Queen of Quarantine (Brutal Boys of Everlake Prep #4) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,55

know,” I said earnestly, a dark, murderous energy filling me. “I just want to find them and make them pay.”

“We will. And we’ll throw them in with Bait,” Kyan growled and I looked over at him.

“What did you do with him?” I asked curiously and a psychotic look entered Kyan’s eyes.

“He’s locked up in an unused classroom over in the Pine Auditorium. We toss the odd apple or bag of cooked rice in there occasionally. The stench is pretty rank though.” He smiled like that pleased him and it pleased me too.

I was glad he was suffering after everything he’d done. He could have killed me with those bow and arrows, or worse, he could have killed one of my men.

Saint came striding down the stairs looking at his phone. “The CCTV shows the Ninja in their mask outside The Temple not ten minutes ago. They headed down towards the sports hall.”

“Well what are we fucking waiting for?” Blake growled, cracking his knuckles as he followed Kyan toward the door.

Saint strode up to me, handing me his phone before walking over to the secret compartment in the floor where his safe was hidden. He tapped in a code, taking out a gun and giving that to me too.

“What are these for?” I frowned.

“You’re staying here. You can follow the others’ trackers on this app. If my phone locks, the passcode is one-seven-five-two-nine-seven.” He tapped the screen to open an app and three dots showed up on it for Kyan, Blake and Nash’s phones. “The gun is for any motherfucker who walks in that door who isn’t one of your Night Keepers.” He kissed my cheek, leaving a burning mark on it and Nash squeezed my fingers before heading after the others.

I knew I couldn’t risk being seen around campus, but I still hated not being able to go with them.

“Destroy them,” I commanded, my spine straightening as all of my boys nodded at me, their eyes glinting as they hungered to obey that order. “Make them goddamn suffer.”

S omething about the time the other Night Keepers and I had spent working together to return Tatum to us had changed my outlook on this group of black hearted boys. I no longer saw three soulless demons born of entitlement and privilege into a world so bountiful that they had grown to have nothing but disdain for it. I now saw three men forged of different hurts and pains with different damage and different ghosts haunting them, but we had all come together for one, single dream. And that dream was more than just the girl we all so clearly loved, it was the family we had managed to build with one another, it was the determination to combine our strengths and use them to destroy our enemies.

So as I raced across campus, my shoulders rubbing against Saint and Kyan's, instead of feeling like a man wearing a mask and playing pretend, I felt free for the first time in as long as I could remember.

I wasn't lying to anyone anymore. They knew my story, every dark, rotten facet of it. They knew my birth name. They knew my grief. And instead of punishing me for it like I'd once believed would happen if they ever discovered my truth, they'd pulled me up onto their pedestal and crowned me right alongside them. I wasn't lost in memories of a past I couldn't reclaim anymore. And even with the prospect of making Troy Memphis suffer and pay for what he'd done to my family looming on the horizon, I found that I was living for so much more than that now too.

Tatum had bound our wandering souls together and though I'd once wished to claim her for my own, I had grown to see that my relationships with each of the men she'd chosen were precious to me too. Even Saint fucking Memphis.

We weren't four men hunting this Justice Ninja asshole through the trees. We were a single entity. A flock of ravens, a stampede of bison, a wolf pack, a family. Five souls, one unit. And we'd destroy any threat to the sanctity of that union - especially if they were dumb enough to come at our girl.

Blake charged ahead of us while Kyan whooped excitedly, swinging his baseball bat at his side and promising swift punishment to our quarry once we caught them.

The Acacia Sports Hall loomed ahead of us and Blake slowed just enough for the four of us to