Chapter 3

CHASE

Istand there with Asher, looking down at them…Jax, with his arm around my girl, asleep on the sofa.

What in the actual fuck?

He didn't answer the door earlier when I knocked, but we all have keys to each other's house, so we let ourselves in. I figured he just got busy with the computer stuff. He can be like that. Lose himself for hours. Some nights, Asher and I pull him off it to get some sleep when he's elbow-deep in our project, but nothing could prepare me for this. Asher stands beside me and stifles a laugh.

"Fuck me, I didn't see this coming." He looks at me with a grin on his face, and it only pisses me off more. I reach down, rage clouding my mind, grabbing Jax and pulling him up.

"You want to tell me what the fuck you're doing right now?" I shout, the sudden jolt and bellowing of my voice waking them both up.

"Dude, it's not what it looks like. I wouldn't do that to you."

Brooke just looks at me coldly before stretching out and standing up.

"Thanks for the nightcap, Jax. I'm going to go." She smiles at him sweetly as I let him go.

She barges past me, her skin connecting with mine. I take one more look at the guys. "Stay the fuck here, I'll be back."

I catch Brooke in the hallway, grabbing her jacket off the coat stand.

"No, you're not doing this." I grab her arm, slamming her against the wall. "Don't fucking play games with me, Princess. You won't like it." Anger is coursing through my veins, and I know it's spilling over.

"Get your hands off me, Chase."

"Not until you listen to me. You fucking left me, Brooke. You walked out on me, on us. You left me in that hospital to deal with everything on my own."

"That's what you're upset about? Not the fact your brother fucking died because of your mistake but because I broke up with you. Get your fucking priorities straight, Chase!"

She pushes against me, her words spitting venom, but I don't care.

I grab both of her arms now, keeping her against the wall before slamming my mouth to hers. She fights it for just a second before I feel her melt into me. Her tongue playing with mine, fighting me for dominance. Cute, my girl thinks she's the dominant one here. She catches my lip in between her teeth and bites down hard enough for me to cry out.

"What the fuck"

I pull back, touching my lip with my thumb, and I see blood. "What the fuck was that for?"

She looks at me sweetly. "Kissing a girl without her permission, Chase? Ever heard of consent?"

As angry as I am right now, there's a small feeling building inside of me. What is that? Pride? Yeah, it is. I'm proud of my girl for fighting back.

"I didn't…I mean…" I grunt loudly. "You're mine, Brooke. You and me, baby girl, against the world. That's what we agreed to, or don't you remember that?"

She rolls her eyes at me. "We hooked up once, Chase. It was fun, but that's it."

I smirk at her as I press my body into hers, pinning her arms above her head. As I start sucking on her neck, laying soft kisses along it before whispering low into her ear. "Is that what we did, Princess? Hooked up? I'm pretty sure you confessed your love to me as I took your virginity, hell you told me that before I wiped your blood off my dick."

"You're a pig."

I chuckle at her. She looks adorable right now, squirming and fighting me here. I know she still loves me. I can see pain in her eyes, and I know that's because I'm still in her heart.

"Maybe, Princess, but you like it. You like when I take charge. Praise you for being a good girl, remember?"

I hear a little whimper fall from her lips. She may hate me right now, but her body still craves me. It knows she belongs to me. My face softens, and I let go of her, placing my hands against the wall so she's closed in as I look down at her.

"Come on, Brooke, just admit it. You still love me. We're good together, remember? I know things are tense right now, but please remember that. I love you and you love me. We belong to each other."

She looks up, taking a breath before smiling coyly at me, her hands landing on my shoulders, and I think she's finally getting there; she looks like she's about to kiss me, but instead, I get immense pain erupting through my cock as I realize she just kneed me in the balls. I curl over in pain. "Fuck"

She steps around me, smiling.

"There's only one thing I remember. You hurt the people you love. Nate and me. You lied to us, and your brother is dead because of it. I don't belong to you, and you don't belong to me. I may still have love for you, Chase. I loved you for years. But trust me when I say this. I hate you a lot more."

With that, she turns on her heels, opening the door and slamming it behind her. I crumple to the ground as I cradle my fucking balls. Damn, my girl can be a bitch when she wants. I look up and see the guys. Both smirking at me.

"I like her like this. She's got fire in her." Asher shrugs, laughing.

Jax laughs too. "I told you both she was tough enough already."

They both walk back into the living room, and I pull myself up, still fucking dealing with the sharp pain my girl just delivered as I hobble in behind them. I basically fall onto the sofa.

"Why was she here? And you better tell me why I found you cuddling my girl."

Jax rolls his eyes. "Chill, brother, she came over to talk and to give me the phones from the guys she killed."

"She killed…Brooke…that little fucking girl killed four grown-ass men. She's so pure and innocent, you know. I still can't get my head around it." Asher shakes his head, about to light up a blunt before I steal it and throw it to the side.

"Stop fucking getting high, Asher—enough is enough. We need you here, man. Not hiding or fucked out of your mind."

He sighs, nodding. "Fine, Party Pooper," he says as he pokes his tongue out at me like a child.

"Continue." I look at Jax.

"We had a beer, and she was upset. I hugged her, and we both fell asleep. That's it. The next thing, you're fucking yanking me up like a psychopath. What was that? You know I wouldn't touch her."

I sigh because I know he wouldn't. Lines are blurring here and I'm losing it. "I know, I'm sorry. I'm just terrified of losing her."

"You have to give her time, Chase. She needs to heal, and the way to do that is let her in and let her help us find these guys."

"No fucking way. She's not coming near this."

Asher speaks up this time. "She did it without us helping, and she could have died. If we don't let her help us, then she goes on her own again. I can't have her end up like Ellie, man. She's family to me. I already lost one of my sisters to those bastards. I can't lose another one. At least if she's with us, she's safe."

"We can protect her, Chase, watch her, keep an eye on her. The more she's around us, the easier that will be," Jax says.

I nod, knowing their right. "Okay, but we've gotta be careful. I can't lose her. And there's one condition. We don't tell her about…" I sigh. "She'll make a mistake and fuck it up. She's too emotional right now."

"Agreed."

"Deal."

They both agree with me as we both know we can't risk it. Her being this emotional will only make things worse, and right now, we can't afford to slip up.

"What I'm most worried about right now, Chase, is that she killed four people. There has to be some sort of emotional strain on her that she's blocking out. You don't kill four people and feel nothing if you're the type of person she is. I'm worried she's going to break down and it won't be the best time, and we won't know how she will react when it happens or what the fallout will be."

I know Jax is making sense. Brooke right now is blocking everything out except what's fueling her, and once that runs out…

"I know, and I also know we'll be there for her when it happens. I'll be there for her."

Asher picks up the phones. "How about we find out what's on these?"

We both get up, following Asher upstairs. Jax takes them off him one by one, plugging them into his systems. Within seconds we know every phone is encrypted past the basics.

"It's fine, I can get through the encryptions. It's just going to take some time. I can run one of my programs on there. We should be in soon, a couple of days at the latest."

Yet again, we find ourselves waiting whilst others are being hurt. Jax fills us in on Brooke's theory that this is a lot bigger than we thought.

"I'm in agreement with B. We take them for everything. Killing them isn't enough. If this is as big as we think, we need to make sure no one can step up and take over."

I nod. "Okay, let's work this out. We have a few names, right? How do they fit into everything, and how is this going over a few cities in the state?"

"Well, we killed Mike, Luke, and David. David said they were his boys, right? But he can't be the one in charge. Brooke killed Sam and James. She told me last night that Sam was drugging girls that James met at the bar, and James was the one picking the girls out and sending them on. The other two phones belong to guys in their thirties. They were Jackson and Sid. They were on the original list, just new addresses. Jackson and Sid were part of Ellie's…attack."

Asher's eyes go dark as he smiles.

"Remind me to thank Brooke when I see her next. I hope she gave them hell before they died."

Jax types away on his computer. "Well, the bodies were in a pretty bad condition as they were burned. Sam was shot three times, in the knee, thigh, and then in the head. But they think James was shot in the side before being…fuck, she burned him alive."

"I see nothing wrong with that," Asher retorts, and I glare at him. My girl burned a guy alive. The room is starting to spin as my world is tipped upside down.

"What about the other two—Jackson and Sid?"

Jax types briefly on the laptop.

"She slit their throats in their cars before burning them. The police don't know if they were alive before the car was set on fire. They would have lost a lot of blood, so it depends on how quick she did it."

My girl…my girl did that? What the hell has she turned into? The thought of my light having to do that makes me feel physically sick, and I quickly excuse myself before rushing to the bathroom. I feel lightheaded, and as my head hovers over the bowl, I wretch and throw up yesterday's dinner as well as the booze in my system from last night. I sit there for a minute with my head against the wall. My mind runs in circles as I realize the girl I loved is gone. I stand up, flushing the toilet before I look at myself in the mirror, completely in shock. Beads of cold sweat litter my forehead.

"What have I done to her?" I ask out loud and quietly as my reflection stares back at me in horror.