Page 14 of Not Her Day to Die (Star-Crossed #2)

W edged between the two brothers, I flip to my back.

My attention shifts to the lone window in the room, of the stars that fill it.

I have been tossing and turning for hours.

We are back in my bed now, the threads wrapping around us, but there is one more that is tugging me away from this bed entirely.

Darius’s.

“Sunday,” Axel groans. “Go to sleep. You’re finally back home.”

Except I’m not, Darius isn’t here. I am in the bedroom they gifted me when I first moved into their house–their mother’s.

Their mother.

My parents.

“I heard my parents when I was coming in and out.” At least I think I did.

“You did,” Grayson agrees, his voice is ladened in sleep and I feel guilty at waking him.

For keeping them both from much needed rest.

Before I can ask the question, Grayson continues, “You know this town. You know the Thorne’s own it.

They have blackmail on nearly everyone in it.

And if they can’t find it on their own? They fabricate it.

Your parents are no different. They were given travel contracts and told to leave town.

They advised they weren’t to make contact with you.

They tried to come see you at the hospital, but it wasn’t safe for them to stay until you woke up. ”

Rolling towards Grayson, I nuzzle into his bare chest, his arms bring me closer to him, his chin resting on the top of my head. His heart a quiet comforting rhythm.

A moment later, Axel is flipping and cuddling me from behind, his head moving to nestle into my neck.

“I’m going to be the bait. We’re going to get Darius back,” I murmur softly.

But I know they both hear me. They both grunt in disagreement. Axel louder than Grayson.

“Axel.” It’s easier to say this with my head buried in Grayson’s chest, where I don’t have to look at him.

“Darius doesn’t have anyone else that can help him.

And it’s my fault that he’s there in the first place.

You both said it yourself, my near death was witnessed by millions.

The Thornes know that if I mysteriously disappear there will be a public outcry.

Even with their story of how the night unfolded. ”

Earlier Grayson had returned my phone, and when I turned it on, I had an influx of messages from Veronica…but nothing from Carrie. The worry sits heavy across my skin. Another reason to find Darius. To take down the Thornes.

After searching through my messages it wasn’t hard to locate the video Darius made. It was slapped with all sorts of titles, put on all the main media sources. His quick thinking was probably the only reason we all escaped as unscathed as possible.

The gunshot to my shoulder had taken time to heal, but now it was just a dull throb I could ignore.

Untangling myself from the brothers, I get up and walk to where I have Auggie’s giraffe stuffed animal hidden, in a box just inside the closet. Retrieving it, I maneuver back into the bed between them, sitting cross-legged.

“That’s Auggie’s.” Grayson watches in curiosity.

Without delay I unzip it and empty the contents onto my lap.

Axel laughs sarcastically. “Of course, that’s where you kept it hidden. The one place we wouldn’t dare look. One hundred lifetimes and it was in the fucking giraffe the entire time.”

He and Grayson are sitting up now, still observing me.

“How did Auggie get this?” I ask. Because it was in his room , behind his desk. Hidden in a spot he didn’t tell anyone about.

Grayson picks up the polaroid, his eyebrows furrow together, and he rolls his lips in anger. “You know what happened to Carrie.”

I nod.

“He suspected she wasn’t the only one. But after Axel’s sentencing they let it go. For a while at least.” Grayson drops the photo, picking up the phone next.

Where the photo didn’t have any threads attached to it, there is a bright shimmer when he touches the phone. It is a different color than I’ve seen. It’s pure white.

“The lights, the threads I’m seeing. There’s one that’s attached to that phone.” I decide it’s best if we all know as much as we can.

At this point keeping anything from them would be a mistake, just as it always was. I just didn’t have the wherewithal to realize it before.

“Interesting,” Grayson says, and he means it. He continues examining it. “The charger isn’t something we have.”

“You’ve never seen these items?” I ask.

“No,” Axel confirms. “You would always sneak and find them and then hide them before we could. We just know they existed because Auggie told us they did. A phone and a picture. Damming proof.” Axel rakes his fingers through his tousled hair.

“But if they took the pictures, why didn’t they stop it? Why couldn’t they keep the girls from being assaulted.”

Grayson drops the phone in shock. “Sunday, they did.”

“What?”

“Right after this picture was taken, Tripp and Auggie jumped from the closet to pulverize Maxwell into a bloody pulp, and they managed it. But then the next day Axel was shanked. Left for dead in his cell. We guessed they kept him alive if only to continue to keep the boys in check. To remind them how far the Thorne’s influence extends.

” Grayson reaches a hand up to cup my face, the rough pad of his thumb stroking my lips.

“Tripp and Auggie took the other pictures not knowing what it meant. They just wanted to see if the others were up to anything nefarious. Unfortunately, they didn’t know until too late that Julia was a victim in this too. ”

“Tiffany?” She was the third girl in the pictures on the phone. The one William drugged.

“For what we have found, she was brought into their organization very shortly after,” Axel confirms.

“If–” I organize my thoughts. “If they knew investigating further would get Axel killed. Why did they do it?”

“For me.” Axel snorts sardonically. “Tripp’s goddamn guilty conscience weighed him down too heavily.

He knew I was in jail because of him and no matter how much I told him it was okay, he didn’t believe me.

I just wanted my brother to live out a normal life, at least as normal as he could in this town.

But he was stubborn. Just like Auggie was.

Just like you are. All of you on a mission no matter what. ”

It sounds like the truth…except not all of it, and I don’t quite believe him.

There’s more to it than that, but before I can demand a better ex planation, Axel’s fingers find their way into my curls, tangling further into the mess.

He jerks me out of Grayson’s hold until I am looking up at him upside down.

He slams his lips to mine. This angle is different, his bottom lip on my top. It’s easier to bite down on his.

He growls, but then Grayson is swatting him away.

“Stay focused,” Grayson admonishes.

“So what did they do?” I ask breathlessly.

“They went to the goddamn FBI.” Axel jumps up from the bed. I can feel his anger, the tension that has formed. He kissed me to calm himself, but without the outlet his emotions are bubbling to the surface. “Nobody would listen to him. Until Agent Franz found the file. Saw her lost daughter.”

“Then why wouldn’t the FBI listen if her daughter was taken?”

“Because her daughter wasn’t even missing in their minds.

There was evidence she had gone on a trip out of the country.

That she was just living her best college life.

That she was a part of an exchange program.

” Axel sneers. “The Thornes know how to cover their tracks. They have been doing this for years. Decades and decades.”

I swallow down the bile that has threatened to come up.

Acidic and fermented.

The thought of countless victims.

I was born and raised in a town built on the suffering of others.

“Then what?” I ask.

“Then Agent Franz , offered the brothers a deal they couldn’t refuse,” Grayson murmurs, his arms wrapping around me.

I can tell, in this moment, he needs me. That this is harder for both the brothers than either expected .

My arms reach around him, squeezing him to me, my fingers stroking his back.

“What was it?” I’m not sure I want to know.

“That if they could secure more evidence, find where her daughter was, they would reduce my sentence,” Axel answers. Except, again, I can feel it isn’t the whole truth, but I don’t push him. Not yet.

I contain the well of emotions that attempts to bubble up as his words sink in and understanding slaps me across the face. “She used two teenage boys to find her daughter. Threw them into the lion’s den. She got them both killed.”

Axel’s outburst in the hospital makes more sense now. How he blames her for everything that has ever happened.

She is the reason Auggie and Tripp are dead.

But no.

Even still, I can’t blame her.

“Who ran them off the road?”

“Mark and Maxwell. We found out with certainty about the thirtieth go round. They used Maxwell’s car, and then just replaced his vehicle with the exact make and model, but his crushed vehicle is in the sheriff’s garage too.

Sometimes you stumbled on it, sometimes you didn’t. ” Grayson strokes my hair.

“Axel, we need to finish this. Once and for all. Maybe that’s why I was meant to live. Maybe fate is trying to help me wrap up what they started.”

Axel stomps back to the bed, he ignores Grayson entirely bending until his face is inches from mine. “Or maybe you deserve to live. To not get caught up in the mess that you had no right being a part of.”

Except that isn’t true and we both know it. “If Auggie and Tripp didn’t do anything when they first found out. If they let it rest for as long as they did. What changed? What could have happened that would make them go to the FBI?”

Neither Grayson nor Axel speaks. In fact, they both freeze entirely.

Axel’s half-truths swirl in my mind and then it strikes all at once.

An instance of clarity.

“It was me.” I know it with certainty. “They were protecting me .” Maxwell’s threat makes more sense now.

No more big brother to keep her safe

It takes several heavy minutes before Grayson answers. “They were. They knew you were garnering interest. They knew that even if you escaped this town, its evil would follow.”

“Then even more reason to stop everything once and for all.”

Axel opens his mouth to argue, but I level him with my meanest glare.

“Darius is your brother. He is our family. You two are going to come up with some half-cocked scheme without me, just let me help. Use my temporary fame to our advantage and besides that…” Embarrassment shoots through me, but I continue on, “I know how to find him.” The third purple glimmering thread is leading straight through the far wall.

I want more than anything to chase it down, right here and now. But I know better.

“Yes, he’s with the Thornes. We know where he is too.” Axel narrows his eyes, clenching his jaw in frustration.

“Yes and no. The lights? The threads I’m seeing?

There’s three that won’t go away.” I keep my focus firmly above both the men.

“They’re purple, and they’re attaching us.

There’s one between Grayson and me. One between Axel and me.

And there’s a third…it leads to the Thorne’s.

I know.” I swallow thickly. “I know with certainty that it will take me directly to Darius. ”

Axel doesn’t respond, I can see the understanding as it washes across his face. The comprehension that arguing with me on this is pointless. He isn’t going to win this fight. And he knows it. He clenches his hands into tight fists.

“Darius knew what he was doing, and he did it to protect you. If you die Sunday. If anything happens to you. I hope you understand what it will mean. We may still be alive, but you are our soul. You will ruin us.” Axel spins on his heel, away from us.

“Call her. Call the fucking agent , but mark my words when this goes sideways, and it will go sideways, don’t expect me to play by the rules. ” Axel slams the door shut behind him.

Grayson doesn’t say anything, he just unwraps from me. For a horrible second, I expect him to run from me too, but then he is offering me a hand. “Come on, Sunday, let’s go onto the roof. I’ll bring a blanket, we can watch the stars tonight.”

“You’re not going to leave too?”

“Axel isn’t going anywhere. He’s probably just outside the door, but he needs to calm down. He knows you’re right. Knows we need you to save Darius. But he hates it. We both do. But unfortunately we’re used to having to make impossible choices.”

Accepting his answer, I take Grayson’s hand and let him lead us up to the roof.