Bosses and Butterflies

THIRTY-SIX

THIRTY-SIX
Phoenix

"You know we've been looking for you for about four hours now and all this time you were sat in our girl's room." My head whips to Everest, who looks at me with a sad smile plastered on his face. I ignore him and turn back round to face the blank wall.

I pick up the bottle of vodka on the bedside table and take a huge chug out of the bottle. It does nothing. My eyes sting with tears and I do my best to blink them away.

"Your mum is here." I turn my head back and look at my best friend. "She's still alive, Nix." I clench my eyes shut and hear him make his way over to me.

I jump slightly, my eyes flying open when I feel him place his cold hand on my shoulder.

"Don't give me false hope, just don't." I rasp and go to take another sip from the vodka, but Everest snatches the glass bottle out of my hand.  "Give it back, Ev. I'm not fucking around." I hiss and stand up to glare down at him.

He squares up to me, not backing down.

"I'm not going to watch you drown yourself in fucking alcohol, Phoenix. Get a grip, you're better than this." Everest grits out, and I clench my jaw, looking away from him. 

"Callie didn't leave that fucking building, she's fucking dead!" I shout and he recoils back in shock.

"Do I need to knock some sense into you, Nix? I think that alcohol is making you say some stupid fucking shit." He says in a low, deadly tone, his fists clenching.

"What you gonna do? Punch me? Here," I grab the gun on my bedside table and shove it into his chest. "Why don't you just fucking shoot me instead because a life without Callie in it isn't worth living." I scoff.

Everest drops the gun with a harsh thud and nibbles on his bottom lip. Then he begins to explain everything and my blood starts to boil. I have a sudden urge to murder his mother.

"Have a fucking shower, sober the fuck up and meet us downstairs." He leaves no room for a reply and storms out, slamming the door behind him.

I sigh to myself and get ready to leave also but freeze at the sight of three empty jewellery boxes.

•••

"You three look like shit." This is the first thing I hear Mason say as I walk into the room, freshly showered and dressed.

The man's lucky I don't have my gun, otherwise, I would have shot him in both of his knees.

"My boy, he's right." I look at my mother with a frown. She walks over to me, her heels sounding across the marble floor, and reaches up to brush my hair out of my face. "You give up hope too quickly, just like your father used to." She whispers, giving me a look filled with sorrow.

My eyes begin to sting again, and I lean into the warmth that radiates off of the palm of her hand.

"Never give up hope. Like I've always said, Callie is a strong woman, and I promise you she's still alive." Those words from my mother are all it takes for me to believe that my princess is alive.

"Okay," I whisper.

"Wow, I fucking told you that about half an hour ago!" I roll my eyes at the sound of Everest whining.

"Shut up." River hits him around the head, and I ignore the siblings and turn to look at Miller.

A disheveled Miller.

"Fucking hell, Mill," I mutter and take slow steps towards him.

He looks up at me with bloodshot eyes for about two seconds before looking away.

"All sit your butts down." My mum speaks up, and we all sit down in our chairs quietly. "I've met your mother a couple of times, Everest, and I'll be honest, that woman needs to be six foot under. Sorry." She smiles, but I don't miss the sarcastic tone in my mother's voice at the last part.

I smile gently and shake my head, keeping my eyes on the table.

"Please, Mrs. Young. I'll be honoured to pull the trigger." Everest smirks and my mother grins, nodding her head.

"Since we've concluded that Callie is held captive by that bitch, it's going to take some time—"

"We don't have time!" Miller slams his hand on the table and my mum raises her eyebrows at him. I nudge his shoulder and look at him with furrowed eyebrows.

The man is going on a downhill slope.

"Get it together." I find it ironic how I'm telling him to get it together as if I weren't downing a bottle of vodka an hour ago.

"Listen to me, Miller, I know you're finding this difficult. You've all been through a lot in the last forty-eight hours, but if you don't get it together, then you're going to make this a lot harder for everyone. So get it to-fucking-gether." She taps her acrylic with every single word. "As I was saying, it's going to take some time to locate her, especially with no devices —"

I cut her off with a wince.

She really does hate it when people cut her off.

"She was wearing the jewellery we gave her." Everest and Miller both sit up with their back straight. "We put trackers in them."

"Did she know there were trackers?" I shake my head. "You know what, because we're in this circumstance. I'll let you off." She points a finger at all three of us.

"Your mum is so fucking cool!" Our head all whips to a figure standing behind the floor-to-ceiling curtains.

"Ellis, you motherfucker!" Everest exclaims, standing up from his chair angrily, and drags his brother from the curtain by his hair.

"Hey, ow, ow, ow!" Ellis cries out and glares at his older brother as he lets him go. "Can I help?"

"No!" We all say in unison, apart from my mum, who says nothing.

"Luca, you're good at hacking, right?" My mum questions with her hands on her hips.

"I am, ma'am." He nods politely.

"Please, call me Annie. Ellis, you can help Luca."

"YES!" He shouts, making me wince.

I watch with furrowed Eyebrows as Everest pats Luca's shoulder and leans down to whisper something in his ear.

The fuck.

The last time I checked, Everest hated Luca.

"Get started right away. River, show me the weapons, baby girl." She claps her hands and River jumps up from her chair and follows my mum out the room.

I roll my eyes at River's lingering eyes.

"River, I'll stab you in the eye," I warn her and she shrugs.

"I'd like to see you try." She shouts over her shoulder before she rounds the corner.

Luca and Ellis leave the room, leaving the three of us and Mason.

"You know this is a suicide mission, right? This is all going to end up in a bloodbath. Everest, your mother will be expecting us, she's going to be ready." Mason speaks up and my breath hitches.

"And we'll be fucking ready," Miller growls out, and storms out of the room.

"What a grumpy fuck." Mason breathes out, and I can't help but push him so he topples off of his chair.

"Callie's coming back home, alive," I say in confidence.

Plus, I've got a lot of anger to burn off.

A/N
Annie is a baddie.💙