Page 101 of Wicked Trials (Boys of Briar Hall 2)

Rook’s reply was the last thing I heard before the engine started and the menace in his voice woke the dark parts of me back to life. Stoked my fire back to life, burning me back to a sense of sobriety.

“She has to be.”

The thumping bassvibrated through the rickety floor of the Docks, reverberating up through my feet. Setting my fucking teeth on edge. Becca sat with us on our makeshift stage, picking her fingernails at the far end of the worn leather sofa, her stare distant, thoughtful.

I snapped my fingers, and a pledge rushed over. I gestured to Becca. “Get her a drink.”

“What should I get for her?”

“I don’t know,” I snapped, heat rising in my core. “Why don’t you fucking askher.”

He nodded before running away to do just that, and I pressed my palms into my eyes, trying to grind out the ache forming behind them.

Rook threw his flask at the pledge now begging Becca to pick something to drink so that he could go and get it.

“Refill,” Rook snapped while the pledge bent to retrieve his flask from the floor. “Now.”

The guy scurried off, and I turned to where Corvus sat next to me, hunched over his knees, fingers steepled near his lips in complete stillness. Utter silence.

“We need to cut that one loose. He’s useless.”

Corvus grunted in response, and I got the feeling he hadn’t even heard me.

“Corv, are you listening?”

“Hmm?”

My head pounded, making it almost impossible not to throttle him. How could he be so fucking calm right now? How was he not freaking out?

The Hunt was the worst ever idea for a trial Diesel had ever concocted. And he’d only come up with it because he decided he didn’t want Foley to make it through the trials. And Foley, the twenty-five-year-old college drop-out, already knew far too much to be cut loose.

Diesel was right, of course, like he almost always was. It turned out he was being worked on by a cop. And Foley, being the weak link Diesel was beginning to think he was, was close to folding. Close to becoming an informant. Close to being formally inducted into our ranks, where he would’ve had access to even more sensitive information.

The Hunt was designed for a single purpose, tokillthe hunted.

My stomach soured, and I got up, needing to move. Todosomething. But black spots crowded my vision and a wave of vertigo sent me back to the couch with a groan. “Fucking shit.”

“The fuck is wrong with you?” Rook asked, raising his voice to be heard over the music and the chatter of the crowd before us.

I shook off the fleeting feeling. “Nothing.”

But when I lifted my head to the strobing dance floor, the faces blurred in and out of focus, making my pounding headache that much worse.

Devil faces and witch faces and Barbie faces and every other Halloween costume that could be worn as a lingerie set with heels paraded past. They spun and jumped. Swayed and fell.

But none of them were AJ.

When the pledge came back, I snarled at him to get me some painkillers, hating my inability to control the rage I felt building inside.

Bianca’s face filtered past with the others, trying desperately to catch my eye, her bunny ears bobbing as she sashayed past the raised stage, biting her lower lip.

I didn’t know what part ofstop fucking texting meshe didn’t understand, but obviously it wasn’t sinking in.

She took a step toward the stage, and something in my face must’ve made her reconsider. Hurt gleamed in her eyes as she stepped backward instead, falling back into the crowd.

Good. I couldn’t deal with her shit tonight. Not on top of everything else.

“The meet with the Aces coming up,” Corvus said, his voice so low and deep it was almost impossible to distinguish it from the throaty bass. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. Something’s up.”

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