Page 60 of Crooked Crows (Boys of Briar Hall 1)

“You think I should’ve?”

“Hell yes, you should’ve. I’d takesit down and shut upover possible jail time any day of the week and twice on Sundays. Never mind that your refusal means that you get to keep them as your enemies, too.”

Heat licked up my neck, making my body shudder. “I’m not like that. I can’t just...”

“Fuck. You’re right.” Becca huffed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re right. It’s not my call to make. I just don’t want to see you run out of here or worse, you know?”

I didn’t know, but I was trying really hard to accept the fact that someone, a friend, did actually want me here. A smile beat back the frustrated heat still trying to find a toehold in my veins.

“I know. Don’t worry, Becks. I’ll handle it.”

I always handle it.

“Taurus,” she said suddenly, her eyes widening before a sour look took hold. “No, wait, that’s not it, either.”

“My birthday’s in—”

“No,” she interrupted, her mug clattering back down onto the counter as she reached over and slapped a palm over my lips before I could finish. “Don’t tell me. I got this.”

I laughed against her hand, and she pulled back, chewing her bottom lip as she considered me.

“Good luck with that,” I muttered, finishing off my coffee. “While you stew over it, can I have another latte?”

I went into homeroom expecting to have to deal with the Crows, knowing it was likely they would try to corner me after class was through again, but...that didn’t happen.

As I walked in, a full two minutes before the second bell, I found only a lone Crow there waiting for me. Grey met my gaze as I entered the room, tipping his head in greeting.

“Morning, AJ,” he whispered as I slid into my seat and I turned to give him a warning scowl before settling in for the day’s lecture. He said nothing else to me through the entirety of first period.

And then the following day, it was only Rook. He didn’t speak a word to me, though I could feel his hard gaze on the back of my neck. Could hear thechinkof metal as he spun his lip ring with his teeth.

Thursday it was only Corvus, and I realized they were all switching out through the week. One in class, to collect assignments, maybe to keep an eye on me, and the other two off doing god knew what.

Thatwas what I needed to figure out. I got the sense something big was going down. They would be here to terrorize me every chance they got if there wasn’t something monumentally more pressing that needed to be handled.

I had to up my game.

Corvus all but ignored me Thursday. He seemed so distracted. His face a pinched mask of focus.

As if that weren’t strange enough, I was still waiting for Bri to hit back. She hadn’t made a single move even though I’d turned down the Crows.

AndI hadn’t received a single text from the unknown number in days. I wasn’t foolish enough to think it was a coincidence that I stopped getting the creepy messages at the same time as the Crows being too busy to continue trying to make my life hell.

It would be too much a coincidence, right?

It had to be one of them.

By Friday, if I were being honest with myself, I was fucking bored as shit. Frustrated that I still didn’t have anything worth mentioning on the Crows. I’d been returning to the Crow’s Nest at night for days. Watching like a shadow from the darkness of the trees. But there was nothing happening.

No one there.

At least not between the hours of ten and two a.m.

My other endeavors were coming up empty, too. Usually, a bit of cash was all it took to get information, but not with these guys. I’d gotten nowhere trying to get their records from before their adoption to Diesel St. Crow.

All I knew was that Grey and Rook had been together in Barrett’s Home for Boys when Diesel snatched them up as a pair.

I knew that Corvus James was adopted three years prior to that, at the age of nine.

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