total sense.
I was surrounded by lunatics. They were all fucking crazy.
“Three of you?” I asked. Because I wasn’t asking about the whole wrestling thing, and because Jude and Dexter were only two people.
“Yeah. Three of Josh’s new adopted kids, because he has great step-dad vibes. You, me, and Dexter. So Stalker Boy here has to go watch from his hidden cameras, or Corbin and Atlas are gonna be pissed,” Jude said, giving Liam a shove.
Liam growled, but he closed the computer. “Itold youI was just covering tracks. Since you’re fucking morons.” He looked at me then. “No offense, Thea. You’re not nearly as bad as them.Although you could cover your tracks a little better on hacking. We’ll chat.”
With that, he got up and walked out of the cabin. I watched him go, then turned around and stared at Jude and Dexter. Jude was still eating cookies, and he’d gotten up and walked over to Rick the Dick, prodding the body with his toe as if to check if he was awake. Dexter had grabbed his bag and brought it over to the table, and he was pulling out knives, wrenches, and even a screwdriver, gently caressing each one in a way that wasn’t at all creepy. Really.
What. The. Fuck.
“Do you think we broke her?”Dexter asked, chomping on potato chips.
“Nah. It’s probably a girl thing,” Jude answered, reaching into the bag and grabbing some more chips.
I wasn’t asking why it would be a “girl thing.” I also wasn’t asking where the snacks came from. Because boys would eat anything. Fucking gross. Okay, maybe not all boys, buttheseboys. They were half feral, juvenile, immature man-children.
“You want some, Thea? We saved you some curly chips. Toby says they’re the best,” Dexter said, shaking the bag in my direction. Jude nodded his head in agreement, smiling at me.
I sighed. Okay, so they were also oddly sort of sweet, even if they were complete idiots. I now understood every television show and book where women complained about their brothers. They were annoying as fuck, but they were also sort of… I don’t know, entertaining? Cute?
I sat down in one of the remaining chairs—there were four, but Rick the Dick was still unconscious on the floor, so he didn’t need one yet.
“So what did you guys have planned? What were your intentions?” I asked.
I could be a team player. I could adjust my plans and work with my… new family. After all, Iwasdoing this for Josh, and I guess they had just as much right to revenge, if not more of a right to it. They’d known Josh longer than me.
I was kinda thrown off, though, because I was met with two totally blank stares.
They looked at me, then they looked at each other, then they looked at me.
“Well, uh…” Dexter started.
Jude rubbed the back of his neck. “See, we thought this wasyourplan, and we didn’t want to butt in or anything, so we didn’t come up with a plan.”
