Page 51 of Crooked Crows (Boys of Briar Hall 1)

I relaxed, rolling my taut shoulders back and cracking my neck. Grinning to myself in the solitude of four metal walls.

No girl had ever refused me, and I’d never backed down from a challenge. I wasn’t going to force Ava Jade into Corvus’ agreement. I would have her eating out of my palm without the need for forced coercion. It would just take some time, and time I had, since she’d made it very clear she wasn’t going anywhere.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I dug it out, seeing a message there from Corv.

Corvus: Cafeteria.

I snorted. Knowing now that she had her talons in him just as deeply as she had them in me. We rarely ate in the cafeteria, preferring to take the Rover out to the Crow’s Nest or get takeout instead. Since Ava Jade showed her pretty face on the streets of Thorn Valley, we’d only missed a single school-provided meal. Not the coincidence I originally thought it was.

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Or the fact that Rook clearly wanted to take a literal bite out of her, too.

I didn’t feel the samethingtoward my brothers, as I did Josh, but Corvus... He’d always been possessive. If he decided she belonged to him, there would be no room for negotiation. Unless...unless...

Oh.Oh.This would be good.

I found my brothers in our usual spot, set near the back of the cafeteria, in the only spot that afforded us an unobstructed view of the entire room. I nodded to them before going for the food. I snatched a tray from between two queuing students and skipped ahead of the line to grab what I wanted, not really paying attention to thewhatas much as making sure I had enough to fill the unfillable void that was my stomach.

Rook tipped the contents of a flask into his glass of OJ, securing himself a scowl from Mrs. June, who seemed to be on cafeteria duty for the day. She didn’t say anything, though, and she wouldn’t. He’d been working her since our first day at BH. If Diesel St. Crow wasn’t enough for the majority of the teachers and staff to turn a blind eye to us, Rook had the VP herself by her married little cunt.

A word from him could ruin her career and her marriage now. He had tapes of them. Several. They liked to fuck in the mornings in the rarely used chapel. He had one of Jesus’ eyes carved out and replaced with a micro camera. It had to be some sort of blasphemy, but if there was a hell, we were all headed there anyway.

I fell into my seat opposite Corv and dug into my food, considering how best to broach the topic.

Rook rubbed a coin between his thumb and index finger, rolling it through his knuckles and flicking it to spin atop the round table. He was oddly pensive as he sipped his boozy afternoon drink.

I followed his line of sight to where she sat with Rebecca Hart. Honestly, she was about the only other girl at this school who wasn’t a vapid, self-absorbed debutante. I’d be glad they were friends, if it weren’t for the fact that Rebecca Hart woulddefinitelybe smart enough to warn Ava Jade away from us instead of goading her toward us, like the majority of the others bitches here would.

Ava Jadeinhaledher lunch. Putting Becca’s small bowl of low-sodium soup to shame with a tower of finger sandwiches and a bowl of fruit that I wonder if she knew was meant to be scooped from, not taken in its entirety to her table.

Was she left alone as a child?

Had she gone hungry?

Was she forced to fend for herself?

My stomach audibly rumbled, prodding me to pick up the next in a row of sandwiches on my own plate and take a large bite.

There was a time when a sandwich the size of the one in my hand right now would have looked like a feast to my 8-year-old eyes. When all there was were crumbs to be found beneath kitchen cabinets and mom had been gone for two weeks.

She came back sometimes. But the guilt of seeing me, rail-thin, gaunt, and starving always drove her away again.

I didn’t only starve for food. I starved for her. For human connection. To not be left alone in the house out in the country with only my dead stepfather’s library for company.

If a teacher from my school hadn’t come by the house to check up on me after the phone was disconnected, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I was almost gone. At the point of organ failure.

Literally starved to death.

My stomach turned now, remembering that pain. Theache. The eventual nothingness that followed.

Stop it.

I gave my head a shake, coming back to the present. Deciding there was no better way to do this than to just give it a shot. I set down the sub sandwich dripping tomato juice down my wrist and swallowed the tasteless lump in my throat before speaking.

“I have a proposition.”

Rook’s glass halted an inch from his lips. He raised a brow, setting the glass back down.

Corvus cocked his head at me, trying to read the words I hadn’t yet spoken in my stare.

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