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My mouth gaping in surprise at the audacity, I turn my disbelieving stare from Rex to the culprit. Unfortunately for Brent, they had sat me next to him again, and almost in reflex, I ball up a fist and pop him in the nose. I hear a bark of laughter from Marcus up front, while Rex and Brade try to grab me. Emmett doesn't even bother to intercede; instead, he just sits back laughing his ass off and saying the fucker deserved it.
Brade unclips my seatbelt and shoves me over to plant himself in the middle. "Emmett, help, will you? Hook her belt. This shit isn't funny— we're going to get pulled over if someone sees her flipping out on a guy in the back seat." My hand kind of hurts, so I don't protest him buckling me up.
Brade's dressing down sobers the small bit of anger-fueled mirth in the vehicle, leaving a tense silence in its wake. Well, except for Brent's grumbling as he holds the napkins Apollo throws at him to his bleeding nose.No one is offering up any other information, and since I haven't told anyone yet, I try to question Brade with my eyes. His are full of confusion until I surreptitiously point to my stomach. He shrugs, indicating it's up to me.
Taking a deep breath for courage, I make my announcement. "So, uh, it appears the test was a false positive, and I'm just on my period."
Nobody speaks for a moment until Apollo ventures a question. "How are you feeling about that?" I snort in surprise that he'd be the one to ask about feelings.
"Kinda awkward and relieved, yet still a little disappointed, I suppose." He's turned in his seat to look back at me, nodding at my assessment.
"Understandable. I agree with all of that but probably for differing reasons." He sighs. "I doubt it will matter to Robert though; he's lost even more touch with reality from what we've heard." He falls silent, probably lost in thought about his psychotic father and traitorous cousin.
I catch Marcus' eyes in the rearview mirror, and he just gives me a wink. I know he probably doesn't have too many feelings on this subject other than my health.
Since I haven't heard a peep out of the back row, I chance looking at Rex and Emmett. Rex is staring out the window with an expression like he's just had all his dreams smashed at once while Emmett fiddles around on a phone.
Why does everybody always have one except for me?
Rex must feel my gaze burning a hole in him and turns his head to look at me. I'm not sure why he's so upset as he wasn't even assured that he had a fifty-fifty chance, but it will have to wait until we get back and can speak privately.
Emmett glances up, blowing me a kiss, and when he turns the phone around, it shows that he's purchasing a boatload of condoms from a surplus store. I bust up laughing. Leave it to Emmett to make sure his dick isn't left out. It makes me pause though, and counting back, I realize that my birth control has well and truly worn off by now. If there are to be any naughty things going on, the condom situation just became priority.
I ignore Brent because I really just don't give a fuck about what his opinion is, and frankly, I'd like to pull over and leave him on the side of the road.
When we pull up to the cabin, there are apparently different thoughts on how he is going to be handled. I procrastinate on going in, and when I do, it's to find Brent freaking out.
"Apollo, I'm your cousin. You can't allow this!" Brent is pulling against Marcus who has his wrist in an apparently unbreakable grip.
"Dear cousin, as far as I'm concerned you are no longer family. You chose the wrong side— not only will I allow it, but I'll be joining in." Apollo is scary as fuck with every bit of him exuding a cloud of menace.
I'm trying to figure out what they're talking about when Braeden pulls me back.
"Birdie, you don't want to get in the middle of that. I think it would probably be best if the rest of us went upstairs."
I give him a questioning glance, and he gestures to the basement. I'm assuming that anyway since he's pointing at the floor.
Marcus still has no such compunctions about explaining and doesn't sugarcoat the matter.
"One of those storage rooms is soundproofed and set up in case we ever needed a place to hold someone. And we're about to find out exactly how much this rat has shared and how badly we might be fucked because of it."
I feel my face blanch, probably as pale as Brent's is at the moment. If he doesn't fess up, they're going to torture him. I swallow hard and holding first Marcus' stare and then Apollo's, nod to them both. I'm not going to condemn them for doing something that is going to keep us all alive— even if I most likely wouldn't have the stomach for it myself.
The rest of us leave the trio downstairs and file up to the second floor, going to our respective rooms, or at least Braeden and I do. I'm not sure what Emmett and Rex do when we split at the top of the staircase.
Realizing I do still have a few questions, I walk to the bathroom and on into Braeden's room.
"Did you guys set him up?" I ask, referring to Brent's 'opportunity'. There's no way they accidentally left him alone long enough to do all that. Not when he's already been on everyone's radar.
Braeden looks up, I think surprised by my deduction. "Yes, we did. Or the others did, anyway. Why do you think I would have gone along with Emmett and Rex not wanting to fill you in on things?" I shrug and get him pursing his perfect lips at me in return. Like I should know better. "As long as Brent had an angle to keep playing, we figured he would. And he did— more than once he tried to drive a wedge between the rest of us. You just weren't around. We each took turns following him, but since you avoided him for the most part, I think he was trying to figure out a way to exploit that."
That would make sense with how I hadn’t been finding more than one or occasionally two of them at a time. I sigh, sort of feeling like an oblivious idiot.
"And the day of paintball?" I knew it was a setup.
Brade winces. "Yeah, unfortunately, he wasn't sneaky enough, and while we were letting him go without an escort with everyone blatantly busy, we were hoping he'd hang himself. You interrupted and nailed him with a paintball."
"Ohh, so you mean that this could have already been taken care of had any of you bothered to clue me in?" He nods as I glare at him, but he doesn't apologize. He probably won't either, if it was really for my protection. I ask the last one even though I know I'm right. "And the trip?"
