She falls back into sleep as I gaze down at her.
I don’t know when it shifted, when our feelings for her had morphed into something more than the binding friendship we had been living with. But that night we found her wandering in the forest, it took us an hour to calm her down. She wouldn’t tell us what her shit stain of a foster father had done to her at first, although the mottled bruising decorating her skin was enough of an indication. The kiss - our first, knocked me for six, knowing she likely wasn’t in the right frame of mind, we tried to stop it. But I could see the pain etched into her features as we began to pull away. She climbed into my lap, pulling Cooper close and she whispered, “make me forget, please, Caleb. I need you and Coop to make me forget.”
I could never deny our Dove a thing, not a damn thing, and we all knew it. I hadn’t allowed myself to explore my feelings for her until that moment. Coop was smitten, he had been since we found her swimming in her river, but he never let her know it. Maybe on some level, she always had though, because with those wide imploring violet-flecked grey eyes, she looked at us as though we were all she ever needed. We could fix the parts of her those other men had tried so callously to break.
One taste of Ebony would never be enough, and I can’t be sorry for enacting her revenge after what we shared. I couldn’t watch her walk back into that house, back to the danger. My father had beaten me to the brink of death enough for me to know that when that rage descends, sometimes they go too far when lost to the madness. The thought of her never coming back to us—I couldn’t risk it. We left her there, in our barn, in the early hours of the morning, dusk still a way off as the dew clung to the grass, and the sombre stillness of a sleeping town still lingered in the frigid air. Cooper and I had briefly discussed our plan around the makeshift pit fire as she slept, safely wrapped in a blanket as sated rumbles left her parted lips. The Turner house in all its beauty was set alone in the quiet lane, half of the land technically in Hells Haven, the other set in Widows Walk. Ebony liked to say her bedroom was a town away from her foster father’s as she wished it with all her heart.
We did what we needed to do to save her from that life, and we’d do it again in a heartbeat.
“Don’t. Don’t. Hate me.” Her voice is a barely-there whisper, the faintest whimper clogging her throat as she dreams. Her fingers grip against my skin, her nails leaving crescent half-moons in my flesh, and the urge to settle her is almost too strong to ignore. “Caleb. Please.” My heart lurches in my chest as my name falls from her lips. The love I’ve always felt for her swallowing the darkness that began to spread the moment I watched her standing there that day in the rain from the back of that police car. Little does she know, I couldn’t hate her if I tried. And believe me, I’ve tried—I even did a good job at convincing myselfI didn’t need her for a while there. But being here beside her, drinking in her intoxicating sweet peaches and vanilla scent, the idea of hating her feels like an impossible feat.
I trail my fingers through a curl of her hair that has escaped her haphazardly-wrapped bun, letting the pad of my thumb linger as it skates along her soft jawline. Glancing up at the hand-painted mural that decorates her wall, the same collection of images that adorn each of our bodies, I realise that doing what she did, was the lesser of two evils. That maybe Cooper had always been right and she loved us just as much as we loved her.That what looked like betrayal, was actually the only way Ebony could guarantee we walked away with our lives.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
COOPER
We got the notification from the cameras hidden in the trees outside of our trailer and left Ebony sleeping in her bed, even though the pull to ignore the outside world and stay there with her was a strong one. Standing high up in the clearing, we watch as police ransack our home; even this far away with the cover of the forest hiding us, we can hear them destroying the place. The lights on the top of the two police cars out front light up the dense area. Luckily, we’ve learned to travel light, and everything we need is tucked away in the box Caleb is currently digging up out of the ground. Money, passports, documentation and all the information we’ve found in our search for Ebony. We’ve been prepared for Silas Turner coming for us the second we got back to town. We knew he wouldn’t be able to resist for long.
“Let’s check on Eb’s, and then we’ll reach out to Ezrafor a safe house location. I wouldn’t put it past Captain Dick down there to start planting evidence; we need to get ahead of this,” my brother says as he opens the box to check we have everything we’ll need and throws aside the spade.
“I don’t think planting evidence is going to be an issue. Seems someone already beat him to it,” I reply, my face still pressed into the binoculars.
Caleb stands beside me, and I hand them to him so he can take a look for himself.
“That is not my knife, and I don’t know whose blood is on that frilly pink sweater they are bagging up,” I add as I pull a breakfast bar I swiped from Ebony’s stash out of my back pocket.
Caleb lowers the binoculars and shoves them my way. Lifting the plastic wrapped box at his feet, he states, “Looks like someone’s trying to get us out of the way, brother.”
“What if Silas goes after Ebony?”
“Ezra had a hard enough time finding her so I don’t hold much stock in the abilities of the Grimmville police department. Silas probably has no idea she’s even back in town. Most of those inbred fuckers don’t know their arse from their ear hole and their shoddy detective skills proves it.” Coop chuckles when we see a fresh-faced deputy pull out the bloody knife and reenact a scene from some karate movie he’s likely seen.
“Manhandling evidence - remind me to send that fucker a fruit basket,”
The annoyance I feel at watching the scene unfold isn’t because of the accusations we’ll face. I’ve killed enoughpeople that the worry of retaliation for my crimes barely registers anymore. No, I’m pissed because I have a sneaking suspicion that the man hunting down young co-eds, girls who look too similar to our Dove to be a coincidence, has obviously found us and is getting ready to lay the blame for those murders at our feet. The Horseman is officially out of hiding, and he came to play dirty. We’ll just have to see how far he gets.
EBONY
Ihaven’t heard anything from the guys all day, so I get on with the banner I’m making for Mr Crane’s fall production ofOthello. It’s days like these, when the kitchen is covered in glitter and paint, that I regret agreeing to be his teaching assistant.
I accidentally upend the glue all over myself and decide enough is enough. Painting out my feelings and detailing for an entire sixteen-page essay on the route of all creative inspiration is one thing, completing an arts and craft project a five-year-old could do is something else entirely. I shake off the excess glitter and lay the banner out over the back of the sofa. Sweeping up the mess feels redundant as it clings to my skin. Pulling the paintbrush out that is securing my bun, I let my hair fall down my back, watching as yet more glitter decorates the floor around my feet.
“Motherfucker.”
Heading for a shower, I relax whenthe hot water hits my skin. Drying off, I search through my drawers to find something to slip on and notice a t-shirt I don’t recognise. Lifting it to my nose, the familiar scents of leather, cut grass, and fresh citrus hit me.
“Cooper Knox,” I say softly with a smile, letting the towel around me fall as I pull it on. Slipping into some black leggings that have seen better days, I perch on the edge of my bed and slip on some stripy socks that are long enough to reach my knees.
My hand hovers over my knife on my bedside table out of habit, my gut ordering me to tuck it away somewhere I can get to it easily. Deciding better to be safe than sorry, I slip it into my sock and push them down to bunch around my ankles to keep it in place.
Ebony Winters. Hardworking, rambunctious, and resilient, and a shit-tonne more prepared when carrying a concealed weapon.
I turn when there’s a knock at my door almost stumbling over my own feet.
“Howdy, neighbour. I was kind of expecting an orgy to be in play by now. Where are your cowboys?” Megan glances around the room with a raised brow as though I have them hidden away under my bed. I can’t help but chuckle.
“They had stuff to sort out, I guess. I’m surprised to see you back tonight. I would have thought Mateo had you chained up somewhere for one of your videos.”
