Tiny Dark Deeds: Chapter 13

Dorian

I shouldn’t have gone to Sloane’s place. I mean, there wasn’t a point.

It wasn’t like she was there.

The house my grandfather had purchased for her had been searched many times. The authorities had combed it, and it had remained a high priority sight for a while. It was the most suspected place she would go if she was out on her own and needed a place to lie low. She wasn’t there, and that’d been ruled out pretty early.

Even still, I cruised toward that area, in my own car today. Dad had actually given me back my keys after that meeting with my grandfather.

He said he trusted me.

I didn’t even have to go anywhere with Ronald anymore, but I did have rules. If I went anywhere, my folks had to know about it, and I had told them I was swinging past Sloane’s today on my way home from school. I’d told them I just wanted to drive by and take a look.

Of course, my father stressed that the area had been searched. My mom too. I knew what they were telling me, and I knew what I knew myself.

My chest felt all locked up rolling through the hills, anxious and tight every inch I traveled. I mean, what was the point in finding Sloane if she didn’t want to be found?

What was the point in loving her if she didn’t love me?

I hurt everywhere, heavy and weighted. If I did find her today, I didn’t know what I’d do. I didn’t know if I’d yell or fucking kiss her, fuck her raw until she cried out and bled for me. Until she bled for what she’d done.

And continued to do by being gone.

I ached and was beyond pissed about it. I was ravaged by obsession, warped by pain, and I think the only thing keeping me on this path to actually check her house and not hit up my father’s liquor cabinet was because I kept thinking about that last email I’d sent her. I wouldn’t send her any more, but I couldn’t forget the topics. All this was bigger than me, and I had to find her for my family.

Even if she didn’t want me.

I drove slow on purpose, and that was for my safety more than anything. I was sober as shit, but I was so fucking in my head I worried I’d wrap my ride around a goddamn tree. Because of that, I rolled along real slow, but reacted quickly when Sloane’s gate opened.

I recognized the car coming out of it.

Myself and my friends had the newest rides at our school. With the exception of Bruno Sloane coming to Windsor Prep recently, we did have the newest, so saying I knew the Audi coming out of the gate was an understatement.

Thatcher had his arm out of his car, immediately turning right and the opposite direction away from me. His engine charged the air as he peeled off, and I shifted gears after him.

What the fuck?

My friend hadn’t told me or anyone else he’d be coming through here today, and by that I meant he hadn’t told us, his boys. Of course, my friends all knew Sloane might still be in town. They did with the exception of Wolf.

I hadn’t known how to break it to him yet that his sister was a lot freaking closer than we thought. That she was but still wasn’t surfacing. I actually planned to explain it all tonight, and Wells and Thatcher had agreed to be there as emotional support when I’d texted them.

What the hell?

Thatcher obviously hadn’t seen me here today. He’d peeled out of that bitch quickly, and I nearly lost him when I drove after him. Thatcher tended to like to drive fast, so that wasn’t surprising, but the rate he was burning those tires was even unusual for him.

I kept an eye on him as he rolled through town, and I couldn’t really keep up since he was going so fast. We had a few cars’ distance between us at all times.

Me: Hey. Where you at?

I tossed my phone on my seat after texting him, able to see him ahead but not clearly in traffic. We had about a block and several cars between us now.

Thatcher: At home, why?

The fuck?

I started to text him again, but the light changed, and I needed to keep him in my sight. I left the phone on the seat and decided to keep chasing. He had no reason to be lying right now to me, and instinct had told me when I initially saw him, he might be trying to check the house out like me. He might have just wanted to help by combing the place for Noa and thought he was or something.

That was starting to not feel like the right conclusion as I continued to tail him, and when I eventually did get closer, I stayed back. If he was lying, he was lying for a reason.

I stayed vigilant, giving us a couple blocks’ radius when cars became few and far between. My buddy appeared to be keeping his focus on speed because he charged the fuck through town all the way to the last place I thought he would.

He ended up at Windsor House.

Windsor House was headquarters to the Court, but needless to say, none of my friends or myself had been going there for meetings or to hang the fuck out. We’d all been busy. Busy with everything and trying to help one of our own keep his shit together. We’d been trying to help Wolf, and that didn’t involve sneaking over to Windsor House when one of us claimed to be at home.

But that was exactly where Thatcher went, keying in his entry code before the iron gates let him in. I stayed back, watching him before I too did the same. There wasn’t a lot of traffic coming and going out of the place since there were no meetings or anything today.

The property had pretty much been a ghost town. I mean, half the town was looking for Sloane and helping the Mallicks. Most people were downtown at the capital, or at least the most powerful were. We all looked out for our own around here, and power usually lined the walls of Windsor House.

Today, the widespread property usually packed with guys and girls playing Frisbee and just chilling out was empty. I followed Thatcher mostly by sight from there, but I assumed he’d be parking in the garages. I remained back to let him do that, then parked behind the building. I got out in enough time to see him going into the clubhouse with something large on his back.

A bag.

It was nice and thick, but I couldn’t see inside it. The door closed behind him, and I waited a beat before following.

There were a couple of dudes in front of the fireplace once I sprinted inside, others around and playing chess, but no Thatch.

“Where’s Thatch?” I barked, and backs immediately straightened, eyes wide. I hadn’t been here in weeks. “He came through here.”

I saw him, and right away several fingers pointed toward his route.

“What’s up, Dorian?” a guy asked me, but I ignored him, following my buddy’s trail. I didn’t see Thatcher until I hit one of the halls.

He was picking something up.

A paintbrush… one sole brush with a long handle and thick bristles. He was getting it, and I stopped, tucking myself around a corner. Peering out, I caught him looking around the hall.

He panned the area for a second before stuffing the brush inside his bag, and at this point, I didn’t let him get a wide berth from me.

I stayed on his fucking ass.

Thatcher took the stairs, ending up on floor six in the end. This place had so many fucking rooms and corridors, and it was easy to get lost in this bitch. I had a time or two when I’d been a kid. This old castle was even older than the home I grew up in. It had hardwood floors that creaked like a bitch, and I followed every one of Thatcher’s creaking steps.

I followed him right up to a door.

I let him go inside that door, hanging back again. My hands flexed, my fists knuckling, but I waited each of the seconds it took my buddy to come out of that room. These were all bedrooms up here, places where Court members could stay. The Court often had events and out-of-town members and their families typically made use of the rooms when they came back for whatever the society had going on that day.

The room Thatcher went into should be empty, though. Most of the rooms up on this level were. There were newer rooms, better ones, that were refurbished on the lower floors.

Perhaps he knew that.

I held my breath but did wait until he came out of there. He had no bag once he did, rubbing his hands on his ripped jeans. He tossed fingers through his hair before he shifted on his Chucks away from that door.

He ran into me.

We physically collided, my friend a huge-ass motherfucker, but I caught him by surprise. He hadn’t expected to see me standing there, and because of that, I held the upper hand.

He was the one to stumble back, his head darting up, and the dude puffed the fuck up. He had his fists raised like he was going to hit something, hit me. One of my best friends was jumpy today, and that was obvious.

“Dorian.” Slowly those fists lowered, his face red, body still charged to hell. He was breathing like he’d run a mile and his driving held consistent to that. He pocketed his hands. “Hey, what’s—”

I shoved around him, his hand coming to my arm. He physically tugged me, and I shoved enough force into him to send him across the hallway.

Again, my friend was frazzled. He held size over me and a technique on the field that shouldn’t have thrown his footing for shit. Thatcher Reed was panicked for some reason.

And I was starting to see why.

I didn’t want to see it, think it. But when I charged toward that door again, he got in my way.

“Dorian, no.” He had his movements together this time, a quick hand on my chest and his body in front of mine. “Wait. Just—”

“I saw you, fucker.” I threw his hands off me, then darted a finger at him. “I was on my way to her house and saw you leaving.”

His eyes flashed, his hands high.

“I stayed on your ass,” I said, getting closer. “I saw you come here, and I saw you drop a fucking paintbrush.”

His hands remained steady in front of me, like he was dealing with an animal instead of his friend.

He wasn’t far off.

Thatcher wet his lips, but he wasn’t speaking fast enough. “Let’s talk downstairs.”

He had to be joking, right? I closed distance, and he put hands on me again.

He got my arms. “Please. Just let’s talk first.”

“Get the fuck out of my way.”

“I will, buddy. But I need to talk to you first.” He faced the door behind him, his expression tight when he came back. “You just gotta understand something first, okay?”

There was nothing okay about this. In fact, this appeared to be the deepest betrayal I think I’d ever felt. It came from him, my brother and one of my best friends.

My head shook, slow. “You need to get out of my way, Thatcher.” I was giving him one more chance, one more before I broke each and every one of his fucking limbs.

Friendship be damned.

He was damning our friendship right now, and I couldn’t even describe what he was doing to his friendship with Wolf. This was betrayal in its purest form if he had going on what I thought he had going on behind him.

Behind that door.

He’d had a paintbrush. He had been at her house, and when he’d gone in that room, he’d come out with none of it. My friend wasn’t a fucking painter.

Let alone painting with what was most definitely her stuff.

Thatcher raised another hand to me, and this time, I got him by it. Working him around, I slammed his fucking body against the wall until his face touched it. Framed art fell and crashed at our feet, glass exploding as I pressed Thatcher’s face into wallpaper. He didn’t plead or call out despite how close I was to forcing his joint out of the socket.

“Dorian—”

“Shut the fuck up.” We weren’t talking. There were no words he could say, and I was so close to breaking my friend’s arm.

I would have had the door not opened.

The sight of another surprised me enough not to damage my buddy’s throwing arm, but it wasn’t the someone I expected to see. Bare feet hit old oak floors, and when Bruno Sloane pulled me off my asshole of a friend, I couldn’t have been more surprised.

“Dorian, what the fuck?” Bru shot, checking Thatcher, and the dude was in his motherfucking bed clothes. He had lounge pants and a Windsor Prep T-shirt on. All of it was too big, and I was pretty freaking sure both belonged to my buddy who was currently working his arm. Bru looked up from Thatcher. “Have you lost your mind?”

I hadn’t.

But I was about to.

I forced both of them out of the way and went into that room. If Bruno Sloane was here, his sister wasn’t far behind.

His sister…

She was that to him. That’d never leave, and no one expected it to. Least of all me. I understood that love and care for someone who wasn’t necessarily biologically related to you.

She wasn’t here.

The room was empty, bed messy and food boxes on it. There was also a game controller there too. It’d been left idle, and the television said game over on the screen above the fireplace. Someone was clearly living in here, staying here.

I headed toward the next room.

Some of these older rooms had connected suites and were typically only used when the nicer ones downstairs were filled. My buddies and I (like a lot of the Court) stayed at Windsor House quite often. Sometimes, a guy or girl just didn’t feel like going fucking home, like I typically didn’t after ragers when I was high off my ass and didn’t want to run into my parents.

I charged into the hallway that connected the rooms, faintly hearing words called to me. I was pretty sure they were Bruno’s and Thatcher’s, but I didn’t fucking care.

“She’s not here,” I heard Bru say as I hit the other end of the hall. I threw open the door, and my heart fucking stopped.

It was the easel.

It had a step stool in front of it and paints at the feet of it. The whole setup was positioned to face the balcony, but the doors were closed, and the shades were drawn.

That hadn’t stopped the person from painting though, her from painting. The easel held a canvas that had a partial rendering of Windsor House’s back gardens on it, pastel colors.

Soft.

I stared at it, and a peek through the curtains definitely let me know those back gardens could be seen from this room.

This was her.

I picked it up, and the bag Thatcher brought had been left by the easel. It was unopened, and the bed in the room was made. In fact, everything in this room was pristine unlike the last. There was no trash or anything, but she’d been here.

I could smell her.

Her light aroma suffocated this room, drowning me, and the painting’s existence only proved the point. I put it down the same time steps hit the room behind me, and when I whipped around, both Bru and Thatcher were fighting their way into the room.

“I told you she’s not here,” Bru stated, breathy as shit. I must have been going pretty fast, and Bruno had obviously not been on the field in a while. “I called her. She’s not coming back.”

“The fuck do you mean?” I crossed the room in two, maybe three strides.

Bru hit the wall on the fourth.

I pinned him to it, and I had to give it to the kid.

He put off he wasn’t scared.

On the football field, I often saw fear, and more than my fair share, when others came across me or any of my boys in the halls at school. People knew Legacy could do anything we wanted, take anything. Fucking with us wasn’t a good idea.

And Bruno Sloane was fucking with me.

“Dorian.” Thatcher’s warning came from my side, but I noticed he didn’t act. He stayed in place. He had no right to intercede here.

I mean, he was obviously a part of whatever this was.

“I heard you guys fighting,” Bru said, and though he blinked, his voice didn’t waver. The dude was scared, for sure, but he wasn’t openly trying to let me see it. “You and Thatcher. I heard you fighting, and I called her. She walks the city to get air sometimes, the back roads, and wears a hoodie. Anyway, I called her with one of our burner phones, and she’s not coming back if she knows you’re here.” He shook his head. “She won’t. I know her.”

My mouth dried, air physically sucked out of the room, my chest. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t she?”

Bru eyed Thatch, and I noticed my friend put his hand on my shoulder. He was cautious, just like outside.

“Let him go, Dorian,” Thatch said. “Please.”

I did let him go, but I didn’t give Bru space. “You’re saying she’s hiding out.” I paused, my voice tight, thick. “You’re both hiding out, and she left because of me?”

“Nah, man. I’m not saying that.” Bru fixed his shirt. Dude was fucking swimming in it, and it had to be Thatcher’s. Bru tugged it down. “But I do know all of this is a lot for my fucking sister, so if she decided she needed a break, I was going to give her that. Be with her.”

A break…

My chest touched Bru’s, my hand raised slow. “You know how many people are suffering for that break?”

“Dorian—”

“Shut the fuck up, Thatch,” I shot, sneering at him. I’d deal with him fucking later. I jabbed a finger in Bru’s chest. “Your sister’s actions have consequences and have hurt some of the people I care about the most. People I’d fucking die for.”

“Well, I’d die for her,” he said, making me blink. He nodded. “And I’ve spent too much time in this town trying to please you and your friends instead of sticking up for my sister, and that’s something I’m not doing again.”

“You’re going to call her.” I bared my teeth. “You call her back and make her come back.”

“She won’t.” His arms moved over his chest. “She’ll know you told me to.”

Because apparently, she didn’t want to see me, and I didn’t care what he said about that earlier bullshit. She didn’t want to see me and ran right after my grandfather told her the truth. Sure, my grandpa had been lying to her too, but not like I had. He’d taken care of her, always.

And I hadn’t.

I’d lied to her, and who knew what she believed about the details of those lies. For all she knew, I could have been lying to her the whole time about her identity just like my grandpa. I mean, she knew at least Wolf knew. She found all that shit at his house, and if he knew about the details surrounding her identity…

That typically would mean I knew as well.

That thing was happening again. Where I couldn’t breathe and was fucking suffocating. Pulling out my phone, I left the room, and Thatcher was hot on my heels. He gripped my arm. “Dorian?”

I worked his hand off me, shooting a finger in his face. “How could you? Do this to me? Do this to Wolf!” I got him by his shirt again, scanning his eyes. “Why would you do this to us?”

My voice broke, my body heavy. I was shaking to fucking hell, but I wouldn’t let him go. The impulse to kill charged my veins, but the rage channeled to mostly myself. She might not have run at all if not for me.

“D.” Thatcher swallowed, his face red again. My buddy kept blinking, his hands cuffing my wrists. “I was afraid of what she’d do. That she’d skip town and then none of us would know where she was. She said she only needed a few days. Just some time to—”

“Time to what, Thatch? She’s been gone for well past that, and you fucking knew about it!”

I’d lost count of the days she’d been gone, more than a week but less than a month. Either way, it was more than a few fucking days.

Thatcher cringed. “I know.”

“How the hell did this happen?” I asked, and Thatcher laced his fingers over his head.

“She came to Bow for help.”

“Bow?” I stepped back, and Thatcher nodded.

“That first day she went missing,” he said, his shoulders sagging. “The day all of us were out real late at the Mallicks? Anyway, when I eventually came back home, I ran into her and Bru creeping outside my house. They were waiting for Bow. They wanted her help, but I saw them first before they could find her.”

What?

“Sloane said they both just needed a place to crash for a few days. She said she just needed some time,” Thatcher stated, my heart racing. He’d said that shit at the lunch table that day, that she’d needed time. His Adam’s apple flicked. “It was only supposed to be for a few days, and she said she just needed time to clear her head. I got them set up. Food and shit and put them up here.”

And in rooms no one had checked. Windsor House had been searched, of course, but clearly, not as thoroughly as it should have. Maybe the police hadn’t felt the need. Only Court had access to the place and Court affiliation usually meant loyalty.

I couldn’t look at my friend, backing away. “You kept this shit from me, Wolf, his parents, and the families…”

“I had to, D. You didn’t see her that first day. She—” He wet his lips. “She looked fucking broken, and I care about her too.”

I blinked, and Thatcher’s fingers tightened over his head, dark hair gripped under his knuckles.

“Of course, I do, man. She’s one of us, and even outside of that, I’ve always been cool with her. She needed help, pleaded with me. She’s Wolf’s sister, bro, and it was better for one of us to know where she was and help her than to let her go off on her own and to who knew where. If I’d have blown the whistle on her, she would have gone running. Point blank. She already did.”

“Did Wells know?” I asked, and he grabbed his arms.

“He does, but only recently,” he stated, frowning. I stiffened, and he raised a hand. “We mixed up phones yesterday at practice. He saw my thread with her and freaked.” He shook his head. “Hasn’t talked to me since then.”

Because he was pissed, understandably so, and had I seen him after showers, I probably would have noticed.

“Don’t be mad at him. He told me I had to tell you guys by the end of the week, or he was doing it himself.” Thatcher cringed. “I was going to but gave Sloane an ultimatum first. She needed to stop with all the cloak and dagger shit because I wasn’t doing it anymore. I gave her the time she asked for, and she agreed. She seemed fucking receptive, and I thought she was going to say something and end this shit.”

But she didn’t. She hadn’t.

And she left anyway.

That was on him, and though I’d done a lot of things… fucked up pretty much everything in my world, one thing I wouldn’t have done was what he had. I tapped a name on my contacts, then pressed my phone to my ear.

Thatcher’s mouth parted. “Who are you calling?”

“Wolf,” I said, and he shouldn’t be surprised. “And doing what you should have done in the first place.”

Thatcher said nothing, the phone ringing in my ear. It went to voicemail, and I cursed. Wolf had been painting a lot and probably couldn’t even hear his phone with all that music he played.

I tried again and this time walked away from Thatch. I’d go to Wolf if he didn’t answer.

“I couldn’t rat her out, Dorian,” Thatcher said behind me, and when I turned, he cringed. “She couldn’t leave again, and you know that. We both know what it would have done to Wolf, yes, but…” His hands threaded above his head once more. “I know what it would have done to you too.”

I had no words for him because, in that moment, I heard Wolf’s voice on the line. He asked me what was up, saying my name, and after facing away from Thatcher, I answered him. I answered him and told him what I needed to say. I told him the truth and was somehow able to speak it.

Even after Thatcher spoke mine.