to stand before him, looking up at his ruffled blonde hair and realising he'd run to me straight from bed when I'd called without even fixing it. Which for him was pretty much unheard of these days. "I did it and I'm not sorry. But we need to fix this and I'm not going to be left on the side lines."
Fox's lips twitched with amusement. "Alright, alright, I'm just trying to be a gentleman about it."
"I don't think there is a way to be a gentleman about throwing a dead body in the ocean, so how about you channel some of your psycho daddy for me instead and we get this over with?"
“Deal.”
Fox threw his arm around my shoulders and tugged me close as we walked around to the back of the truck where Chase was rolling the cover back so that we could see the tarp covered corpse waiting for disposal.
Fox pressed a kiss to the top of my head and then hopped up into the back of the truck, moving with Chase to grab the head end of the body. JJ walked around to stand with me, giving me a firm look before reaching out to grab Axel’s feet and I forced myself to help.
My skin crawled as I hooked my arms around Axel's legs and started heaving him out of the truck bed with the help of the others. I wasn't disgusted by the fact that I was touching a dead body - I was repulsed by the idea of touching him again. The sooner he was shark bait, the better.
Fox and Chase jumped down and the four of us started walking towards the locked gates, heaving the solid weight of the corpse between us and looking all around nervously just in case there was anyone out here. Nothing to see here – just four kids carrying a dead body on our way to steal a boat and dump it in the ocean. Totally normal for a Tuesday in Sunset Cove.
The lights suddenly went out and I gasped even though I'd been expecting it, taking a moment to adjust my eyes to the moonlight instead as we kept walking. Rick must have broken into the office where the power unit was to cover our asses and we needed to hurry in case someone noticed the blackout.
When we reached the gates, I released my hold on Axel and moved forward, rattling the chain that held them together and managing to force a gap between the two metal gates just big enough for us to squeeze through.
I ducked inside first and JJ followed before the two of us reached back through to tug on Axel's feet.
He was a big bastard and he got stuck several times as the four of us pushed and heaved but eventually we managed to yank him through so suddenly that I fell back onto my ass.
Chase was there a moment later, offering me a hand to help me up and I smiled at him as he drew me to my feet.
"What were you doing tonight?" he asked me in a low voice, keeping hold of my hand. He was the only one of the boys who had made any real progress with growing any kind of beard yet and he never shaved it fully clean anymore, leaving a rough edge of stubble on his jaw which made him look so much older than the boy I’d grown up with sometimes. "Before that piece of shit grabbed you. Why were you out, little one?"
I frowned at the odd question and shrugged my shoulders. "Me and Rick rode up to the upper quarter and spray painted the wall of some fancy new hotel."
"And that's it?" he asked, his brow furrowing.
"Pretty much...why?"
"No reason," he grunted before turning away from me abruptly and grabbing the corpse again.
He seemed a bit off tonight, but I wasn't sure if there was a reason for it beyond us disposing of a dead body. I didn't really have time to spare figuring it out though, so I grabbed hold of Axel's feet and helped lift him as we started moving down the wooden jetty in the dark.
Luther's boat was moored at the far end of the row of vessels and we hurried along, cringing at the sound of our footfalls disturbing the silence and hoping there wasn't anyone out here for the hundredth time.
Fox quickly jumped aboard as we reached the white speed boat, reaching back towards us so that we could