If there’s one place I don’t want to be on the night before school starts, it’s the docks of Mounts Bay.
We’re headed to the southern end of them where not a whole lot of actual boating happens, but there’s plenty of dilapidated warehouses in that area that are now a staple in the party scene of the Bay. I’ve been to enough of these things to know exactly how fucking bad it is that my dickhead, psycho cousin has run off here for a hit.
Obviously his dealer wouldn’t deliver to the hotel.
The longer we drive, the more uncomfortable I become in my own skin. It’s like they can all see exactly how fucking shitty my entire existence is once we’re looking at the streets I grew up in, and it makes me a fucking dick to be around.
I snap at Avery, “What the fuck is he doing down here? Floss, this is the fucking slums and if he’s down here then we’ll be scraping him off the fucking sidewalk because there’s no way he hasn’t run his mouth and been stabbed for it.”
“There’s nothing I can do about Joey being down here. What do you want me to do, try and reason with the sociopathic asshole? We’re lucky Lips found him for us,” Avery snaps back from the front seat, and it’s like a slap to the face.
My attention is firmly on her because Joey can fucking die for all I care, but what the fuck is the Mounty doing down here?
She never goes to parties at Hannaford or shows any interest in drinking, so why the fuck is she at one of the most dangerous fucking places for a girl to be in the entire country?
I’m pissed.
Ash side-eyes me so hard it’s like a physical thing, a fist to the side of the head. I ignore it because he’s been pissy since I got home from my grandfather’s place, ready to argue about any fucking thing, but from the moment we realized Joey was gone he’s been savage.
Fuck knows why.
“I’m not leaving my car down here to go get Joey… it’ll be gone by the time we get him back,” Blaise drawls, still half asleep and driving like a reckless fucking dick.
Avery shrugs as she taps away on her phone. “Lips says she’ll meet us out the front with him so no one has to leave the car.”
“And how the fuck do you think she’s getting him out of the party, Floss? How can you not see it?” Ash sneers, and I struggle not to roll my eyes at him.
It’s obvious to everyone except Ash why exactly he’s so fucking focused on her being a danger, but I don’t want to think about just how far she’s managed to dig herself under the skin of each and every one of us.
Even Morrison is fucking doe-eyed over her.
“Pull up at the gate; he’ll let us through,” Avery says, pointing exactly where she needs Blaise to drive like he’s completely fucking blind.
He doesn’t comment, too fucking tired to bother with the inevitable fight, but when he stops in front of the gate and rolls down the window, it’s fucking clear that we’re not getting in.
“Too late to get in, the party hour is over.”
Fuck.
The ‘party hour’ means it’s a very specific type of Bay party, one that the members of the Twelve have put together for a very specific reason, and it makes the entire situation a hundred times worse.
I share a look with Ash but he’s just looking fucking livid. Fuck.
How the hell do I fix this?
Avery leans over Blaise to speak to the guy, her voice that icy tone that strikes fear into anyone with half a brain. “We’re here to pick someone up. As if we’d want to attend a party in the slums and catch some Mounty disease.”
Fuck me.
The guy’s lip curls, but Avery already has her phone to her ear. “We’re here but the guy at the gate won’t let us through.”
She pauses for a second and then hands the phone over to the guy. He snarls, “Listen here, kid, we don’t let extra in after the open hour. Now you need to tell these little rich fucks to get on out of here—”
His spine snaps straight so fast I think he might’ve fucking shit himself.
What the fuck?
He fumbles over his words like they’re burning him on the way out. “Sorry. I didn’t know they were with you. If they had’ve just said I would’ve—“