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

~Chapter IV~

~Monster~

Three Months Later

THE WAVES OF WIND BLEW SOFTLY THROUGH my hair as I stared down at the rushing waters driving down into the riverbank. The same waterfalls I took Madelyn and almost killed us both. I was supposed to take her to see the very man we both shared blood with, and yet the thought of it now seemed stupid.

We should have waited.

The time was never going to be perfect unless I have her trust.

Instead she picked them.

I spotted a rock hidden deep in the grass and lifted the rounded pebble. With angered thoughts I chucked it across a vast, empty space of air with as much feeling as I felt inside, and wishing I could terminate the source.

The Sparrows.

Kieran Holmes was their leader. Ridley Sweet the backbone and less level-headed. Hansel Hargrove on the other hand liked to play muscle man when things became something more intense, and Phoenix Gage operated from his computer. But I know from the reasearch Mako gave me he also spent three years in a dojo in Tokyo with his father, who forced him to take Takwando after the incident with their precious ex-girlfriend's murder.

All of them have trained at some point in their life.

The only one not a threat to me was her ex-boyfriend, Hannibal Pembroke. I learned he was convicted of Second Degree Manslaughter and sentenced to seven years in prison, but got released for good behavior three years later.

He was the one I met that night we worked together to keep her alive and fight off my mother.

He saw my face.

I wonder if he will recognize me when we meet again? Soon. My primary objection is to break the wall of male testosterone between me and my sister, and as much as I want to put each of them in a grave I have be smart.

Time was not on our side.

Madelyn needed to be aware of Charlotte and the mental instability she possessed. Needed to be prepared when our unstable mother decides to come to Seattle. We all needed to be on guard in consideration to the wild lengths Charlotte Monroe will go to reunite with her children, and kills us.

"Are you going to stare into space all day?"

I tilted my head to the side as my best friend came into view a few spaces behind me. "When did you get here?"

"I followed you."

Of course he was there the whole time.

"What are you doing here, Mako?"

I raised the bottle of Jack in my left hand, to my lips. The hot burn of liquor down my throat settled the demons on constant radio in my head. It was the closest solution I had that didn't follow the familiar territory of drugs I relinquished myself to, a couple years before I met Mako and our friends Sydney and Annabelle.

And yet they still visited me.

"This" -Mako stole my booze and chucked it into the river with a whistled splash that echoed- "is why I came."

I was not in the mood to argue with him, nor did I ever let my emotions get the best of me despite the thought of wanting to punch my best friend.

The bastard could be hard to get along with at times, but I respected him after the shit we went through together. We were the only people left from the Hell we escaped. Him more so than me. Whereas I still continued to relive the past, Mako hid it. In return he had to keep my sanity grounded on planet earth instead of the land of the dead.