9 CHAPTER 8: Flares

A small conference table sat in the middle of the room with an intimidating wall of live video feeds from the many surveillance cameras of the Underground. Jeff ushered me to a seat near the head of the table and watched him order the bunch of waiting people around. I sat, rather confused but no longer distraught, a can of soda in one hand and Jeff’s jacket slung over my shoulders.

I looked over to where he was talking to somebody and watched as he animatedly demonstrated what he wanted done. Whenever he was countered, he would twist his mouth to the side, deep in thought, with the eyebrows pulled together and his glasses—I didn’t even know he wore glasses—slipping down his nose. Jeff dismissed the aide and sat on the table in front of me.

“Are you holding up okay?” He noticed the soda in my hands. “Why isn’t that open?”

“Um...” I didn’t know how to tell him that my hands shook too much to open it and that I needed to hold onto a piece of aluminum can to steady myself.

Nevertheless, Jeff took the can from my hands, opened it, then handed the soda back. I took a sip. It was a bit warm, but it tasted good.

Jeff smirked a little. “You need the sugar. I had somebody buy food. Though I know that is the farthest thing from your mind right now.”

“I am out of my fucking head right now, Payton,” I said, chuckling. “I almost died!”

His smile saddened me. “Tonight should not have gone over like that, and you definitely shouldn’t have been caught in it like you have.”

“Do we have any news?”

At this, his body relaxed slightly. “The extraction team got them out fine. They’re en-route to the Bay hospital. Mikee and Sasha were ordered to coordinate. As many people I have at my disposal, they’re all busy now.”

“Sasha!” I gasped. How the hell did I forget about my best friend? “She got out okay?”

“Stop.” Jeff glared at me sternly, ducking so I had to look him in the eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, and you shouldn’t blame yourself for something so small.”

“But—”

He held my face with both hands.

“Look at me.”

His eyes were so darn blue.

“She’s fine.”

His warm, low voice soothed me.

I raised a hand to touch one of his and wondered at the rough surface. “You have calluses.”

Jeff’s lips twisted once more. But this time I think it was out of amusement. “Is it ugly?”

“No,” I said honestly. “It means you’re doing something you love.” I let go of his hand. “That’s good.”

Two guys walked in the room, the other more familiar than the last, but both who looked so similar. They had troubled looks on their faces as they took us in. The one with warm, chocolate eyes came over and hugged me tight. I grinned.

“Hey, Canada boy.”

Daniel Payton grinned back, his smile as bright as I remembered them. “Heard you were in a bit of a pickle.” He frowned at his eldest brother. “What happened?”

Jeff sighed and moved to the head of the table. “The high school party went to shit. Courtesy of the Los Angeles Underground.” He looked at his brother pointedly. I gasped in surprise when Daniel tucked me under his arm.

“Let the girl go, Daniel,” the third person, who was obviously Giles, said.

Giles had the same cheekbones as the other Payton brothers but with hazel eyes, freckles and black hair. Despite being the second, he was shorter than the two but built more muscular. He didn’t have the same charming look as Daniel, or Jeff's breathtaking stare, but he still had that dangerous edge to him.

And as I thought about that, I blush crimson for thinking about Jeff and his stare.

“Ashley, meet my brother Giles, Blade's handler,” Jeff said, gesturing to Giles. “Giles, she’s the best friend. And for the last fucking time, Daniel, get your hands off her.”

Daniel rolled his eyes but moved away and sat at the head of the table with his two brothers. Giles sat on Jeff’s right. He glanced at me.

“Will you be able to hold up for the rest of the meeting?”

I blinked. “The meeting?”

Jeff leaned in his chair, with all seriousness in his face. “Do you still want to be involved in this?”

My answer was instant. “Yes. You can’t make me leave.”

Giles glanced at Jeff who just shrugged. “I’m not manhandling her out of here.”

BANG!

The sound of the door crashing to the wall almost made me duck under the table. We all turned around and I immediately ran as I saw my brother’s face. He was panting, as if he ran all the way here with a manic expression in his eyes. I crashed to my brother’s chest, clinging to him tightly. I was not the most affectionate person towards my brother but having him close was what I needed. The urge to be grateful that he was nowhere near that party was so overwhelming it almost brought me to my knees.

“Thank God!” Mikee sighed. “I was worried sick about you!”

“I was so scared, Mikee,” I sobbed loudly. “I-I c-c-couldn’t get out once it s-s—”

“Shh, shh.” He kept rubbing my back, a thing Mikee always did when I cried as a kid. “It’s okay. I got you.”

“Ash?” was Sasha’s timid call for me by the door to the conference room. She looked worse than Mikee. Her hair was no longer in a ponytail but was in a rather messy waterfall down the sides of her ashen face. Her eyeliner was all over the place and her eyes were glassy. Sasha started crying when she saw me.

“I couldn’t find you,” she cried into my ear when Mikee let me go. “Why did you stay? You could have died!”

I hugged her tight, idly noticing the blue sweatshirt she was wearing. “I almost did. But I’m okay, I promise.”

I kept Sasha close as I watched Mikee give Jeff a folder. “This is confirmation from the, uh, clean-up crew. Draven—er, Blade will be here in a couple of minutes. The doctors didn’t want Hale to go yet but they received your orders.”

“I won’t be keeping him for long in the meeting anyway,” said Jeff. “He’s—”

“Where’s Ashley? Where the fuck—”

My eyes watered and my lips trembled when I saw him. “Draven,” I managed to choke out before his arms enveloped me easily and the relief flooded like a river. The fact he was alive was like a litany on my lips. I pulled away and saw all the minor cuts he had over his arms and the gauze on his forehead. He didn’t seem so bothered about it as he looked me over with frantic gray eyes.

“Thank God you’re alive!” he breathed. “Dammit, Ashley! Why didn’t you run?”

I hit him on the chest, sobbing like a crazy person. “What is the matter with you? Why are your friends like that?”

“They’re not my friends, firecracker.”

“Well, I don’t care.” I sniffled. “We almost died because of them!”

His eyes suddenly darkened. “I’m so sorry, Ashley. You shouldn’t have been caught up in this whole shitfest.”

I opened my mouth and wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault. But how much of this mess was actually his fault? I remember what Jeff told me just the other day. I didn’t know him as well as I thought, and I was a fool for being so convinced that I did. We have been apart for so long, of course I didn’t know him. When I didn’t say anything, Draven’s face grew sadder.

I heard the rumbling of a voice outside the door and moved away from Draven. Hale entered the room, speaking angrily to his phone and stuffing it inside his pocket. I couldn’t help the sob in my chest when I saw him. Hale’s right arm was in a sling to keep him messing up his bandaged arm and shoulder. There was blood on the torn shirt he was wearing and I worried because I knew it was his.

Angry, dark brown eyes softened when we locked gazes. “Hey, buttercup.”

“H-Hale,” I whispered, unable to talk, unable to move. “Are you okay?”

He tried to grin but it turned out to be more like a grimace. “I’m all sorts of fucked up here,” Hale chuckled. “I’m alive, though.”

Walking over, Jeff shook his head. He put his hands on his hips. “Well,” he blew a breath, “you look like shit but you still look like Hale 'the asshat' Victor.”

“Oh, screw you.” Hale rolled his eyes. “You owe me.”

Jeff smirked and clapped Hale on his good shoulder and beckoned everybody to the table. “The faster we finish this, the sooner you all can skedaddle. Mikee, Sasha, I will have to ask you to leave.”

Sasha’s jaw dropped but Mikee quickly nodded and hauled her out of the room before she could say anything. Daniel helped Hale down to a chair, and I was mildly aware of Jeff’s own steadying hand on the small of my back to a chair. He sat beside me, and I pursed my lips.

“You do know I'll tell them everything later, right?” I murmured.

Jeff smirked and murmured back, “I know.”

I stared at him but he only smiled. “So, telling them to go was useless.”

“Uhuh. Let’s keep that little fact to ourselves, shall we?” He put a slender finger over his lips and faced forward. “Shall we start?”

“Wait.” Draven, who was sitting at the end of the table, stared at Jeff and me, confused. “Why aren’t you asking Ashley to leave? What’s going on?”

My mouth felt like cotton as I remembered one simple fact: Draven didn’t know I was part of the Underground.

Giles, who had been silent this whole time, answered for me. “She’s part of the network, Blade. She knows.”

Draven was stunned. Gray eyes looked at me. “Ashley? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I tried to shrug. “It never came up, Draven, and it wasn’t like I was just going to parade around and spread the word.”

“She, like everyone else,” Jeff interjected with a stony face, “is subjected to an oath of protecting the Underground. Don’t blame her. Especially when you have been keeping secrets from her as well,” he added snidely.

“Are you done talking?” Hale groaned as he flexed his back. “God, it’s so exhausting just thinking about it.”

Daniel looked at his brothers. “Maybe we should do this tomorrow? Give them enough time to rest?”

Jeff shook his head no. “I'm sorry but this is urgent.” He lifted the folder Mikee gave him earlier. “We have a huge problem here.”

Giles took the folder from him and read its contents. We all watched as his face paled considerably. “Is this true?” he asked, voice unsteady. “Jeff, you know what this means right?”

Hale laughed darkly when Jeff stayed mute. Daniel’s brows were pulled. “What is it, Giles?” he asked.

The cold started to creep up on me. How dreadful did the contents of that folder have to be to scare a man as dangerous looking as Giles Payton? More importantly, what exactly did I just get myself into?

The Three Brothers only stared at each other. It was like they were telepathically communicating but the tension became physically palpable across each of us. Hale, battered and brokenly laughing to himself, reached across and pushed the folder to Draven, who looked up in surprise. Hale grinned at him, but it wasn’t the kind of grin I was so used to seeing on his face. No—this was different, and I was almost too scared to discern how different it just was.

“Read it.” Hale urged him. “C’mon, traitor. Read it out loud.”

Draven tensed at the slur directed at him but still opened the file. I watched as his eyebrows pulled together and the dawn of understanding hit him. His head snapped to the Three Brothers who only looked on.

“I—”

Hale shook his head. “Just read the fucking thing, Blade.” There was so much venom in his words that I had to pull away a little. Hale’s anger rolled off him in strong waves that frightened me.

But I shouldn’t have been frightened of him. After all the things I have seen, someone’s anger seemed too shallow for me to be afraid of. Draven, knuckles white and fists shaking, read from the contents of the folder that brought down the heavy weight on all of us.

“Death report, extraction team Alpha One: confirmation of death for Anton Du Laurentis.”

Hale started laughing again, but I was too confused. Who was this Anton? Why did it seem like everyone was getting ready for a possible death sentence?

Draven was the one who cleared it up for me. “We just killed the Blood Queen of LA’s brother,” was his almost detached whisper.

The air in my lungs faded. I have heard stories of plenty of Undergrounds fighting for and claiming bigger territories. And it wasn’t at all difficult than you think since most of the other Undergrounds are very small compared to the three major ones: New York, Los Angeles, and New Orleans. It wasn’t often that these invasions happened, except for when Los Angeles wanted to add another string to their web. Rumors of the invasions would always buzz across the community because how it was done was bloody and brutal. This is why the founder of the Los Angeles Underground, Skie Du Laurentis, was dubbed as the Blood Queen. Cold, calculating and thirsty for power, she was infamous for it.

Jeff looked around the table, and he looked satisfied with how we were all now on the same page. “Don’t look so glum, people,” he drawled sarcastically. His eyes pinned on Draven. “I need to know what we got into this fucking war for. What did he want from you?”

“A pendant,” Hale answered for Draven. “All this just for a sick pendant.”

Draven glared at him. “Like I told Anton, I don’t have the damn thing.”

Hale slammed the table with his fist. “I don't fucking believe you! Don't lie to me. I got shot because of you!”

“I never wanted any of this to happen!” Draven roared back. “I got out of LA to stay far away from the violence. Why the hell would I bring anything that still ties me to them?”

“But why does Anton and the Blood Queen think you still have it?” Giles asked worriedly.

Draven shook his head at his manager. “Something is not right. Why would Skie want me to have something she knows she’ll be wanting in the future?”

“And you didn’t keep it?” Jeff confirmed.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I already told you. I wanted to cut ties with them.”

Jeff mulled it over. “Did you throw it away?”

Draven shrugged, gray eyes hard. “When I said I got rid of it, I got rid of it.”

A long stretch of silence followed, with Jeff and Draven staring each other down. Tension crackled from opposite ends of the table became heavy. I shook my head and decided to speak up.

“We seriously can’t start doubting each other right now,” I said. “We have war on our hands, gentlemen. Shouldn’t we be preparing?”

Daniel nodded. “Let’s take his word for it right now. We can always reevaluate later. And execute him if necessary.”

Draven scoffed. “You might be forgetting but I took an oath before I joined here.”

Jeff smiled blandly. “Like you did when you joined LA? Right. From now on out, you shall not be privy to any information in preparation to this shit. Giles, I trust you’ll keep on vouching for him?”

Draven looked towards Giles, but he met his brothers’ stares instead. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”

He nodded. “We’ll try to resolve this diplomatically, but expect the very worst. You’re all excused.”

And just like that, Hale, Draven and I were ushered out of the room. Hale didn’t look back and kept walking, leaving me alone with Draven in a dim hallway, looking at each other.

His mouth opened, but just when it seemed he was going to say something, he closed it again. And maybe it was for the best. I searched my brain for anything to say, but I was coming up blank. Out of everything that happened and that was revealed on this awful night, I couldn’t find one appropriate thing to say to him.

“I’m so sorry,” was his broken whisper. It was so soft I don't even think I was intended to hear it.

And still, even then, I had no words. So, I took his hand, gave it a small squeeze, and left.