he's so smug I want to break his teeth.
Before I get the chance to pick a fight with him, Lips wriggles back out and drags a safe with her. Avery does her gimme hands at it, and Lips lets out one of her dry chuckles. “I'm not sure I can trust you with these, Beaumont.”
Avery bites her lips and stares at the metal box with the type of lusty eyes no brother wants to see. “I solemnly swear I'm up to no good.”
Lips scoffs, “Nerd,” and opens the safe, pulling out a velvet box and handing it to Avery.
To my absolute horror, Avery moans as she cracks the lid, and I immediately want to forget this day is happening. Everyone gets a laugh at my expense but seriously, what the fuck could be in there and getting that reaction out of her? “Sex toys? You can't fit a pair of Louboutins in a box that small and I can’t think of anything else that gets Floss that excited.”
“Better. So much better. Diamonds!” Avery squeals and then she starts pawing through them, the tinkling sound is definitely the sound of multiple rocks knocking together.
I’m so fucking confused right now.
Harley’s eyebrows shoot up and damn near disappear into his hairline as he looks over Avery’s shoulder at the stash. “How many of them do you have?”
Lips shrugs like this is nothing. “I'm good at what I do and I'm stockpiling so we can get clear of our shit after graduation.”
Avery rolls one of the diamonds in her fingers, practically panting, and Harley clears his throat at her so she quits her shit. “Put them back, Floss. Make Morrison buy you one for your birthday.”
Blaise is just as fucking dumbfounded as I am at what’s happening here to snap out a comeback, but Avery pouts as she carefully packs the diamonds back into the safe. “I don't want boring old diamonds. I want priceless, blood-soaked, favor diamonds.”
I decide I’m done waiting. “Someone needs to start explaining what the hell is going on.”
Avery pouts as she watches Lips bury the safe in her duffle bag and cover it with her clothes so it's obscured and nestled nicely, but she answers me, “The Twelve trade each other favors in times of need. Diamonds are used as a physical representation of the favors and Lips has dozens of them. Dozens!”
That explains exactly fucking nothing. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds just hiding under her bed for… what exactly? “Why? Why not use them and become rich? Why come to school here and put up with us?”
Lips shrugs, looking entirely uncomfortable with this line of inquiry. “I nearly died for most of those. I’ve only ever used two favors and that was for situations that were life threatening. I won’t use them for less than that.”
She says it like it’s not the fucking worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life. She’s going back there to the Bay to work over the summer break, what if a job does finally kill her? Fuck.
Fuck.
Lips steps over to her bed to check her phone, and Avery starts directing us all to help haul her boxes around. I remind her again that she needs to pack less shit next year because there’s no way she needs this much stuff.
I have my back to everyone, pulling boxes of kitchenware out of cupboards for Avery when there’s a crashing sound and Harley and Avery both start talking at once.
“Lips, what—“
“Fuck, babe—“
I spin around and dash back over to them at the same time as Blaise, one of Avery’s boxes of shoes still in his hands from where he was moving crap for her.
Lips’ face is as white as paper as she sinks down onto her bed, the panic etched into every line of her body, and I’m about to lose my shit when finally she speaks.
“The Jackal is here. He’s picking us up.”
It doesn’t matter that she runs us through the protocol fifty times before we walk down the staircase to meet the Jackal, I fucking hate this plan.
Avery catches my hand in hers and gives it a squeeze as we stalk down the hall like prisoners to the executioner block. “We have to trust her. She knows what she’s doing.”
I get that, but I also hate it.
I hate it even more when we find Joey waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs, the junkie in him obviously so in tune with his dealer that he felt the Jackal’s presence