Reign of Brayshaw (Brayshaw High 3)

Bass gets in my face. “Get the fuck out of this room, Raven. Now,” he growls, but worry swims in his eyes.

“I say what goes on here!” I shout, making a mockery of myself. A wetness coats my cheeks – blood or tears, I don’t fucking know. “Not you!”

“You’re right. Still, we need to leave.”

“I won’t leave him here.”

“There is a man shot and a woman dead. We have to get you out before someone comes knocking.”

“That is Captain bleeding out on the fucking floor! I leave, and he dies?!” I bark, ignoring the throbbing it creates at my temples. “Alone beside that piece of shit?! Fuck you!” I shove at him. “I’m going to the hospital with him!”

Bass curses and before I know what he’s doing he has me spun around, my back to his front, my arms and stomach smashed against the wall. He covers my mouth and plugs my nose, suffocating me.

“Stop fidgeting, it’ll hurt your wounds,” he says, tightening his hold.

I’m weak, but I claw at his arms.

His chest expands against my back. “I have to get you out of here, Raven. You are priority. Don’t worry,” he whispers softly as my body starts to sway. “They’re coming for him.”

They – he didn’t call the ambulance.

He called his brothers.

Fuck!

Everything goes black.My eyes open, my vision blurry at first, but it only takes a second for it to clear.

Bass Bishop comes into view.

The tautness of his features tells me he’s unsure of his next move.

Good.

“Captain,” I rasp.

“In surgery.” He eyes me, and I don’t have to ask. “Royce is on his way to get you.”

Not Maddoc.

I close my eyes again, giving a small nod.

This is all my fault. A little girl almost lost her dad today because of me. Everyone will have questions. They’ll ask me why she was there, what she said, and what followed. Questions that will lead to more questions, most of those being ones I have no answers for.

She spoke in riddles that were lost on me, acted like she was doing me a favor by walking in there with a gun and attempting to take a life, then following up with trying to take mine.

I could have stolen the gun from her hands when Bass distracted her, but she doesn’t like to fail, especially if it’s against me. She’d have tried again, and again, like the pathetic woman she was, she’d have caught me when my back was turned.

Things were too far gone at that point – my move was the only one I could afford. I have a lot to process, but one thing was crystal clear – she thought he was Graven, a true Graven, and wanted him dead.

Why?

I look back to Bass. “Tell Royce you’ll bring me.”

“I don’t think—”

“You’re not here to think, Bass.” I glare.

His eyes narrow, but he doesn’t argue, only looks away with a nod. “You should wash your face, might cause a riot looking like that.”

Shit.

I drag myself to a sitting position, wincing as the pounding hits harder.

Bass points to a bottle of Tylenol and cup of water sitting beside me, so I take it and drag myself into the bathroom.

He somehow got me to another hotel, got Captain to a hospital, and, I have no doubt, got my mom’s body off the floor.

I stare at myself in the mirror.

There’s blood matted in my hair, my face is fucked and bruised, the corner of my eye swollen, a blood vessel seemed to have popped, but I can see fine and I feel nothing.

I strip and step into the shower, letting the water wash away what it can. I gingerly massage my hair, staring at the rosy water as it spins into the drain. The hotel provided soap is hardly enough to get rid of the grime, but it works good enough. All signs of my mother are now running down the sewer where it belongs.

When I step from the shower, I pull the shirt and sweats that magically appeared on the counter over me and look in the mirror again.

You killed your own mother.

Shouldn’t you cry, or hurt, or mourn?

Shouldn’t you feel anything other than the sour taste of relief?

I killed my mother.

Bass walks in, patting the countertop, so I turn and lean against it.

With a frown, he pours peroxide on a cotton ball and taps it against my face. When I don’t react, he presses a little harder, moving to the next, wider cut.

“Does it sting?”

“Not enough.”

He freezes, dropping his hand as he glares at me. “You saved him.”

“You saved him.”

Bass shakes his head and moves back to working on me. “All I did was walk in, and too late. I should have been there to stop her from getting that close. You were with them, so I stepped into a room to take a call.” He shakes his head. “You were all gone when I stepped out.”