Escaping Death

Solana

It’s uncharacteristically quiet in the house when I wake up but I can smell all five of them so I know they’re all here and I can still feel the warmth on the bed from where Ace must have slept beside me. But the house is missing its usual bustle and urgency.

I roll over to Ace’s side of the bed, turning my back to the door, so I can soak up the residual heat he left behind. I’m trying to process how I feel after the past couple of days. It’s been one thing after another; Hunter, heat, Ace’s conversation with the guys, talking to Eli on the roof, the club with Dean and Tate.

My “me time” ends before it begins as I hear Ace’s bedroom door creak open. His expression is stern. To be fair Ace always sports a very serious face, but he’s teetering on anger and it’s only — well, I don’t know what time it is but judging by the sunlight I’m sure it’s at least still morning…ish.

“You sleep like the dead,” he grunts at me, quickly walking around his bed over to the nightstand where my phone is. He scowls at it like it personally wronged him and tosses the now vibrating phone into my lap. “It’s been going off all morning. Please, for the love of the Gods either answer it or turn it off.”

Calla’s too bright, too pretty face is smiling up at me giving me the choice to accept or decline the call. This is not a hard decision. I tap decline and toss it on the bed next to me, curling back into the covers dismissing Ace as I do.

“Who was it?” Ace probes.

“My sister,” I mumble into his pillow.

“Does she normally call this often in a three-hour span?” He throws up his palms when I shoot him a scowl of my own. “Easy, Solana. The wolves in the house can’t stand the sound of your phone going off anymore. I can practically feel the vibrations in my teeth at this point.”

My phone starts vibrating again. Ace looks at me, looks down at the phone, and then back up to me before he lunges for it. I reach out to grab it before he can get it but I’m not as fast as him. Even kneeling on the bed he’s taller than me and he easily holds the phone out of my reach.

“Are you going to answer it, or am I?” His tone might sound playful but I know he absolutely will answer it if I don’t.

“Don’t you fucking dare!” This was the wrong thing to say because Ace’s eyes light up like this just turned into the most exciting game on Earth.

I stand up on his bed so I can gain the upper hand and grab my phone from him but he teleports out from under me causing me to land on the bed on my hands and knees.

He teleports back in so he lands on the mattress like it’s a trampoline, launching me off the mattress into the air only to land flat on my stomach. Ace’s hand on the center of my back weighs me down like a cinder block and for the life of me I really can’t push up against him to get out of his hold. He leans down so his lips brush the shell of my ear and he whispers, “you or me, Sunshine?”

I fight the burn igniting my veins originating from where his body makes contact with mine, I fight the chill that runs down my back at his words. But hardest of all I fight the part of me that is encouraging me to submit.

“I can’t answer it with you suffocating me,” I exaggerate. Ace would have to do a hell of a lot more than lay a single hand on me to hurt me, but he backs off of me immediately and rolls me over onto my back where I see that any playfulness that might have existed a second ago has now vanished.

Once he’s sure I’m not actually having trouble breathing, the hand not holding my phone captive slips off my hip and relaxes across my stomach. His hand lingers there, his fingers splay out a fraction wider, all while my phone buzzes like an angry wasp in his other hand.

Ace taps a button on my phone and brings it up to his ear. I shoot upright and actually put more effort into getting my phone back from him. The look he pins me with does more to stop me than the hand he’s holding against the center of my chest, keeping me at an arm’s length away from him and my goal.

The forest green of his eyes hold my attention for the duration of his conversation with my sister — if you can even call it a conversation. Five “mhmm”s and three “yeah”s later he hands the phone over to me with a simple, “your sister would like to talk to you, princess.”

Ace hits me with a wink and a self-satisfied grin before leaving me alone to deal with the shit storm he just created.

“Hello?” I greet my sister blankly.

“Good morning, princess,” Calla says with saccharine sweetness. “Who’s Mr. Talkative?”

I finally check the time and see it’s nearly noon. Fuck.

“My new secretary. He went against my instructions to ignore your calls.”

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious,” she says sarcastically. “I was just checking to make sure you’re coming home for my Centennial.”

“I think mom and dads would prefer if I stayed incognito.” That’s not true, they’d never turn me away. I just don’t want to go.

That’s actually not true either…

I just don’t want to go home.

“I think mom and dads would prefer it if the bodyguards they hired to protect you kept their hands to themselves.”

“What are you talking about?” I’m way too drained to be doing the mental gymnastics required to keep up with her scheming.

“I’ve heard from more than one source that not one, but two of your bodyguards were doing a whole lot more than guarding your body last night.”

“Who’s feeding you this bullshit?” I bluff but she counters me.

“You want me to send you the pictures?”

“No, I want you to send me names so I can kill them.”

My phone pings with a notification and sure enough there’s a photo of Tate pressing me up against the bar doing a hell of a job guarding my body.

She sends me picture after picture from last night. Tate and me at the bar, Dean wearing me like a second skin in the crowd, both of them around me. Some shots are practically pornographic and for the briefest of seconds I wish for a chance to repeat last night.

“If I remember correctly this was one of the guys who came with us when we got our nails done. I knew it, I knew you were sleeping with one of them! I can’t believe you wouldn’t tell me!”

Gods, little does she know it’s more than one of them. And technically I haven’t slept with Tate.

“I’m really not sleeping with him, Cal.” I try to quell my exasperation.

“I’m not sure dads will see it that way.” There it is, her wild card, and boy is she playing it.

“Why exactly are you calling, Calla?”

“I already told you. I want you to attend my Centennial.” When I don’t respond for several moments she sighs, “I want you to be there, Sol. It would mean a lot to me to have my sister there to mark the occasion.”

“So you’re not blackmailing me?”

“You know I’ll take your secrets to the grave. Just, please come? Bring all your bodyguards, secretaries, whoever they are, I don’t care. Just say you’ll be there?”

Calla isn’t usually this unguarded, and from what I can tell she is being honest. And I may grumble about her most of the time, but she is my sister. “Fine, yes, okay, I’ll be there.”

I expect a high pitched squeal to pierce my ears, maybe some clapping and a very giddy voice expressing how happy she is that I’ve bent to her will, that she once again has gotten what she wants. But instead of all that Calla remains calm and sounds sincere when she says, “thank you, Sol.”

“Tell your secretary to put it in your social calendar,” She chirps, and just when I think I’ve managed to walk away unscathed she adds one final parting gift because she’s Calla she can’t help herself. “I expect a full report on what went on last night when I see you. I want all the juicy details.”

“Delete that photo and I’ll consider it,” I bargain.

“Done!” This time she does shriek with giddy excitement.

I tap end and lay my arm over my eyes, already regretting agreeing to go to her party. It’s really not even about her party. I just don’t want to go home and deal with literally my entire family for the first time in years.

Things may have changed between me and Hunter after he explained to me what really happened, but nothing has changed back home. And I can’t exactly exculpate myself without giving up Hunter.

I just hope I don’t come to regret agreeing to this, but I have a feeling that nothing good can come from bringing Death to Twilight Grove.