Page 7

Chapter 6

Hawk

H awk watched as Silas kissed Ashmine.

He expected to feel outraged, maybe jealous, but not the crippling apprehension that settled into his gut instead.

She was smaller than he remembered, her cheeks hollowed, her eyes sunken in.

He wanted to be happy that she was miserable, that she was in pain.

Fuck. This is harder than I thought it would be.

Hawk grunted as he lifted her boyfriend and dragged him along the hardwood floor to the recliner, shoving him down aggressively.

Silas came to help Hawk tie the dead weight to the chair.

When they were all done with Ashmine, once she was dead, once they had all satisfied their own revenge, they agreed to dispose of him too.

Hawk shook his head from side to side, jostling out the sympathy that threatened to take hold.

He reminded himself of why it had come to this.

Why she needed to die.

***

Ashmine was graduating in less than two months. He was afraid she was going to try to leave and go off to college, but she had reassured him that she wouldn’t be going anywhere.

That her place in life was here. With them all.

“One day I want us to buy a plot of land and just live off of it all together. None of us ever leave, we will all just have each other.” Ashmine reached out, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tightly. The puzzle pieces on their wrists clinked together.

Hawk had never taken the bracelet off since the day Ashmine had gifted it to him.

They laid in a clearing not far from the cabin they all currently shared. William had died a few months prior, but he had left everything he owned to Silas and Hawk.

Dozens of acres, all of his cabins, and more money than they had ever seen in their lives.

“What’s wrong with what we have now?”

“It isn’t ours.” Letting go of him, Ashmine rolled over, her dark crimson hair sweeping in the breeze.

“Is anything truly ours?” he murmured, shutting his eyes and falling back. His hair dampened by the morning dew.

“We are each other’s.”

Hawk didn’t say anything. He wanted more than anything to believe her words. To believe Ashmine meant something more than she did.

But no one had ever truly loved Hawk. No one had ever not left him. It kept him up at night; he expected to one day wake up and everyone to be gone.

It had happened time and time before.

Even now that Ashmine had been with him for over four years, he didn’t believe she was a permanent fixation.

Silas spouted they were all family, but Hawk didn’t agree.

Why can’t I just be happy?

Ashmine’s head settled on his chest and his hands reached up on their own to stroke her hair.

She was constantly changing the color of it, but he didn’t care. She was beautiful in every shade.

“Hawk, I’m not going anywhere,” she advised, the words muffled by his shirt. “I love you.”

“Like a brother,” he chuckled hoarsely before clearing his throat.

He always ended up speaking too much with Ashmine.

Growing up, he had been taught that he was too stupid to speak. That the words he said weren’t worth much of anything and so he had slowly stopped communicating altogether.

When he met Silas, he hadn’t spoken in over a year. It had taken time to relearn how to pronounce each word.

He had managed, but now he just preferred to remain in silence.

Except when it came to her.

“Hawk, I’m going to show you how much you are mine. And when all is said and done you can decide if my body is lying.”

Hawk wasn’t sure exactly what she meant until her hand found its way inside his pants. The cool tips of her smooth fingers tracing a line up and down his length.

His eyes shot open, she was watching him. Regarding his expressions carefully.

“I don’t think of you as a brother. Let me prove that to you.”

She did prove it to him, and only a few months later she left him, but not before destroying the rest of his found family.

His worst fears coming to fruition.

***

“You can take the masks off, I know who you are.” Ashmine’s steady voice cut through Hawk’s reminiscing.

For a while he had been broken, sad, alone. He had allowed his grief and depression to consume him.

But no longer.

Now he permitted rage to carry him through his days. The need for revenge. To show her how exactly it felt to be abandoned and hurt by those you cared about most.

All traces of sympathy washed away as vines of agony squeezed around his heart.

Hawk had nothing left to lose. He didn’t care if they were caught for this crime.

“You two leave. You promised I could be first,” Ace grunted.

The words wobbled as they circulated the room before Hawk truly heard them. He turned away from the man that was now secured to the recliner and took in the sight before him.

Ashmine was strapped to the operation table, Ace standing over her, a knife in his hand.

Except…something didn’t feel right.

“Leave her alive until we have our fill too,” Silas commanded before grabbing Hawk by the wrist and dragging him outside.