The Raven Four Books 1-3 - Jessica Sorensen Page 0,114

shoulder at me and offers me a small smile. But I detect a drop nervousness in his eyes.

Zay gives me another dirty look then he follows after Hunter. And he shuts the door behind him, leaving me sitting alone in the room.

The moment the quietness sets in, the last hour or so catches up with me as my high fades and I return to reality. Snorting lines… letting Hunter kiss and touch me like that… It’s all racing through my brain, along with a distant memory…

The man brushes his lips against my cheek and strokes my head. “My little bird… You belong to me.”

The memory snaps like a broken rubber band, but leaves my skin crawling. I want to cut out the sensation, let it bleed out until I feel nothing.

I can’t do this.

Can’t keep remembering this shit.

I need to block it out.

Spotting a razor blade on the table, I jump to my feet, grab the blade, and roll up my sleeve.

Then I make small cuts in my skin, but this time I can’t keep the memories from surfacing, of the doctor, of the bird, of blood…

“What’s happening to me?” I whisper as fear clenches in my chest.

I don’t know why I feel this way or why I’m suddenly remembering forgotten memories, but one thing’s pretty certain.

Coming to this town has sparked something inside me. And I need to find out why.

Twenty-Nine

Hunter

I’m so riled up I feel like I’m about to burst from my skin, which more than likely means this little meeting with Jax and Zay is going to get intense.

As we all enter the office, I prepare myself for an argument and to have to put up a lame ass attempt at defending myself for kissing Raven.

And touching her…

Jesus, I’m so turned on I can barely stand it.

Of course, Jax being Jax decides to drag out the anticipation as he shuts the door and sinks into silence.

“So how are we gonna punish him?” Zay asks as he sits down on top of the desk and crosses his arms. He looks like he’s raging. My bet is he’s pissed off that I kissed Raven. Not because I broke the rules, but over something else he won’t admit. But he’ll play it off as the rules thing

I roll my eyes. “I don’t know why I need to be punished at all. It’s not a big deal.”

“You broke the rules,” Zay snaps, his eyes narrowing to slits. “Which means a punishment is in order.”

I roll my tongue in my mouth, getting more annoyed by the second, even though I know he’s right. “It was an accident,” I say with a lame shrug.

“What? You accidentally fell and your lips landed on her’s?” Zay grumbles, opening and flexing his hands, on the verge of snapping. “Come on, even you have to know how fucking stupid that sounds.”

“I never said that’s what happened,” I argue, stepping toward him. “I just said that it was an accident.” Which is kind of true. I mean, I was high and so was Raven and she’s so damn alluring… I felt like I couldn’t help myself…

I never can, though, which is why I sleep around so much.

Fuck. Reality starts to set in. That I just kissed and touched Raven, and normally, this would be the point where I bail.

What the hell did I just do?

I need to fix this. Somehow.

“I can’t believe this,” Zay mutters, shaking his head. “Or well, I guess I can. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t screw up like this.”

“Like you haven’t screwed up,” I point out. “And why do you even care so much, man.”

“Because you broke the rules,” Zay bites out, the vein in his forehead bulging.

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s the only reason.”

“That’s enough,” Jax orders in a firm tone.

Grimacing, I turn to him and wait for whatever punishment he’s about to give me. I’m sure it’s going to be a bad one too, and maybe it would’ve been if the town’s notification system didn’t sound off at that very moment, which is never a good thing.

The system was created due to the high corruption in this town as a way of letting citizens know if an incident has happened.

As all of our phones go off simultaneously, we dig them out of our pockets.

Town Notification Alert System: Due to this morning’s incident, the town has been put on lockdown. Please check the town’s website for more information.

None of us check the website, though, since the information will