and I'd torn it from his chest and set the pieces ablaze.
Maverick laughed darkly while Fox laid into him, enjoying Fox's pain and Fox roared insults and accusations at him for stealing the one thing he'd ever really wanted for himself while JJ yelled right back that I'd never been his to claim in the first place.
They were fighting over me like a bunch of starving mutts with a bone, all the love they'd once felt for each other turned to poison by this divide. By me.
I'd heard what JJ had said to me when I'd pointed this out before and I'd heard Chase too. But now here it was, staring me in the face, the results of my destructive influence on the four men who had once been closer than brothers.
I closed my eyes as I tried to block out the sound of the hateful things they were saying and let myself fall back into our past, those precious days that I hadn't appreciated nearly enough at the time.
"There's a handhold here," Fox grunted as he heaved himself further up the crumbling cliff face and my heart raced with fear for the four stupid, stupid boys who I loved so freaking much as I lay flat on my stomach and looked down over the edge at them.
I didn't even know which one of them had decided that climbing the sheer cliff was a good idea with all of those jagged rocks below, but here I was, watching them do it while playing umpire to their dumb as fuck game.
When they'd headed down to the foot of the cliff to start their climb, I'd laughed at them, laying down on the grassy bluff up here as I sunned myself, expecting them to change their minds once they got down there.
But when I'd heard the four of them laughing and yelling at the base of the cliff, I'd rolled over and crawled to the edge to get a look down and found all of them starting the climb like it was just another fun adventure.
"Be careful," I groaned for the hundredth time. This was stupid. So fucking stupid, but they'd come so far now that it was safer for them to crest the top than it would have been for them to try and head back down.
"Whose dumb idea was this again?" Chase grunted, his dark curls sticking to his forehead as he climbed and the setting sun baked him.
"Rick's," JJ panted and I craned my neck to see him as he heaved himself a little higher, knocking some loose gravel tumbling down to the rocks below.
"Well I thought you'd all pussy out before I got half way up and I could just laugh at you assholes over my win," Maverick grumbled. "Who knew you were all this fucking stubborn."
"Maybe you shouldn't have raised the stakes then," Fox baited, his gaze shifting up to meet mine for a moment and making my breath hitch in my throat. He was so close that I was aching to reach down and offer him a hand up, but I was afraid to throw off his concentration at the same time.
"So who wins if we all make it to the top?" Rick asked and all four of them looked up at me like I held the answer to that.
"What's the prize?" I breathed, adrenaline making my fingers tremble with fear for them.
"Well, we said the one who climbed the highest could ask you for a ki-" Maverick's words cut off as his grip faltered and a yell of alarm escaped him as his handhold crumbled to nothing and he slipped down several feet, the loose rocks breaking apart as he fought to regain his hold.
I screamed in fright, lurching forward and reaching for him even though he was too far from me for it to make a difference. But it didn't matter anyway.
Fox had caught his hand and JJ gripped the back of his shirt while Chase held onto his arm in turn to lend more support.
"Holy fuck," I whispered as they all froze there for a moment, waiting to make sure the cliff was done trying to kill them. Then Rick broke a wild laugh, crowing like a rooster and throwing his head back while the others all followed suit.
Fucking, crazy, stupid, asshole boys.
They continued to climb for the top together and I scrambled back out of their way as they all reached it as one, hands coming up over the edge and clawing