Pretty Misfortunes (Cruel Boys of Raven Oak Prep #2)

~Chapter XX~

~Bradley~

I WOKE UP DISORIENTED AND feeling a massive headache on the side of my head. I wasn't a doctor, but I was almost positive I had a concussion. The stained feeling of blood somewhere on my face confirmed what I already suspected as the world swirled around me. We had crashed. And the aftermath was probably worse than what I imagined in my head now that my brain rose out of the fog of sleep that attacked me some time after my cruiser flew off the road.

Where the fuck was I?

I blinked, hard. My eyes stinging with the force. The pounding in my head grew the more my mind came to consciousness, and what I thought was the spinning turmoil from the crash belonged to signs of a moving vehicle driving through and over unbalanced terrain.

I was blind. A thick, black sack purchased over my head kept me from seeing anything and ropes strangled the blood flow of my wrists and shoulders.

A draft could be felt through the space where I was laid, blowing colder than usual. That told me were headed somewhere deeper in the mountains. They must have driven off State 18 and doubled back onto the 90, descending towards the Indian reservations in Wenatchee.

".....shouldn't have brought him." The voice came to me slow, as I was still rousing from my unconscious state, and I trained my ears to listen. "He's a liability."

"The boss wants him alive." The second one was female. A hint of an accent made me believe she was very far from where she was born and raised.

"Why? He's the fucking Sheriff." The man sounded angry, sharpening a Hispanic curl on his words.

"That is not for you to be so inquisitive about." I was taken by surprise at the baritone of my third culprit. He sounded young and barely at the peak of adulthood.

"Why not? If I'm risking time for kidnapping and abetting than I deserve to know what kind of shit the boss is getting us into."

"You should not question him." The boy warned. His tone was filled with an emptiness. "He will not like to hear you do not agree with his decision to keep the Sheriff alive."

The Hispanic said nothing to that.

"He knows what he is doing. We shouldn't be concerned of the consequences." The Woman said.

"Shouldn't we? The boss has waged a war with his brothers. And for what?"

"There is no certainty of a war. Not yet."

"Will you say that when Tobias finally gets wind of us?"

My ears perked at the mention of Tobias Carroll. He and I had a history, same as I did with the Mayor and Headmaster of Raven Oak Prep and the CEO of Orbit Records. The six of us once ran in the same circles when we attended the academy, though half of it was spent challenging their hand for Charlotte's heart, and during that time we experienced a similar situation which felt too close to home.

If the recent murders are connected to Charlie, than I was in for my last ride when we eventually arrived at our intended destination, so far off in the woods.

So why were they concerned about someone who was supposed to be dead?

"Tobias is not a concern." The Woman sounded annoyed.

"He very much is. There are rumors in the wind Tobias is returning to society, and he wants to reassemble the business once claimed from his father. He is also looking for Charlotte and the person responsible for his daughter's bereavement."

"Then he will have many to deal with, because we were not the only ones responsible for that night."

"But we were there." So there was more than one person there that night, despite the report statements of having no evidence there was anyone else present but her daughter and a childhood neighbor who was prosecuted and sentenced to ten years in prison.