5. Raegan

Chapter five

Raegan

The doors to Hype are all locked when we get there. It’s midday, so the club itself isn’t open yet, but the doors are usually open at all times for the residents to walk through from the street rather than go through the back alley.

I bang my fist against the door. “Hello? It’s Raegan. Let me in.”

“You think he closed up shop?” Kellan muses while scratching at his beard. “Turned tail and ran once one of his people got attacked?”

Dane huffs irritably from beneath his hood. “We should make sure anyone left behind is invited to the Guild for safety. Or they should leave the city, too.”

With Aiden going to wherever the Guild members are and Jackson taking care of the task Aiden set him on, it left me with these two to help me pack up my stuff and move to the new location. I told them I don’t need any help, but Kellan refused to let me leave the Loft alone.

I whip around to scowl at them both. “What is your guy’s problem with Elias? He wouldn’t have abandoned anyone. ”

Kell laughs and leans his forearm against the brick building to cover me in his shadow. “No? I seem to recall he abandoned you. That puts him on my shit list.”

I roll my eyes and bite my tongue to keep from reminding him he has also abandoned me in the past. I knock my fist into the door repeatedly. “Hey! Open up! I don’t have my key for the back door.”

Finally, I hear movement and running footsteps. The door swings open, but I don’t get to see who it is before I’m wrapped in a hug. They’re bigger than me, though not by much, so I know instantly that it isn’t Portia.

I’m not really the hugging type, so my arms remain at my sides and I try to turn my head enough to see who it is. But they’re ripped away from me with a snarl from Kellan. “Don’t touch her!”

Dane steps up next to me and folds his arms over his chest.

“Fucking chill, man!” Ethan, the Hype bartender who was friends with Portia, shouts. His expression shifts to relief and a smile when it’s turned on me. “I’m glad you’re okay. No one has seen you since what happened to Portia, and I was getting worried. Come on, we can catch up.” He waves me in, holding the door open for me.

Once I pass through, he starts to close it, but Kellan’s hand slams against it. “Do we look like delivery boys to you?”

Ethan releases the door but stands between me and the other two. “No, you look like controlling dickheads.”

“Guys, knock it off. You can hang tight in the bar while I go up to get my things. I don’t need any help.” I barely have anything anyway, so it’ll be minutes for me to pack.

Dane’s eyes narrow at me as if he thinks I’m hiding something from them. What the hell that could be, I’ll never know. “Wasn’t your friend kidnapped from these very apartments?” he asks instead, surprising me.

“We’ve beefed up security, so that can’t happen again,” Ethan snaps.

“Sorry, beautiful, but he has a point. We’re coming up with you,” Kellan adds, ignoring Ethan entirely.

Ugh. Fine. I sigh and shake my head. “Just give Ethan and I a few minutes to catch up, then.” I wrap my hand around Ethan’s arm to walk us away from the other two. When I hear boots behind me, I glare over my shoulder at Kellan until he stops. He gives me a nonchalant shrug and a grin.

Dane closes and locks the door behind him, then leans against it.

Ethan and I slide into a booth along the back wall, and I release another sigh. “Hey, are you okay?” His hand touches my arm.

“Yeah, sorry about them. They mean well.”

“Do they? It seems like you’re their prisoner. I can get rid of them if you need me to. Bryant’s just around the corner, and the others are walking the halls on each floor.”

I frown at that. Am I? Aiden wants us all to stick together, but if I really wanted to leave, would he let me? Or am I a prisoner to them so they can keep an eye on me?

I push those thoughts aside to worry about later. “We’re just running errands together. I’ll be staying somewhere else for a bit, so I’m here to grab my things.”

His hand tightens on my arm. “Are you sure you’re okay? Blink twice if you’re in trouble. ”

“Ethan, I swear to you that I’m fine. How is everyone here?” I ask to change the subject.

He shrugs and retracts his hand. “They’re scared. They came here for safety and then the danger came to them, anyway. But they’ll get through it. We always do.”

It’s all my fault. If I didn’t stay here, if I hadn’t befriended Portia, none of this would have happened. I’m the reason GE got a whiff of this place. And Portia.

It also means GE hasn’t realized there are other gifted staying here as well.

Even if I’m not sure about staying with Aiden and the others, I at least know I’m doing the right thing by not staying here anymore. They shouldn’t be in danger so long as I stop coming here and leading GE to more gifted. Now, I’m itching to get my things and get out of here as soon as possible. “Good. I should go pack up.”

Ethan stands with me and casts a look at the other two by the entrance. “Stay safe, Rae. You always have this place to come to if you need it.”

“Thanks.” I’m tempted to kiss his cheek, but I’d rather not be the reason he gets a fist there from Kellan, so I squeeze his hand instead. I head into the back and the stairs that lead to the apartments. Before long, two sets of footsteps echo behind me.

I punch in the code to my apartment and throw the door open for us. It’s still decorated and styled to Elias’s tastes, very sleek and modern, with grays, blacks, and whites. The knickknacks are almost all gone, though, most of them having not survived my encounter here with Aiden, so only big furniture pieces fill the space. Otherwise, it looks empty. Un-lived in.

That’s me. A ghost in the world who comes and goes as she pleases without leaving any trail. No family or friends to miss me, nothing to my name, not even an ID to prove that my name is my own. I don’t have the luxury of collecting or keeping anything from one place to the next. On more than one occasion, I’ve been forced to abandon whatever I had and run away.

Kellan and Dane look around the room, but there’s nothing they’ll see or find aside from what the decorators put in here. “Beautiful. Are we in the right place?”

Embarrassment floods my face, and I keep walking through the room toward the single bedroom. “Of course, it is.”

I hear the refrigerator door open. “Then where is your food? Or drinks? Hell, there aren’t even any condiments. It looks like it’s never been used.”

It hasn’t.

“Just stop snooping and wait for me by the door. I’ll be done in a couple of minutes.” I crawl under the bed and grab my backpack. It’s the only thing that’s survived the last few moves. Then I open the closet. I only had one change of clothes normally, which is why the backpack was all I needed. This time, I’d fooled myself into believing I might stay here long enough to have a mini wardrobe.

This is what I get for wishful thinking, huh?

I have a week’s worth of clothing in the closet from that recent shopping trip I did. But is it going to fit?

“What is this?”

I jump at Dane’s voice and turn to find him standing behind me with his hands in his pockets. He’s staring at the closet with his brows furrowed.

“What does it look like? They’re clothes,” I snap, because that’s my defense mechanism for feeling vulnerable like this. It’s like my entire life is being exposed in this little apartment. I’m as empty and meaningless as the barrenness of this apartment. Nothing to keep me here, no sign of my existence.

They have two, no, three places where they can live. Each bedroom I’ve seen so far has been filled with clothes, shoes, books or magazines, video games and movies… things . Items that tell a story of who lives there and a little about that person. Proof that they were there.

I grab the first top off the hangar and shove it into my backpack.

“That’s it?” he asks, incredulous.

“Like I said. I don’t need help. Just wait by the door,” I grit out. I have two pairs of pants and one more pair of shoes on the floor, so I roll the pants up and tuck them in, then organize the dress shoes on top. I work the zipper up a little at a time to make it all fit without breaking it.

“Don’t you have a bigger bag? Where are you going to put the rest of your stuff if that backpack is all you have?” Kellan asks from the doorway to the bedroom.

I never should have let them in.

They could have waited in the hall if they were going to poke and prod at me like this. “This is it.”

His face screws up. Then he looks around the room to see the same story as the living room and kitchen. Nothing but furniture. And a missing headboard. He stalks into the room and starts opening drawers left and right, progressively slamming them louder and louder each time he finds them empty.

I choose not to watch this and head into the bathroom to pack up my make-up and hair things I’d also gotten while here. I sling my backpack over my shoulder and cradle everything else in my arms.

“Give me that,” Dane grumbles, stealing the hair and make-up supplies from my arms. “What else?”

“Nothing. We can go,” I mumble the words to him, but Kellan hears them anyway.

He’s glaring around at the apartment like it’s what kept me from buying or keeping things. “Why is that all you have?”

I can see why he’d be confused. It took them an hour to pack up their clothes and precious possessions and get them loaded in the car.

I shrug it off, ignoring the sting of bitterness that burns my throat and swallow it down. “I’ve never stuck around somewhere long enough to have more than this.” I can feel the weight of both of their gazes on me, and when it becomes too heavy, I clear my throat. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

I’m adjusting my backpack over my shoulder one second, and the next, it’s pulled from my arm. Kellan just gives me a look when I open my mouth to argue, so I snap it shut and just hurry the fuck out of this apartment. I can’t stand to see them looking at it, at me, any longer.

“Just wait out here for one minute,” I tell them, punching in Portia’s code .

“We’re on the buddy system now, beautiful. No one goes anywhere alone.” There are two security guards walking this hall that I look at before looking pointedly back to Kellan. He smirks at me. “I don’t give a fuck about them. They aren’t me, and I’m the one who’s going to make sure you’re safe.”

The door clicks open. “Just stand in the doorway, then. I don’t want you in here without her permission.” I keep walking in and see that her apartment is exactly the same as I’d found it when she’d been taken. Which means she didn’t come back here after Elias got her away from GE. Even her packed bag is still on the couch.

I know exactly what I’m looking for, so I go straight to her bathroom and pull out the drawer where she kept her hair accessories. There’s a tray full of butterfly clips and colored tassels that she’d wear in her hair. I take the purple butterfly clip I’ve seen her wear the most and curl my hand around it.

I may only wind up being a blip in her life, especially now that her memories are back, but she’ll always be more than that in mine. I want something of hers to keep me going and remind me of what I’m fighting for. I slip it into my pocket for safekeeping.

Portia would probably lose her mind in awws and hugs if she could hear me right now.

I smile at that and then meet back with Kellan and Dane at the door.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Kell asks, his blue-green eyes searching me for what I’ve taken.

“I did. To Old Red, now?” I ask, changing the subject. “You still haven’t explained what that is or what it has to do with firefighters. If it’s sleeping in a fire truck, you can count me out right now.”

On the bright side, it’s not a fire truck. It’s a firehouse.

An old, abandoned firehouse.

In the south side that the rest of the city has abandoned. Buildings that haven’t been up to code in years. Overpriced rent. High crime. Underfunded schools. The term landscaping means giving plant life free will to do as it pleases.

That’s where we are.

“Please tell me this is just a pit stop on our way to Old Red,” I say while climbing out of the car. It’s pretty obvious that this is it. The entire building is made of brick, aside from the trim around the roof, windows, and doors. The surrounding bushes are overgrown and blocking windows and the front door, while vines have raced up the side and burrowed into the gutters.

Kellan and Dane get out of the front seats and look up at the massive building. The garage, or the bay where the firetrucks usually go, is three doors wide and a drive-through. The pavement on either side of it joins into a single driveway before it meets the street. “Wait until you see the inside.” Kellan grins at me. He opens the unlocked man door and goes inside. The wide garage door in front of us rattles and groans as it slowly lifts from the ground.

As it rises, we see more of Kellan while he pulls on the chain that drags the door up. “Dane, pull her in.” He waves at the car once the door is all the way up. Dane gets behind the wheel and drives in.

I’m still rooted to my spot and trying to get a handle on the fact that this is the place Aiden chose for us to go. I see the no technology angle. This place is probably at least twenty years abandoned, let alone updated, by the looks of it, but why not a house?

“Pretty, isn’t she?” a husky voice whispers in my ear.

I startle at Jackson’s sudden appearance. “Shit! Where did you come from?” He looks up at the tree behind me and then back at me. Of course. Really, I should know better by now. I sigh and answer his original question. “It’s nice in an…old-fashioned way, I guess.”

Jack stuffs his hands into his front hoodie pocket and smiles at the building. “It’s an unexpected hideout and abandoned. But we’ll fix her up.”

I’m not really sure what they see in this building until I step inside. If I look past the plants that have moved in, the dirt and dust, and broken glass, I can see the appeal. The floors are a rich mahogany, which matches the kitchen cabinets and long wooden beams across the ceiling. There is a long brick wall that runs along one side of the kitchen into the living area. There are meeting rooms, a fully equipped gym, two living areas, offices, a laundry room, and then one entire hallway of dorms. The rooms are only a bed and dresser, but I’m still pleased to see that I’ll at least have my own room.

It looks like it was abandoned unexpectedly based on all the things still lying around and collecting dust. Pots and pans, old furniture, papers, knickknacks, books…as if people up and left in the middle of the day and never came back.

The walls without brick are blanketed in old, musty wallpaper and cobwebs are hanging like spooky decorations throughout.

The building is old and dirty, but I’m pleasantly surprised when I flick a switch and the lights turn on.

“I called and had the utilities turned on this morning.” I startle at Aiden’s unexpected voice behind me.

He lowers the metal pole he’d used to hook over a dozen shopping bags until they all rest on the floor, then digs through them. Aiden pulls out a rag and cleaning spray and hands them to me. "We're all on cleaning duty now."

Wonderful.