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Chapter One
Jax
I’ve had enough of this shit, I decide, throwing my weight against Phoenix’s locked bedroom door. It’s been four days now since Phoenix was taken and enough is enough. Raven is not going to come out of there willingly, so it’s time to make her.
“Go away!” Her hoarse, muffled voice calls through the door just moments before I bust it open. “Hey!”
“Enough, Raven!” I bark, striding over to the bed where she’s huddled. “Get up.”
“No,” she replies petulantly. “Go away.”
“I’m not leaving without you, so do us all a favour and pull yourself together. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Just go,” she tells me, stubbornly. I remember how frustrating she can be now. I grit my teeth as my temper flares up.
“Look at you, you’re pathetic,” I sneer, playing a dangerous game. “What good are you to Phoenix like this? I thought you wanted to get her back but the courts were right, you are unfit to take care of her!”
“Fuck you!” she spits at me, a little fire starting to bring her back to life. She glares at me and tries to look fierce but it’s hard to pull off from under a Hello Kitty bed set.
“You look like you’ve given up and Cordelia has already won.”
“Don’t say that bitch’s name around me!”
“Why not? She’s going to be Phoenix’s new guardian. We’re going to have to make nice with her if we want to see our daughter.”
Her eyes widen in shock and she sits up abruptly.
“Did you open…?”
“No. We wouldn’t without you. But you need to get up so we can fight this right now.”
“What’s the point?” She flops back into the bed, deflated. Damn, tough love isn’t working, time for phase two.
I don’t bother to answer. striding across the room to her, I stand at the end of the bed and grasp the edge of the mattress. With effort, I lift and flip it so that Raven slides out of bed and hits the floor with an unceremonious thud. I leave the mattress as it is so that she can’t get back into bed.
“Hey!” she cries scrambling to her feet, hands on hips, a little more fire in her eyes.
“You stink. Get in the shower,” I demand.
“Make me!” she bites back. Big mistake sweetheart. Challenge accepted.
My eyes harden at her defiance, palms burning to teach her a lesson. I stomp over to her and lift her into a fireman’s carry over my shoulder and stride from the room. She, of course, kicks and fights the whole time. I don’t cross the landing to the family bathroom, instead choosing to carry her weightless, too-thin body up another flight of stairs to my room.
I kick open my bedroom door and put her down. I quickly close and lock the door when she lunges for it, taking the key from the lock and crossing to the window. She watches me, puzzled, and realises a second too late what my intent is. She dives, but I drop the key from the window, out into the garden somewhere three storeys below.
“What did you do that for?! We’re stuck!”
“Are we? I didn’t realise,” I reply with sarcastic innocence. “You need a shower and I don’t trust you not to run.”
“How are we going to get out of here now?” she panics. Ironic considering she was content to remain in a locked room downstairs, indefinitely. I decide not to point this out to her though.
“When I’ve finished with you, I’ll call one of the others to go and retrieve the key,” I lie. She doesn’t need to know I have a spare. “Now, the bathroom's that way.”
I point to the door that leads to the en suite, and she storms off in a huff. Still, that went better than expected.
I give her a few minutes after the water turns on and slowly strip my clothes off. I need to get her out of her head and I think tapping into her anger is the best way to do it.
Naked, I kick my clothes aside and follow Raven into the bathroom. I immediately spy my toothbrush on the counter, not where I left it, and know that she’s used it. I only hope she stole it to brush her teeth and not clean the toilet as revenge for hauling her ass out of bed.
