Chapter Eleven

Rafe

I am absolutely gutted that Ever wasn’t at the restaurant, but if I am being completely honest with myself, I didn’t really think that she would be. I’m a big believer in everything happens for a reason, and I believe that Ever will come back into our lives when she’s supposed to. Right now, there is far too much that would make it complicated if she were to come back into lives, like Riot was saying in the truck on the way up here.

If she’s found in a different town, which she is obviously going to be since she’s definitely not in our town, then we’re just going to have to leave her there, which would absolutely suck after we have spent so long looking for her, but it’s not like we can just stay with her or get her to come with us.

I don’t think that it’s the right time for her to come back into our lives. At least that’s what I keep telling myself, and what I’m going to keep telling myself until she’s back in our lives, or I have given up completely. We have our senior year coming up, and then we are off to college. Obviously, we’re all going to the same one since we would never consider splitting up. Maybe it will be like some of the books that I read, and she will be at the same college that we choose to go to. I’m aware that sounds a bit too fairytale-like, but like the other thing, I’m going to keep holding onto that too, until I’m proven wrong.

“Okay, send us over the details and give us an hour and then we’ll let you know if we will take it,” Trick’s words pull me out of my thoughts.

“Great. This one is right up your street.” Luke says. “I’m sending it through now. Let me know what you think.”

“Will do,” Trick replies, “thanks man.”

“Not to add any pressure, but as far as I can tell, there is a bit of a time crunch on this one, so if you do take it, you’re going to have to work quickly.”

Trick smiles, “Sounds perfect, we can’t really do a long one now anyway. Thanks again man.”

“No problem,” Luke replies and then hangs up.

“How long is it going to be until we get to the safe house?” Jensen asks from beside me.

Cash looks down at his phone to check where we are on the map, “It should be another ten minutes.”

“Good. I’m now curious, and since he mentioned the word violence, I am very definitely up for some violence.”

“Me too,” I sign, my smile just a little bit too sharp to be considered a real smile.

“I think it’s safe to say that we all want a little bit of violence in our lives right now,” Riot smirks.

“Even me and I’m only just getting over the last encounter I had with violence.” Cash jokes.

“When was our last job?” Trick asks, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Well, if you’re not counting everything that happened with drugs, which we didn’t get paid for anyway, then it has been a good few months,” Cash replies, as he tries to think back to when it was.

“Yeah, we got a bit busy dealing with stuff at home, didn’t we?” Luc adds, “and our contacts didn’t come to us with anything that they thought we would be interested in.”

The car falls silent as we pull up to the place that Cash has rented for us. We park up and then all head inside without really paying attention to anything else. All that I am aware of is that we’re not actually in the city anymore and are, in fact, right on the very edge of it instead, which means that we don’t have any neighbors. I don’t know if Cash rented us somewhere so secluded on purpose or if he just found the closest place to rent at short notice and booked it.

As soon as we are inside, Cash asks, “What’s the job?”

“Feeling a bit eager?” Jensen asks with a raised eyebrow.

Cash shrugs, “Well, now that we have the potential to go on a job, I find that I would actually really like to. Plus, if it means that we can help someone, then even better.”

“Agreed,” I sign.

Trick frowns as he quickly scans over the information that we have in the email, “Okay, there really isn’t that much information. It says that whoever posted it is looking for someone to take care of someone who is going to give someone innocent to their dealer in order to pay their debt.”

“That was a lot of someone’s in one sentence,” Jensen mutters.

Ignoring him, I frown, “I don’t like that someone innocent is being used as a payment, but we need a bit more information. Quite a lot more information if we’re going to know if we can actually help, or if it’s above our pay grade.”

“Luke thought that we might, so he suggested that we set up a meeting with the person so that they can explain more.” Trick replies.

“Yeah, that would make more sense,” Cash agrees. “Have we got our balaclavas to conceal our identities and the shit we usually use for jobs still in the truck?”

I nod, then lift my hands to start signing, “Yeah, I made sure that they were there after the fire at the yard. I figured that we would probably need them for something. If not a job, then something to do with Tomlinson that would require us concealing our identities.”

“Good thinking,” Cash smiles.

“Make sure that you get Luke to set up the meeting somewhere that we can easily observe,” Riot reminds Trick. “We can do what we usually do and send one of us in to do the meet while the others hide in the surrounding area. Keep watch in case there are any threats.”

Trick nods, “Yeah, I like that plan. It keeps everyone safe and means that we are more likely to spot danger before it happens.”

“Exactly. Plus, it’s what usually works for us, so we may as well stick to what works rather than switching it up now and risking it not working,” Riot replies while the rest of us voice our agreements.

Trick quickly types out a reply and then looks up, “He said that there was a time crunch, which I am guessing is because whoever has put the job up knows when the other person is going to hand over the innocent person. With this in mind, it’s probably a good idea to make sure we’re ready to go if he says that the client wants to meet tonight.”

“It’s not ideal since we have spent all day traveling, but if the time crunch is that close, then there’s not much we can do about it.” Cash says although he doesn’t seem very happy that we will be rushing into something like this.

Cash likes to plan ahead and know exactly how something is going to go down, sometimes though, that’s just not possible.

“I’m going to check my knives,” Jensen says as he gets up, moves over to the dining table that is to the left of us in this open plan layout and starts to take the knives off himself.

I honestly have no idea where he had all of those hidden, but I rarely realize how many knives Jensen has on him until he takes them all off.

“I’m going to go and get the stuff that we’re probably going to need from the truck and check it all over, make sure that it’s still all okay and is working as it should,” Luc announces as he gets up and heads back out of the door.

It’s not just the balaclavas that we have in there that provide a small amount of anonymity when needed and protect our identities if there’s a risk that we’re going to run into any security cameras and not be able to get around them without being seen. There are more weapons in there: extra bullets, gloves, zip ties, and, I think, a baseball bat, but that was Luc’s idea; he likes baseball bats. There are a couple of other things in there that we found that we need when we do these jobs as well.

I’m actually really hoping that they aren’t going to want to meet tonight. It’s late; we won’t have time to do any research on the place that we’re going to meet, and it feels a bit too rushed for my liking. I don’t mind if jobs move quickly, in fact, I prefer it because it means that there isn’t too much waiting around but there is a big difference between things moving at a decent pace, and things being rushed.