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Rook opened his jacket, showing the sleek mahogany grip of his gun hooking from the top of his jeans. Grey lifted the back of his jacket, showing me his piece and the hem of his jeans, flashing me a row of mags strapped there.
I looked to Corvus.
He sighed. “Don’t worry, Sparrow. I’m armed.”
“Fine,” I said in a huff. “Then let’s go sit around a table and say what we’re grateful for. Sounds like fun.”
Grey chuckled, and I sent him a deadpan stare, telling him without the need for words just how not funny I thought this was.
It’d only been two days since fight night. Our bruises were at their darkest. Our cuts were puckered black scabs. The hollows beneath our eyes were deep and the most vivid shade of purple they could be.
We were liable to give my aunt a goddamned heart attack just showing our faces at the door.
“We were in a car accident,” I decided. “No one was hurt beyond cuts and bruises, which is why we didn’t go to the ER.”
“Don’t fucking smirk at me,” I told Rook. “You’re going to regret going to this dinner by the time the night is through. I promise you that.”
* * *
My aunt’sdisgusting mansion loomed around a bend in the freshly cobblestoned road ahead, seen through the heavy iron bars of her front gates.
Grey drove us up to the intercom panel and reached out to jab the button. It crackled before a male voice came through. “Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” Grey said, leaning down so the tiny camera could see his face. He flashed a smile. “Could you please let Mrs. Humphrey know that her niece has arrived for dinner.”
A pause.
“Y-yes. Certainly. Please do come in.”
The groan of a mechanical pulley system swelled in the tepid silence. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away and here, on the grounds of the Humphrey Estate, only birdsong and the distant sounds of the water fountains in the garden could be heard.
The amount of privilege and excess behind these gates was enough to make me want to vomit.
Grey drove us through, steering the Rover up the drive to the front door.
“It’s not too late to turn back,” I blurted, putting my hand over Rook’s in the backseat to stop him from opening his door.
His face lit up. “Honestly, the fact that you don’t want us to go inside so badly just makes me want to go in even more, Ghost.”
I growled, letting him go as I pushed out my own door, hating how Corvus almost lost his footing as he stepped out. He gave me a cautionary look as he shut his door, trying to gauge if I’d seen. If I would tell the others he wasn’t ready to be walking around yet.
My nostrils flared, but instead of calling him out, I looped my arm through his. “You’re an idiot,” I muttered, trying to covertly take some of his weight as we ascended the wide ivory staircase to the massive wooden front door.
Corvus scoffed in reply but didn’t pull away.
The door opened before Rook could even curl his pinkie finger around the knocker, my aunt standing there in her grand foyer, cheeks pink from too much rouge.
“There’s my niece,” she trailed off, her wide, welcoming arms dropping as she got a better look at us. Red painted nails flying to her chest to ward off the start of the heart attack I’d warned my Crows about.
“Oh dear,” she said. “What happened?”
“Car accident,” I supplied, seeing a playful gleam in Rook’s eyes I didn’t like. “It looks worse than it is.”
“You should’ve called,” my aunt said, tutting as she ushered us through the door. “Come in, come in. Let’s get you in out of this heat.” She snapped her fingers and the butler, who’s name I’d forgotten, rushed in. “Jackson, will you get ice waters for everyone?”
“Right away, ma’am,” Jackson said, bowing, his dark hair not moving at all through the movement, held hard to his head like a helmet with too much gel.
“Could I get something stronger?” Rook asked, making the butler pause. Clutching his shoulder as though it was causing him a great amount of pain. “The damned doctor wouldn’t give me anything for the pain. It’s almost unbearable.”
