Lawless Kingdom (Reign & Ruin 1)

Okay, so that wasn’t cryptic or anything. The second part at least. I’d never thought she and Dax were doing anything that would result in both of their demise. Audrey just wasn’t that type of girl. I know they say you can never really know someone, but when it came to my best friend, I knew her as well as I knew myself.

As for whatever the hell she meant by a house that sat by itself, I was clueless. I had never lived on her side of town.

My family wasn’t low class or poor, but we sure as shit weren’t whatever these people were classified as either.

With squinted eyes I surveyed our surroundings more carefully, as if the house I was searching for would make an appearance from that action alone. I sat up a little taller when Audrey passed a No Outlet sign that seemed to be split off from the rest of the neighborhood she was driving through.

It was like entering another realm altogether. The bushy green lawns were replaced with tall trees secured behind a large iron fence, all neatly trimmed but with an eeriness to them.

They didn’t seem to have grown here naturally. It was as if someone had purposely planted them to keep prying eyes from seeing whatever was on the other side of them.

“Are you sure there’s a house…?” I trailed off when my question was answered by a gap in the tree-line.

A set of rounded gates was wide open, granting access to a winding stretch of tarmac lined with tiny bushes.

“Uh. Do you know where this goes? I’m not partial to random car rides through the woods.”

“No. I thought I’d just drive this way for the fun of it,” she replied, her tone flat. “And this isn’t even close to being considered the woods.”

“Oh, well in that case…” I rolled my hand to indicate she could continue. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see who lived back here.

She turned off and slowly drove up the driveway. As we got closer, XXXTentacion’s ‘Royalty’ resounded through the air, a heavy bass pounding beneath it.

With my gaze trained straight ahead, I spotted one pair of taillights right behind another. I’m sure they were all nice cars, but my full focus was on the gloriously large house sitting a few yards away. It didn’t have a shape I could easily put into words. The roof was slanted this way and that to fit the odd architecture of the home’s design.

“Before we go inside…The thing is,” Audrey began, pulling her car up beside a sleek BMW, “Dax didn’t want you or me here tonight. When I told you he would meet up with us it was to see if we showed or not.”

“What? Why wouldn’t he want us to come?”

“I don’t know, but that’s why we did. I would have rather gone bowling or something.”

I rubbed my brow, contemplating why he’d want to keep me and Audrey away. “Why are you just now telling me this?”

“Because he didn’t know I was coming for sure or that I was bringing you with me.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m hoping we have the element of surprise, since you didn’t call and cuss him out.”

She had me there. If there was one thing about me, it was that I tended to charge into things guns-blazing when I was pissed off. It was a terrible personality trait for the most part, although occasionally it came in handy. Sadly, logic would always win out over rash, though. Always.

I tuned back into what Audrey was saying, since she apparently wasn’t done yet.

“I think Dax adores you. But on the off chance he’s in here doing fuck boy things, I’ll hold him down while you rip his balls off.”

I wouldn’t be going for his balls. I’d be tearing his head off his goddamn shoulders. I’d give him the benefit of the doubt first, though.

He deserved that, even if the logical side of my brain and the tightening in my gut were screaming at me that something wasn’t right. I needed to stop this line of thinking before I made a mountain out of what could be a mole hill, which called for a change of topic.

“So, whose house is this?”

Audrey hit the button on her dash to cut the engine and unclipped her seatbelt.

“The Barrons’.”

I did a double take, looking from the monstrous stone structure to her. She’d said that so causally. I was immediately suspicious because she wasn’t freaking out like she should’ve been, but then a giant fucking grin spread across her face.

“That’s the real reason you wanted to come,” I laughed.

“Well, it is a bonus. They’re only the most prominent, most talked about people in Crudele.’”

“Ah, yes. The saintly, all-American golden family who can do no wrong.” I rolled my eyes so hard I was surprised they didn’t pop out of their sockets.