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What the…
They're just sitting there, not speaking, and there's such an air of desolation about them, their gazes vacant, that I can feel my chest begin to tighten and chills run down my spine, making me shiver.
Ash is staring into his glass like it holds all the answers. His beautiful brow is marred with a frown, his lips pursed. He looks so cold, like all of the humanity inside him is gone, and has been replaced with something dead and unfeeling.
My gaze flits over to Loki, who has a look of such self-loathing on his angelic face that I take an involuntary step forward, my hand reaching out, feeling the overwhelming need to erase the pain, and see his beautiful smile. He swirls his liquor round and round in his glass, lost in his own clearly hellish thoughts.
Kai is harder to read, his glasses reflecting the lamplight and hiding his honeyed eyes. His grip on his glass is tight, knuckles white. Like Ash, he looks detached, like he's not really here and his brow is deeply furrowed.
“Did we wake you?” I hear the deep rumble of Jax behind me, and I spin round, my heart pounding.
“I–I had a bad dream,” I stammer out, suddenly nervous at being caught spying. I look him over, taking in his all black attire, which is not unusual for Jax, but something just feels off. “Why were you not...” I begin to ask, but come to an abrupt stop as I suddenly notice his hands. He holds them by his side, but in the low light, I can see that his knuckles are split and bleeding.
He tries to hide them behind his back, but I lurch forward, grabbing one to inspect, wincing at the sight of how raw they look.
“Jax! What on earth happened to your hands?” I gasp. “What's going on, Jax?” I ask, my eyes boring into his blue ones. Sharp butterflies take flight in my stomach when he remains silent, not even flinching at my touch on his bleeding knuckles.
He sighs heavily, looking heavenward, then indicates the sitting room with a nod. “You better come in, I guess,” he grumbles out, and I drop his hand as he moves past me into the room with the others.
I hesitate a beat, knowing that whatever I discover beyond the doorway will change things irrecoverably. I take a deep inhale, heart pounding, and step forward.
The others look up as I walk in, a range of emotions flashing across their faces. Kai looks dismayed, and he sighs, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. Loki's gaze is filled with horror, his eyes wide, like this is his worst nightmare come true. And Ash. Ash has a look of sad resignation on his face, his jaw sharp and hard, yet his eyes burn with a rage so bright, it makes me stall.
“What's going on?” I ask them, panic clawing at the edges of my vision. I start to sweat, and fear sizzles down my spine in a white hot line. I look directly into Ash's grey eyes, staring down his rage.
“Whatever it is, I can handle it,” I assure him, lifting my chin and reminding him of my promise the other day, even though I'm quivering inside. “Whatever it is, it can't be that bad.”
Still, no one answers me. They all look as though they’re awaiting their fate at the gallows.
“Did you get into a fight?” I ask, looking round, but none of them will meet my gaze, and that fact alone turns my skin clammy and makes my stomach churn.
“You're making me nervous with the silence. What’s going on?” I ask again. I'm shaking with the spine tingling terror that this is bad. Really fucking bad.
“What if I told you we'd hurt someone tonight,” Ash finally says back, voice devoid of all emotion, yet his steel grey eyes are seething and roiling. I hear Loki curse in the background and a glass smash, but I can't tear my eyes away from Ash’s hateful gaze.
My heart stops. I feel my stomach plummet, like I've just come down a rollercoaster, and black dots dance at the edge of my vision. “W–what?” I whisper, voice shaking yet unable to look away from him. “Why?”
He stands up, his body radiating barely controlled violence, trembles racking his frame.
“I told you we were fucked up. I warned you we were bad people, destined for Hell. What the fuck did you think I meant?” he scathingly asks, his eyes are so cold, I feel hurt at his words as tears spring to my own, unbidden.
“It's what we do, Princess,” he spits, panting and more out of control than I've ever seen him before.
His hair is out of place, sticking up like he's been running his hands through it constantly. His eyes are wild, pupils blown so that only a sliver of mercury shows. My desire to see him lose his rigid control comes back to haunt me. This is not what I wanted. Not at all.
“Loki and I interrogate and question the targets. When they don’t tell us what we want to know, which they never fucking do, we hold them down, and Jax beats the ever loving shit out of them. Kai, being the tech genius that he is, destroys their lives, leaving child porn on their laptops, and emptying their bank accounts.”
His chest is rising and falling, he's breathing so hard, taking in ragged gasps, it’s like he’s just run a marathon. He's standing so close to me that I can see his pulse jumping in his throat, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ash!” I hear Loki exclaim, but my attention is all on the inked up bastard in front of me, and what he's saying. I can't look away, however much I wish I could.
“Why?” I choke out. “Why do you do it?”
I'm shaking, my body cold, and my mind full of so many emotions that I can't even begin to untangle them. They're like a hurricane inside me, twisting and swirling, ripping me apart. And they’re the colour of red ribbons trying to pull me back into memories that I can’t face right now.
“We have no choice,” Kai whispers. His voice is so low I almost miss what he says. My head turns in his direction, taking him in my wild gaze.
“Not good enough,” I snap, roaring anger sweeping everything else away. “There's always a fucking choice, Kai!” I practically scream, images flashing across my vision of me leaving the kitchen that day, in a fit of pathetic anger, only to come home later and find my life irrevocably changed.
