Page 19 of Deadly Ruck
I swallowed down a heavy ball of grief and let them lead me to a back room as the weight of everything that happened tonight started to settle on my shoulders.
Chapter Eight
Chelsea
Atlas and Jayfollowed us in before the door was closed and locked behind us.
"What the hell?" Dallas finally found his voice. "I should fuck both of you up."
His face was almost white with fury he'd kept suppressed until now. He took half a step away from me and stood facing them, hands in fists in front of him.
Atlas scoffed. "You killed one person in self-defence and we found you, curled up in a ball on the floor, remember?"
"I was not curled up in a fucking ball," Dallas snarled. "I was slowly processing it. I won't need to take that time with either of you."
Jay held his hands up in front of himself. "Bro, we didn't do anything." He glanced sidelong at Atlas before correcting himself. "Ididn't do anything."
Atlas frowned at him, but it was Dallas who spoke first.
"Don't call me bro, asshole. You turned your back on Chelsea. On all of us. You pretended you gave a shit about us and you were working for that prick the entire time." He gestured vaguely towards the door.
"I wasn't," Jay said in a small voice.
All of our eyes turned to Atlas.
He looked back at us. One eyebrow twitched. He scratched his ear. Glanced at the wall. Looked back at us.
"You don't have anything to say for yourself?" Dallas demanded. A moment later, what Atlas was trying to convey sank in.
The walls have ears. Of course, someone would be listening to everything we were saying. What did that mean though?
Was he really on our side? I wanted to believe he was. Desperately.
"It's been a long night," Atlas said finally. "Why don't we all get some rest?”
I didn't want to turn my back on him, so I half-turned and took in the rest of the room.
A large bed sat in the middle, between two windows. Under one was our bags, which must have been brought in ahead of us.
To the side of the room was a door that led into a bathroom.
Like the kitchen and living area, everything here was light in colour and looked new. The duvet cover on the bed even had creases where it had been removed from a box and placed on the bed. The pillowcases had the same creases.
"At least it's clean," Jay said.
"As prisons go, I've seen worse," I said.
None of us were chained to the wall. Yet.
"Get some rest," Atlas said again. "I'll keep watch."
Was he saying that because he wanted to watch out for us, or because he knew none of us wanted to lie next to him right now? Did I really give a shit?
I was starting to think I could still trust Jay. The three of us were more than a match for Atlas if we decided to deal with him ourselves. Although it would take one shout from him to call the minions into the room, so it would do us little good to try.
Just in case, I checked the windows. Both were locked and the panes too small to crawl through, even if we broke the glass.
With a sigh, because I knew I'd get nowhere without any rest, I kicked off my shoes and lay down on the side of the bed. Dallas gave Jay a long look before lying down in the middle, keeping himself between us. He put his arm over me and held me to him. For once, making no move to fuck me.
