Page 96 of I Was Born Ruined (Death by Daybreak MC 1)
Kian.
Fucking Kian.
“What the fuck?” I whisper to the empty air, settling down next to the wall and splaying my palm over the words. There’s more than just a date—a date that’s about, uh, seven months before Queenie’s death. And she was eight months pregnant when she died, I think tracing each letter with a fingertip. “Queenie and Kian, like Romeo and Juliet. I’ll love you forever, baby.” Every I is dotted with a tiny daisy. This is all Queenie’s writing.
Scrambling to my feet, I light up another cigarette and pace the floor a few times, those words turning over in my mind again and again.
Like Romeo and Juliet.
The club versus the mafia, feuding families, not unlike the Montagues and the Capulets.
Letting my body fall against the far wall, I lean my head back and close my eyes. Queenie … Kian. Those words from so long ago echo in my skull like a trapped bullet, cutting me to pieces. “This is for Kian.” Kian, who died before Queenie, at the hands of the club, Cat’s doing.
A memory flickers in the back of my mind, a fight between my father and sister that I blocked out with a pair of earbuds, just like Queenie had always taught me to do. The fight came right before she announced to the rest of the family that she was pregnant. Did Cat know first? Did he know the truth? Because if he did, and he went after Kian anyway …
A choked-off scream escapes my throat when Trevone opens the door and stumbles into the room. My heart’s pounding so fast I can barely breathe, my pulse racing too fast for comfort. It’d be so easy to close my eyes and drift away on a cloud of adrenaline and alcohol.
“What do you want?” I ask as he grins at me and puts a hand up on the wall to stay upright.
“Tina disappeared with Kellen,” he slurs, naming his on-again, off-again girlfriend and best friend with a slight sneer on his handsome face. “Thought you might want to hook-up?” With a roll of my eyes, I push off from the wall. No fucking way do I have time for Trevone Hundley and all this high school bullshit.
Not when I’ve just seen evidence that Queenie and Kian really were an item.
Cat would’ve had to know. Queenie would’ve told him. After all, how else would Cat even know Kian was the father of her child?
“Fuck off, Tre,” I say, pushing past him and then pausing as he stumbles and trips on the mattress, crashing to the floor … and not getting back up. Dropping to my knees beside him, I check his pulse and see that he’s still breathing. There’s vomit on his mouth though, and his eyes have rolled into the back of his head. “Holy shit,” I whisper as I hear footsteps on the stairs, Crown sweeping into the room behind me.
“Get up. I’ve called the police. We need to be out of here before they arrive.”
“What the fuck have you done?” I choke out as Crown moves over to stand beside me, reaching down to wrap his long fingers around my arm. He pulls my shell-shocked ass up as I stare unblinking in Trevone’s direction. What have I just done?! I knew the drugs were laced with … something. I mean, Cat didn’t send me here for no reason. But Crown told me he wouldn’t hurt kids. And you believed him?! my mind screams as I allow Crown to drag me out of the room and down the hall. As we go, we pass several other students, passed out on the floor. One of them looks to be having a full-blown seizure.
“All we did was supply some of the mafia’s dirty product,” Crown says, mouth flat, face neutral, like he doesn’t give a shit that kids could be dying in here. I try to jerk my arm from his grip, but he pulls me close and looks me dead in the eye. “If you fight me, the cops will show up and we’ll both be arrested … or killed in a shootout. Is that what you want? If we leave now, the paramedics can get in here faster.”
“You lied to me. You’re supposed to be the nice guy,” I whisper, hating myself because I knew. I knew. I fucking knew, and I did it anyway, just so that tomorrow I might get the chance to run. I sacrificed the lives of my classmates for my own. I really am thoroughly entrenched in the annals of hell.
Crown pushes some of my hair back, tucking it behind my ear. His green eyes are dark and empty of emotion, just two shadowed hollows in a handsome face.
“That’s your mistake, Gidge: there are no nice guys.” Crown pulls me after him, and I don’t resist. He has a point. What will I gain from staying here, other than jailtime or, more than likely, watching Crown have a standoff with the local cops. I’ll get more people killed, and after Carol Briggs, I think I’ve already done more than enough of that.
