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Chapter Twenty Four - Jonah
I raced to the studio after school that day, only to find that my Angel wasn’t there. It was supposed to be her first day back at school, since most of the bruising had faded, and we’d all waited for her to arrive, but she never showed. I knew she had been apprehensive. She had told us that she didn’t want to see the pity on people’s faces, that she couldn’t go through it a second time. Logan and Stryker had done their best to make sure word had gotten out not to make her feel uncomfortable, but I guessed she didn’t want to face the masses.
Phee: Sorry, I couldn’t do it today. Decided to go to the studio instead.
We all got the text. It made my heart drop. We knew it might have been too much for her, and the school had been good so far, allowing her to do most of her work online, but it wasn’t what she needed. At the beach house, she had been slowly returning to the girl I’d fallen for months ago. Her sass had started to come back, the confidence slowly crept back, but as soon as we left the house, she would close off again.
I checked all the rooms, only to find out that she hadn’t even shown up at the studio. Disappointment washed over me. I didn’t know what hurt more, the fact that she had lied, or that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me where she was really going. Although, it wasn’t like we hadn’t given her a reason not to trust us. We had all been keeping things from her; even worse, Stryker and I had lied to her several times since she’d woken up.
Taking out my phone, I dialed her number.
“Hello, Phee-Phee’s phone.” I knew exactly who had answered her phone by the overly chirpy tone. When I got off the call, there would be one more being placed. Paige Lennox had become a royal pain in the arse since Stryker had introduced the two. She was good for Phee, but also the kind of person your parents didn’t want you hanging out with.
“Paige, put Phoenix on please.” As nice as she was, Paige had become an instigator. She was constantly encouraging Phee to be reckless. My Angel was a completely different person around Paige. And I hadn’t missed the Mary Jane smell that had lingered around her the last time they had hung out.
“Geez Jonah, take a chill pill would ya,” Paige giggled, and in the background I could hear music thumping. At that time of day, there wouldn’t be many places where they could go that would have loud music like that, so I knew they were either at the beach house, or Paige’s, and considering Damon was coming and going all day, I could, without a doubt, rule out the beach house. “She’s a little busy right now, but don’t worry, I’m making sure she is well taken care of.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. Paige, quit fooling around and put her on the phone, she’s supposed to be at the studio right now and instead she is there with you doing god knows what.” I threw my phone in its holder as I jumped in my car and I started to make my way to Paige’s house.
“Jonah, she’s safe with me. There’s no need to panic, okay,” Paige tried to reason with me as I drove like a bat out of hell to my Angel. The need to see her was becoming stronger as the seconds painfully ticked by. “Stop trying to control her.”
“We’ll talk when I get there, Paige.” My warning was clear, and I left no room for argument as I hung up on her and called Stryker.
“How’s our girl?” He’d barely let the phone ring before he answered. Stryker had been bouncing off the walls all day. If he could have, I think he’d have left school the moment we realised she wasn’t coming in and gone after her.
“Phee never made it to the studio.” There was no hello when he’d answered. I knew he thought bringing Paige into the fold would help, but in my opinion, it had had the opposite effect. “She’s at your cousin’s place.”
“Fuck me,” Stryker’s exasperated sigh came over the phone loud and clear. He and I had started to knock heads over the whole Paige situation, not to even mention that there was something weird going on between her and Damon. “Leave it to me, I’ll go get her and bring her back to the house. We’ll meet you there.”
“Don’t bother, I’m almost there. Just meet us at the house.” I threw my phone in the glove box after I hung up. I needed to speak with him when we got back to the house. It was time to tell Phee.
My mood hadn’t lightened when I turned down Paige’s street. The sidewalks were lined with Silverbells, their greenery just starting to appear. The closer I got to the house, the more antsy I became. There were cars I didn’t recognise in the driveway. What, in the actual fuck, was going on?
“Goddamn it, Paige,” I muttered to myself. I quickly killed the engine, once I’d pulled into the driveway. Frustrated that she was placing my Angel in a precarious situation, I jumped out, slamming the door behind me. The crunch of the gravel was barely audible as the loud music pumped out from the huge McMansion that loomed in front of me. Doors were wide open and anyone could just come and leave without as much as a glance.
No one would even notice if there was a danger lurking by, not with the lacking security. How the hell was this supposed to keep my Angel fucking safe? It hadn’t gone unnoticed that Kyle was missing. Ghost had messaged me about some chatter he had been seeing. Alexander Ducane had become increasingly vocal about Kyle’s disappearance, and there had been talk about him getting ready to post a reward for the whereabouts of his son. Of course, they couldn’t go to the authorities over it, as they would have to explain how their dead son was miraculously alive, and the second coming of Christ would not be an acceptable answer.
I’d watched the night before as Logan and Stryker had questioned the douche for hours, pounding on him when they didn’t like his answers. I’d almost felt sorry for him, and if it had been anyone else, I probably would have, however, the guy had it coming to him and more. Sooner or later, we would have to tell Phee, and when we did, the fallout from keeping secrets would be huge.
One thing was clear, Stryker had done this before, never flinching as he laid into Kyle. And from the whispers of the Scorpions that looked on and watched, he wasn’t averse to more inventive ways of torture either. If what Ghost had given me was true, Stryker was also not adverse to murder.
I made my way to the door, telling myself as I did that I needed to stay calm. No doubt Stryker would still be on his way, and until he got there, I just needed to ensure that my Angel was safe and I had eyes on her. I had to be the level head.
The entry into Paige’s house was more ostentatious than Stryker’s. Two marble staircases curled down both sides of the room like wings retracting into an angel’s back, each littered with flowers and family pictures. The music blared as I proceeded further into the house, and as the bass thumped, it made the family pictures dance to the beat.
When I saw Stryker next, he was in for an earful. I should have made him put a stop to all this sneaking off when my Angel started skipping out on the studio. I’d understood her need for space, but not telling anyone, that didn’t sit well with me. The small hallway gave way to a large family kitchen/dining room. There were a few people in there that I didn’t recognize; all looked like they had been drinking.
“Hey, man,” I tapped a half-naked guy on the shoulder who had been leaning into the fridge. It was fucking freezing out for late January, and here he was, dressed as if he were at the beach. “I’m looking for Paige. You know where I can find her?”
Looking me up and down, the guy took a minute before answering me. “Yeah, she’s out in the pool area.”
He pointed through the double French doors to the adjoining atrium. As I stepped over the threshold, my eyes were immediately drawn to the blonde-haired beauty dancing on one of the lounge chairs that lined the indoor pool. For the first time since she’d woken up, Phee looked so carefree, almost happy. It was breathtaking. She looked iridescent as she used her body as an extension of the music.
We’d been trying for weeks to get her back into the studio, and she’s fought us every step of the way. We had been worried that she would start losing her love of dance after everything, considering we had footage of the asshole making her dance for him. He was a true narcissist, the crude comments he made, it was sickening. The mental abuse he put her through during that week mirrored, if not transcended, the physical, and we had been on tenterhooks ever since wondering how it had affected her.
I wished I had my phone on me to capture that brief moment of happiness. When it all went to shit again, I wanted something I could use to remind her that there was always light hidden within the darkness, we just had to reach out and grab it. I didn’t want to kill her fun. It had been a while since I had seen that smile, and I wanted to savour it just for a fleeting moment. It made me second guess what I was there to do.
I didn’t have it in me anymore, to take away that moment of happiness. It might be the last for a while. I mean, she did break her lockdown, and when the rest found out what I had discovered, there would be no way in hell we’d let her out of our sight for too long. Not until we’d decided what to do about the Ducane patriarchy.
