Page 64 of Damaged & Deadly

“Beck? As in, your childhood friend, Beck?”

“The one and only,” the man laughs lightly. It’s actually nice to hear his laughter. Everything has been so melancholy and quiet recently, all of us burdened by the events of the last few days and everyone walking on eggshells, unsure how to react around Evie. “I hope you don’t mind me coming?” he questions, focusing back on Cain and Oliver.

“Not at all, man. It’s good to see you.” Cain gives him a quick bro hug, and so does Oliver. “Did you bring the whole gang?”

“Nah, just Hadley. Figured it would be too much for all of us to show up unannounced, but Hadley wanted to come in case she could be of any help. You know…” He trails off with a shrug, everyone seemingly able to fill in the blanks, but I’m stuck on one word.

“Hadley?”

Beck waves for someone to come in while Cain explains, “His girlfriend.”

I remember Oliver saying about Beck being in a reverse harem relationship and how Cain helped rescue his girl from the same compound as the kids. A prickle of awareness tickles the back of my neck seconds before a tall blonde walks in.

“Hadley?” I gasp, not sure if my eyes are deceiving me.

“Red?” A surprised laugh falls from her lips as her eyes roam over me.

“Holy crap, it’s really you.” I rake my eyes over her, noting that she looks healthier than the last time I saw her, and she’s got a happy glow about her that I’ve never seen before. However, it’s her face that has changed the most. There are laugh lines around her mouth where there weren’t any before, and her eyes shine with so much life. Knowing she’s alive and happy and all in one piece, I force a scowl on my features. “What the hell?! I thought you had died or something!”

She grimaces, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. “Uhh, yeah, sorry about that.”

“Hold up,” Beck interrupts, his eyes darting back and forth between us. “You two know each other?”

Cain and Oliver are sporting the same confused looks, but Hadley and I just grin at one another.

“Yeah, Red’s the one who got me my new identity.”

“And in exchange, she taught me how to fight.”

All three men look between us in surprise, but when I glance at Beck, I find him staring at me, gratitude swimming in his green depths. It stalls the air in my lungs. I have no idea why he’d feel that way. The paperwork I got for Hadley was nothing. Growing up on the streets, you meet all sorts of people.

One spring, Luc and I were holed up in an abandoned building. When we were sleeping rough, I always tried to get us as high off the street as possible. It meant less noise and less chance of someone stumbling across us. However, there had been a keypad on the door to the top floor, and no matter how hard I’d tried, I couldn’t get past it. It piqued my curiosity, though, and I kept a vigilant eye. It took weeks, and I’d practically given up hope of ever working out what was in there, when the door finally opened and this figure dressed all in black, with a hood pulled low over his head, emerged.

Of course, I’d ensured, once opened, that the door wouldn’t catch, so after he disappeared, I snuck into the room. Color me surprised when I saw the tech setup he had going on. There were servers and screens everywhere. I don’t know what half of it was, but it was apparent he was some sort of hacker, computer genius, or whatever.

I’d made sure I was long gone before he returned, and Luc and I never slept in that building again. A couple of months later, I had enough cash to get us into our apartment, and I’d never thought anything of it again until I received a call on my burner phone one day. I have no idea how he got my number, but he knew my name and where I lived and made it crystal clear what would happen if I dared step inside his personal fortress again.

I took heed of his warning for several months, until I decided to approach him about getting a new identity for Hadley. I knew it was a risk, but even while the man had been threatening me, I didn’t get a bad vibe from him. He just liked his privacy, and I can totally relate to that. He hadn’t been too happy to see me, but Hadley was offering a lot of money for the job, so he quickly got over it, did what he needed to, and I never saw him again after that.

The five of us move into the kitchen, and the topic moves back to Evie while Oliver goes about making coffee for everyone.

“I still can’t believe she’s alive, man,” Beck says, shaking his head.

“Yeah, you and me both,” Cain states as Oliver sets mugs down in front of us all before claiming a free chair. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t sit in the open one beside me but the one diagonally across the table, as far away from me as he can get. It hurts, but I push it down, focusing on the conversation instead.

Cain fills Beck in on how we found her and his concerns. Apparently, Beck is a school counselor, so although he has no direct experience in dealing with situations like this, he has a few valuable ideas.

“We should leave the four of you to catch up,” Hadley says when we hear Evie moving around upstairs. “Too many people might overwhelm her, and it will be good for all of you to spend time with her together. Besides, Red and I have some catching up to do ourselves.”

I agree, and Hadley and I make a hasty retreat from the house before Evie can make it downstairs. I grab my leather jacket and two helmets before we exit, and when Hadley spots them, a grin lights up her face. “Hell, yes!”

I laugh and toss her the helmet before the two of us climb onto Raven. Hadley wraps her arms around my middle, and I rev the engine loudly before shooting off down the road, laughing as I listen to her hoots and yells as I push the bike faster.

I zip in and out of traffic, taking us on a random course all over the city. With every mile that passes, tension bleeds out of me until I feel lighter than I have in days. Weeks, even.

Eventually, I direct the bike toward the abandoned docks where Hadley and I used to meet, and soon the briny sea air washes over us, and the old cobblestones make the bike bounce as I slow to a crawl.

“Just like old times,” Hadley says when she climbs off the bike and looks up at the abandoned warehouse. Leaving our helmets on the bike—people rarely come down to this part of the dock, especially during the day—we walk over to the ladder at the side of the building that goes all the way to the roof and begin to climb.

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