“Your abode awaits.” Cooper holds out his hand, pushing open the door, inviting me to pass him without crossing the threshold. There is something sexy about a man that assumes you have boundaries and doesn’t encroach on your space. It helps when that man is all lean muscle, tattoos, and brooding feral energy. Slap the word dark before the romance because there is a tortured edge to these men, and they could literally encapsulate perfectly every male lead from every steamy cowboy book I’ve ever read. And thanks to Suzy, I’ve read a fair few.
“Thank you.” I grin. “Both of you,” I correct quickly as they lean in to place my belongings inside the doorway.
“Be seeing you around, Ca-ra.” There he goes again, toying with my name like a cat with a ball of yarn. I’m aware this guy likely has claws hidden beneath his exuberant, devil-may-care exterior though, and boy drama is the last thing I need right now. Knowing this, I’m curious to find I’m pouting. As though I have no control over it, I can feel the shift in my expression as they stare down at me.
“No more sweetcheeks?” I tease.
“My brother had a momentary slip; we like our heads exactly where they are,” Caleb remarks, tipping his cowboy hat that makes him look all rugged and manly, his brother following suit politely and throwing a cheeky wink into the mix before they both head back down the way they came and disappear down the stairs.
I unapologetically marvel at the shape of their arses as they go, thanking the artist that made those jeans that hug so perfectly to their muscled thighs, and then retreat into my room.
Kicking the door shut behind me, I replay Caleb’s words—they like theirheads exactly where they are. Whatever that means. I could dwell on it, but unpacking and settling in seems like the less headache-inducing option. Something tells me not much here will make sense anyway.
It’s been an hour,and I’m already wondering why I left Hollow Hills so willingly. Okay, so the seriously hot men softened the blow of upending my life, but that isn’t enough to squash the realisation that I might not be ready to live here alone.
I’ve spent more years than I can count sharing my space—queueing for the bathroom, arguing over shower schedules, dealing with the fallout of finding the snack cupboard empty just when the time-of-the-month-synchronised cravings hit. I’ve never been alone long enough to know what true loneliness feels like.
I sigh, the sound heavier than expected. When it echoes back at me, the emptiness of the room presses in, cold and unfamiliar. Looking around, the wordhomefeels lacklustre on my lips, like another lie I'm forcing out into the ether, the silence suddenly too loud.
I push open the window as far as the bars will allow and welcome the sound of chirping birds in the trees to fill the room.
The furniture that isn’t covered with sheets are a mismatch of colours and styles. I suspect they are vintage pieces, the designs too ornate to be mass produced, their wooden features a solid stained oak. It looks like a pricey thrift store has thrown up in here, but there’s a beauty in the madness that I can appreciate. Hand-painted pink flowers with thick woven vines creep up from the base board across the wall and over a portion of the ceiling behind the wooden bed with the high steepled corners, the backdrop a deep forest green. I begin removing the sheets, unmasking the hidden treasures of the room as a murder of crows caws in the trees outside. The window seat, the trunk atthe end of the bed, and the chair slid under the corner desk are a mix of battered gold velvets. The star of the show though is a fuchsia armchair set against the large mirror on the far wall beside the floor-to-ceiling-archway windows. I’ll choose to block out the thick black bars.
The chiming voice in my head reminds me that I’m never completely alone. ‘Forgot where you were for a second there, didn’t-cha?’I had done my research, and Blackwood Asylum was most notably known for the prolific criminally insane patients that reside here against their will, their identities—both real and fake—littering every government list worldwide. I have voluntarily stepped into the belly of the beast; I’d question my sanity right now, but that’s a rabbit hole I don’t know whether I’d be able to climb out of.
Buckle down, Alice, shit just got interesting. Welcome to Wonderland.
Tucking away my reservations, I shake away the thought and take a moment to assess the room with rose-tinted glasses, a trick to turn a bad situation on its head that I have yet to master, but it seems to ignite a semblance of comfort when I need it most.
‘The glasses and self-medicating,’that taunting little voice offers, but I refuse to let it stick. My need for sleeping aids is an issue I’ll save for some poor therapist down the line—no point rehashing problems I can’t solve. Future Cara will have to take one for the team.
“My new beginning, a fresh start,” I say aloud before another intrusive thought can materialise. I straighten my spine and roll out my shoulders as a show of strength, my body believing in the sentiment before my brain has a chance to play catch up. With my hands on my hips, I spin and take in the whole room. This space feels so light and yet so impossibly dark all at once. Every fixture and fitting from the chandelier overhead, thedresser vanity table, to the scuffed-framed mirror on the wall has the same tinge of vintage bronze. It’s easily the most opulent room I’ve ever been in and nothing like where the online tour had suggested I’d be housing. An honest person would fess up that they had likely been put in the wrong room,
‘Enjoy the ride, bitch. Where did honesty ever get you?’Suzy’s voice rings out in my head, and I smile at the thought, abruptly deciding to follow her lead because why the fuck not? Claiming the space as my own is a resolute move forward in my journey to becoming the new and improved Cara Morgrieves. Thisismy fresh start, a new beginning I get to mould for myself. Why shouldn’t I enjoy it? There was nothing for me in Hollow Hills.
As though on cue, my phone rings, Suzy’s name lighting up the screen as a reminder that there is one thing I’ve left behind—the all-consuming wrath of my best friend when she’s in protective mode. I can practically feel her tension before the call has even connected.
“I read your horoscope. How bad is it? Are they being nice to you?”
“Hello to you too, Mum,” I chuckle with my phone held between my ear and my shoulder as I haul my suitcase up onto the bed with a grunt, pulling my hand back and hissing as the busted lock nicks my gloved finger, blood seeping out and staining the cotton. “Fuck,” I spit, pulling off my glove with my teeth and sucking my finger in between my lips.
“Are those sex noises?” she asks accusingly, the video call notification blaring in my ear when I don’t immediately answer her.
I answer the chat with a curt smile, blowing a curl of hair from my face with a huff when it connects. Only she would suspect i’m having sex and immediatly jump in for visual confirmation. “No, those were noises that tell me I am severelyunfit, and I need to invest in some new luggage.” I hold my finger up to show her the split skin. “I’ve not been here long enough to entice a man into my bed,” I retort playfully, my eyebrow elevated. I push aside the image of Ezra laying shirtless on the cotton sheets because I know even through the phone, Suzy can detect arousal a mile off—it’s like her superpower.
“Liar. What’s his name?” she clucks, eyeing me suspiciously with pursed lips.
What did I say—superpower.
A garbled yowl and a succession of gruff pleas reverberating through the speaker from her end have my interest piqued.
“Are those sex noises?” I counter, mimicking the same parental tone she threw at me.
Disappointed, she replies, “Hardly,” as she turns the phone so the view of a dank basement room with a dirty cement floor, crude hanging lights, and a water hose system snaking around the ceiling comes into the shot. I wince when I see Jax take a hall-of-fame-worthy swing with a metal bat against a man’s chest. He rocks in the chair bolted to the floor with the force of it, wheezing as a shirtless Jax circles him, rolling it in his bloodied fist as though he’s gearing to step up to the plate rather than using it for the purposes of torture.
“Hi, Jax,” I call out, and he turns to flash me that swoon-worthy lopsided smile, two fingers tipped against his forehead as he salutes me in greeting. Pulling back his bat, he resumes his business as usual with his victim of choice; this time the jab isn’t nearly as hard, but it doesn’t stop the man from screaming any less as the metal makes contact with his ribcage. The mighty crack of splintering bones makes me wince.
“Just another day in the office,” Suzy states. The man chained to the chair breathlessly continues to plead with Jax, knowing it’s pointless. Jax is Hollow Hills’ reaper, and the lore of the underground is that no one gets out alive if you are onhis list. I’d feel sorry for the guy if I didn’t recognise him as one of Doc’s highest-bidding clients. He had left plenty of marks on Suzy’s body, and that’s likely why he’s a bloody mess at Jax’s mercy right now. A human pin cushion poked full of holes and baring swipes of a blade across his chest as Jax enacts a rightful show of vengeance in his woman’s honour. Romance comes in many forms in our world—carving up and murdering the men who have wronged us is right there at the top with sending flowers and obsessively stalking us until the time to pounce and profess their undying love. I didn’t say it was a Hallmark-healthy romance, there’s no marshmallows and small-town carnival rides in our stories, but there’s plenty of aged whisky and red flags a plenty.
