Quiet Ones (Hellbent Book 3), page 21
Everyone will. Buying Lucas’s mother’s house would’ve been better. I tossed the idea around for about a minute that night when I talked to him at the gym. It’s a short walk to the bakery, and it’s still in the Falls, close to everyone.
But as I look down the street, at the empty porches and no traffic—no Trents or Caruthers—I finally feel like I’m on my own. Even more than I did when I started Frosted.
About ten steps lead up to my new front door, two floors rising above that. A huge house with more bedrooms than I need, but…
Plenty of room to grow.
“01 Knock Hill.” Elisabeth stands at my side. “The neighborhood—what’s left of it—will be curious about you. As I understand it, the house is part of some local lore.”
I’m locked on the attic window, always most fascinated with the high rooms as if things are more secret up there.
What she says finally clicks, and I turn to her. “What?”
“I just wanted to repeat my warning,” she points out. “Some consider the house a landmark of sorts. They might not be entirely welcoming to someone else taking possession of it. You understand?”
I catch movement next door, seeing Farrow and some other guy standing in front of the side window, facing me and pinching each other’s nipples.
I snort and turn away, trying to cover it with a cough.
“I’m not worried,” I choke out.
I’ve got a powerful friend close who will give me his endorsement.
Ms. Doucet fondles the stud in her ear before ushering me up the stairs. “Let’s take another look before I leave you to your new home.”
Lucas
Farrow’s motorcycle rumbles in her driveway, and I stand in the kitchen, frozen like my feet have sprouted roots into her floor.
Make her stay. It’s quiet here, just how she likes. It could be just the two of us without any overbearing older brothers or parents or curious eyes. We could make dinner and watch a movie, but…
I listen to her speed away, closing my eyes with my heart in my fucking stomach, because all I could think about with her in the room was her naked on my bed last night. I can’t get the images out of my head and how much I loved finding out she dreams of me. Can I be her friend now? Can I trust myself to be alone with her?
Fuck.
She’ll be moving soon. I’ll be close, but not too close. I need to keep myself under control, so she trusts me again. I don’t want her latching on to Noah or Farrow because they have rides.
My house was paid for in cash. Does Quinn really have access to that much money? Without a loan?
Then she can damn well afford a vehicle of her own. Two guys she barely knows, and who won’t be there the rest of her life, aren’t an excuse to put off the inevitable.
And…they’re not going to give her something for nothing.
The next morning, I step into Fallon’s workshop, a former chimney service business in a black brick house, far off the road with ivy climbing the wall on the right side of the door. The creak of the screen door sounds like it’s from the fifties, and Quinn immediately enters my thoughts again. She probably insisted Fallon keep the rusted, aluminum door because it’s louder than a doorbell, but better because anyone just entering your place doesn’t mean strangers. She would say it means friends, and the sound would make us smile.
Or something weird like that. Everything makes Quinn feel, and so much of how she associates with the world is rooted in memory. Of which, I’m a part.
I want to laugh with her again. So badly. And I want Madoc and Fallon and everyone else back in my life. As my love of Dubai starts to sink to the back of my brain, and the Falls takes its place, I know that what I gave up here wasn’t worth any price.
“Who’s there?” Fallon calls out.
I round a glass partition adorned with plants and enter a large room with multiple desks, drafting tables, and a seating area in the corner. Emerald green subway tiles adorn the walls, and I look up, seeing a small conference room through the glass walls upstairs.
Fallon is the only one here. Madoc said she often mentored college students and took in interns, but for the most part, there was no staff. Just her small passion projects. Technically, she’s on an extended leave from the company we both work for, which simply means she can have her job back any time. I think the kids and Madoc’s building political aspirations were the excuse she was looking for to have some creative freedom again.
She stands in the middle of the room, a VR headset on as she swipes her hands to move through whatever world she’s in.
I chuckle quietly as I pull it off her head. “What’s this?”
She spins around, startled. “Lucas.”
I pull the headset on over my own eyes. A neighborhood spans before me, and I turn, taking in the new world.
“Madoc mentioned you stayed,” she says, trying to sound nonchalant when I know she just wants to grill me. “How long?”
“For a bit,” I muse, quickly changing the subject. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Oh.” I can tell she’s smiling by her tone. “It’s my marketing plan. You know I hate to type.”
She puts her gloves on me, and I wave my hands through the air to move the graphics and proceed to the next street. We learned how to design models on a computer, but this really would be a selling point. Being able to put a client into the future to see their skyscraper or home—explore the interiors—before it’s even built? Incredible.
But as I move around, past businesses and down streets, familiar landmarks show up. Jared’s shop, the gym, the statue of the sleeping fox that sits on a bench in front the tree at the middle school…
“Is this…” I turn in a circle, zoning in on other structures and accents I don’t recognize. “Shelburne Falls?”
“Yeah.”
But the streets aren’t the same. Some of the structures are new, variances in others. “I don’t…” I pause, realization dawning. “Oh, I see it.” My gaze flits from one thing to the other as I swipe my hands and move the image, taking me from High Street to Fall Away Lane and back to the downtown to City Hall, the police station, and Rivertown Bar and Grill. Windows are bigger, overhangs extended. “Passive solar designs,” I say. “Green roofs, rainwater harvesting, the outdoor green spaces…”
This image shows a renovated Shelburne Falls for energy efficiency.
“Walking and bike-friendly streets,” she adds.
I look down at the road, seeing that there is a bike lane added.
“The Falls is expanding at a higher rate,” I hear her say as I continue to explore. “And now the talk of a train for commuters to and from Chicago…”
I nod, understanding. “Madoc’s worried about urbanization. Would that necessarily be a bad thing, though?”
“It doesn’t have to be,” she concedes. “More people means more jobs and businesses. As long as it’s not a McDonald’s.”
I let out a laugh, removing the headset and handing it to her. “Fallon, the old-timers are never going to agree to this.”
“And I would never try to convince them. You know I hate to talk.”
She and Madoc prove the old saying that opposites attract. Madoc thrives in a crowd. Fallon detests anything but her small circle. I’m not her kid. But I could’ve been with the way I take after her.
She sets the VR headset down. “You change people by showing them, not telling them. We start renovating our houses next year.”
Renovating…
“You mean…the whole family?”
She nods once.
I can’t help but smirk a little. “Jared’s never going to agree to that.”
“Jared doesn’t like to upset his wife even more.”
True.
I drift a little, taking in her workshop with its open spaces and a place upstairs to meet with potential clients. All their houses, huh? Fallon’s, Juliet’s, and Tate’s. It’s a huge challenge to take on, and it makes me love them even more. That they embrace possibility and lead by example.
“Quinn will love the bike lanes,” I tell her.
“She’s who I thought of.” Fallon grins. “She’s always heard music that no one else does, and no matter how much her brothers get on her case about a car, I’m going to help her hold out for as long as possible.”
I drop my eyes, feeling guilty. Quinn needs more Fallons around her.
“It’s cool.” I point to the headset. “I’ll have to take that idea back to Dubai with me.”
Clients would be able to really see my vision.
“But I am still partial to your old school models,” I say. “I used to love staring at them—wishing I lived inside them.”
“Well, don’t forget your old school model.”
She tips her chin up the stairs to the landing. Following her gaze, I spot a few tables, before you get to the conference room, and I can just make out miniatures of homes, office buildings, and other constructions.
My model? And then it occurs to me. The ski resort I used to think I was going to build someday.
I hit her with a bemused look. “You don’t still have it.”
She beams.
Shaking my head, I can’t resist. I jog up the stairs and find it immediately, sitting on a table, the wood and paint and trees a little dusty, but otherwise in the same condition as when I left them.
I study it with more experienced eyes, seeing that the scale is way off. Chalets far too close to the slopes, not nearly enough dining options, and where’s the spa? There has to be one.
And for some reason, I thought every skier would be expert level, because I don’t see a single green or blue run.
“Well, thank God it was never built!” I shout out to her downstairs. “I think this design would’ve killed every skier on the mountain!”
I stare at it, hearing her voice. “The only flaw in a dream is if you never begin.”
She walks off, back to work, and I gaze at my first model, remembering how I used to picture myself walking through it someday. This was made back when everything was in front of me.
I remove my jacket, loosen my tie, and start pulling apart the model to start over.
Hours later, and I’m finally leaving the workshop. I can’t stop the feeling that I’m floating. When was the last time I lost hours like that, caught up in working on something that didn’t feel like work?
Fallon still has stuff to do, taking advantage that Hunter, Kade, and A.J. are busy at the summer camp all week. I climb in Jared’s Boss, the summer breeze filling my lungs in a way they haven’t felt filled in a long fucking time.
I’ll be back tomorrow.
I slip the key into the ignition, the engine rumbling to life so loudly that I don’t register the doors opening. In a moment, someone sits in the passenger seat. Another person behind me cocks a gun at my head.
I freeze; the nozzle of a pistol pressed into my skull as cologne fills the car. I glance at Fallon’s workshop door. Don’t come outside.
“You weren’t a problem for years,” the guy in the seat next to me says with a slight accent.
Hugo Navarre.
Head of Green Street. Reeves’ successor. Farrow Kelly’s boss. It can’t be anyone else.
I glance in the rearview mirror at the other guy, but all I catch is his shoulder-length, light brown hair.
“Not because you were banished,” he points out. “But because you wanted to leave.”
I lock my jaw together, one hand on the wheel and one still on the key.
“You know why you wanted to go?” he continues, elbow propped up on the door as he sits back, fully relaxed. “You couldn’t stand your ugly soul and the place where you grew into it. That’s the difference between doing bad things in order to eat and doing bad things because you’re a fucking coward.”
I draw in a long breath through my nose, grinding the wheel in my fist.
He leans in. “Now I permitted you entry out of respect to take care of some family business,” he tells me, “but it doesn’t look like you’re leaving, and if Reeves has to hide, then so do you.”
Bullshit. He doesn’t want Reeves back. He likes being boss.
Just like he enjoys putting that tattoo on the people close to Madoc. How long before Farrow gets it on Quinn? Or on Hunter or Dylan?
Closing the distance, he nearly breathes on me as he whispers, “I could hide you tonight. Forever.” His voice turns sinister. “Unless there’s a reason you’re still here. I could hide her too.”
I whip around, backhanding the kid behind me, his pistol dropping to the ground as I grab the collar of Hugo Navarre’s leather jacket.
I glare into his brown eyes, a shade darker than Quinn’s as his pal retrieves his gun and points it back at me.
“You permitted me entry?” I growl. “Permitted me?”
Who the fuck does he think he is? Reeves got me cornered all those years ago because I was a threat, and that hasn’t changed. He has no idea if I’ve told the people close to me everything that happened. He’s not going to do shit.
Hugo’s eyes gleam, but he doesn’t fight back as I press him into the door, squeezing his collar in my fists.
“Don’t cross the river again,” I bite out. “And don’t concern yourself because I own the building you squat in, and I know you do a hell of a lot more than is necessary to eat.”
Yeah, I ran. I was twenty-five years old, scared, and ashamed, but nothing I did was for food. I would’ve rather starved.
Navarre grins. “You forget…I have nothing to lose.”
“And no one to mourn your disappearance,” I retort.
Anyone who missed him would simply sweep in to take his place.
“You won’t hurt me,” he says. “You’re going to try to stop me.”
“Why would I do that?” I narrow my eyes, feigning ignorance. “You’ll come after me.”
He laughs, but I don’t mistake the shaky breaths. “Because Reeves was scared of you.”
He wasn’t scared of me. He was sick of me.
“And there’s only one way to come after you really,” Hugo goes on. “I have to find the body.”
I hold back the shudder that quakes through my chest.
“Out in the forest, right?” he continues. “Somewhere around the train tunnel, I’d heard.”
The train tunnel. The synapses in my brain fire, memories crystallizing.
A wall.
Stone. Yes…
I force my voice to stay flat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But he just laughs. “Luckily, you and Reeves are the only ones who know exactly where it is.”
He opens the door, and I don’t stop him as he turns and climbs out. The long-haired guy in the back follows him, tucking his pistol into the back of his jeans.
“For now anyway,” Hugo calls out and peeks his head back in to look at me. “The Caruthers are having the land out there surveyed for trails and a park ranger station. They probably won’t stumble over it.” He grins. “But they might.”
And he slams the door, both of them walking away.
Heat climbs the back of my neck. I watch them go in my rearview mirror and then glance to the door of Fallon’s shop, making sure she didn’t see anything.
There may very well be no tracing the body to me, but even so, it would still reflect badly on the town. Especially its mayor and his association with me.
Why didn’t I just face it the night it happened?
But I know the answer before I exhale another breath. Because Drew threatened Madoc, and I was in too much pain to come clean so we could deal with it together.
Hugo was right. I was ashamed, scared, and a coward.
I was never a man.
Kids coasted down one of Weston’s steepest streets, tumbling and laughing as they tried out my old snowboards in the fresh snow.
“Use your feet!” I yelled. “Press your toes to go left, heels to go right!”
They straight-lined, and I winced, predicting the crash before it happened. Some kid named Wyatt collided with Jorge, both flailing onto the powder that covered the broken street underneath.
It wasn’t likely any of these kids could afford a lift ticket, so what the hell. Let them learn to ski anyway.
I held my breath, seeing them both dead on the ground, but then…Jorge started rolling over and Wyatt climbed to his feet. They both threw snow at each other.
Locking my boot in, I cruised down the hill, the club the only thing lit up on the corner with people standing outside like it was a summer night and we were cooking burgers.
I mean, we were cooking burgers, but…
Drew hopped down from his truck, two police officers following him up the snow-covered sidewalk in the otherwise empty downtown.
Why were the police here?
I didn’t see Lance zoom in and cut me off. We both hit the ground, my hand sinking through the snow and grating against the pavement.
“Asshole,” I chuckled.
He just smiled, whipping a dusting of snow at me.
The kids ran and played, a few parents stood about, and it had been a productive year, making what renovations on the clubhouse that we could afford. We were here every chance we got. We ripped up the floor, sealed the cement underneath, repaired and painted walls, fixed the roof, did a little plumbing, and I installed smart locks and cameras. The address above the door read 8 Green Street. So that was what we started calling it. We paid kids a few bucks to do chores, and we had a makeshift bar others sat at and drank, but we didn’t have a liquor license. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but there were no cops here.
Until now.
“What the fuck is he doing?” I mumbled to my friend, watching Drew lead the cops inside.
“He thinks he’s a gangster,” he joked.
Nudging me in the chest, he climbed to his feet, and I did the same, removing my board. We headed down the hill to the club, stepping inside the dark building, couches and TVs spread out where fire engines used to be parked.
Walking to the back of the station, Lance fell in behind me, but I stopped just outside the door to the back room.
“And you can guarantee this supply every week for the rest of the year?” Drew asked one of the cops.
