Page 80 of Family (Academy of Misfits 3)

“Don’t you get it, Camden? Pink is going to die because Carmichael is going to run like the fucking coward he is. Crown will return soon, and I’ll have no information to give him, sending you and Eastern on a one-way ticket back to prison. Oh, wait, but not before the King decides to kill us all first! I think all of that tops the fucking mountainous shit of hell we’ve all been through combined,” I yell back. We’re both panting now and like the sand being washed away by the waves, I feel like my grip on everything is running through my fingers. How can I hold this all together when I can’t even keep myself intact?

Camden grits his jaw, nodding. “There she is. There’s my girl,” he responds, meeting my gaze as relief floods his features. “I need you to be strong, Asia. Don’t fucking break. Please don’t fucking break.”

“Camden…” I plead, because inside my heart does break. For him. For me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, using that word again. That word that is meaningless when all is said and done.

And just like that, his shoulders sag and a hand comes up to cover his face. “I thought you were going to leave me too,” he says, his voice crumbling, cracking, the crevice I saw opening yesterday widening.

Dropping Eastern’s hand I go to him, pulling Camden into my arms realising something fundamental as I hold his trembling body in my arms. I’m not going anywhere. “It was a mistake, a moment of weakness. I swear to you all, I’m not leaving,” I add fiercely, gripping hold of Camden as tightly as he’s holding onto me. “Not now, not ever.”

“I know that Asia, weknowthat,” Eastern says, stepping up behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist. He presses his forehead into the crook of my neck and lets out a long shaky sigh. Sonny and Ford, silent all this time, seem to come around and step close too. Sonny blinks back his shock and wraps his arm around Camden’s and Eastern’s back on one side whilst Ford flanks the other. They both dip their heads low, hugging us all. We stay like this for a couple of minutes, not saying a word but saying so much. We’re no longer five lonely, distrusting people. Now we’re a team, a family, one worth fighting for, even if that means fighting the monsters we harbour within ourselves just as much as the ones without.

* * *

Back in my room,with clean, dry clothes on, I sit on my bed still reeling. Surrounding me are my boys and Kate. Everyone is up to speed with the latest news and we’ve gathered together to try and take back some control, to cement our plan.

“Carmichael is leaving tomorrow, so we have to act fast,” Ford says, breaking the silence. “It’s time we made our move.”

“What are you suggesting we do?” Sonny asks, pacing up and down. Of the four boys, he’s wearing his agitation on his sleeve. When I glance over at him, he gives me a tight smile and I know that he’s finding it hard not to question me about what I almost did. How could we go from making love, our bodies giving true promises to one another one minute and me almost drowning myself the next? I don’t have the answers, but I do know that shame still lingers in every pore.

Ford exchanges a look with Camden, a determined set to his jaw. “During dinner tonight Camden and I are going to start a fight. We’re going to draw everyone’s attention away whilst Sonny steals a laptop for Kate.”

“Okay, and where do I come in?” Eastern asks. “Because I sure as fuck ain’t going to sit out the chance to lay one on Bram or one of his goons.”

“I need you to deal with those arseholes in the spy room. I don’t give a shit what you do, but I need their eyes off the cameras. We can handle the rest,” Camden chimes in.

Spy room? Are we on the set of Mission Impossible now? I almost laugh, then realise that thisismission fucking impossible. Are we really going to be able to pull this off? Then I remember who we are: wily fuckers for the most partanddetermined. Failure isn’t an option.

“Okay, I can do that,” Eastern agrees.

“Good. Once Sonny’s got the laptop, Kate can do her magic,” Ford continues, giving her a tiny smile. She grins back, nodding.

“What do you need?” she asks.

“All the cameras out, the floodlights to the sports field off and the back gate into the grounds unlocked. The guards do their rounds on the hour every hour. But between two and two-fifteen am they change shifts. We’ll have about fifteen minutes to get the hell out of dodge.”

“What then?” I ask. “Even if we manage to get out of the grounds, we’re on foot. It won’t take them long to pick us up.”

“I have transportation arranged,” Ford says, flashing me a look.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Grim is on the same wavelength as us. She’s sending a car,” Ford explains. He glances at Camden, there’s more to this than either are letting on right now.

Sonny stops pacing. “She is? And what about the Freed brothers, dotheyknow she’s helping?”

Ford shakes his head. “When she heard about Camden’s mum, she lost her shit. Grim came to see us at the hotel last night whilst Burnside was distracted chatting to Carmichael on the phone. She might be a friend of Hudson’s, but she understands our world better than anyone, been immersed in it for a lot longer. She understands what’s at stake. So, no, she hasn’t told them. We can trust her.”

“Fuck!” Sonny grinds out.

“Look, Sonny, I know how you feel about your foster family but there’s no way in hell they’d allow us to do this. There’s no time left. We have to act now, or Pink is dead, and I know you don’t want Asia killing Carmichael any more than I do,” Camden grinds out, glancing at me. “Keeping her soul intact is important to me.”

“To all of us,” Ford adds.

Sonny holds his hands out, shaking them like he’s trying to expend some of that restless energy. I watch in fascination as his fingers curl into fists and stretch out again.

“Let me get this straight,” he says, looking pointedly at Camden. “You and Ford start a fight at dinner tonight whilst Eastern distracts the security team so that I can steal the laptop, then later Kate shuts down the cameras and we make our escape on foot before getting picked up in a car provided by Grim, yes?”

“That’s about the gist of it, yeah,” Camden confirms.

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