I had no fucking idea what I was doing, but I just kept moving forward, making sure there was no evidence that Rogue had killed this asshole. Her life was not going to be ruined over this. There was no fucking way I’d allow that to happen.
"Did he hurt you?" JJ asked Rogue.
"He tried to," she said, standing there in my black hoodie and sweatpants which were way too big on her and I was half aware that all of us were holding our breath and staring at her. "But he didn't manage it. Not before I..." She gestured to the body with a grimace, but not like she was disgusted by the blood, more that she was disgusted by the man who’d tried to hurt her. "I didn't mean to drag you all into this," she said, an apology shining in her eyes.
"We wouldn't be anywhere else, beautiful," Maverick said darkly, wiping his hands down his jeans and smearing blood across the denim. We’d have to dispose of our clothes after this, get rid of anything that could link us to this prick.
We can pull this off, I just need to keep my head. I can figure this out for Rogue.
I nodded to her and JJ held her tighter as Chase moved to start wrapping up the body.
"Nice night for disposing of a corpse," he said dryly as me and Maverick moved to help him, rolling Axel up tight in the tarp before binding the ends with rope.
The three of us wordlessly lifted him into our arms and JJ and Rogue hurried ahead of us as we followed them towards the back door. My pulse was jack-hammering in my throat as I gazed at the back of Rogue's head, determined to fix this for her. But how? Where were we going to take him?
Maverick seemed to be thinking along the same lines as me as he looked my way, the clouds shifting over the moon to highlight his face for a moment before darkness fell once more. I was glad of the cloud cover tonight at least. We were going to need it.
We tossed Axel in the back of my truck between our surfboards and I pulled the cover over the top of them all, concealing the entire bed.
Maverick moved to my side, lowering his voice as he muttered to me while the others climbed into the cab.
"The cliffs?" he said. "We could bury him."
"We'd need shovels." I shook my head. "How about the ocean?”
“But we need a boat,” he hissed.
"I've got a key to dad's speed boat." I took my car keys out, showing him the boat key on it and he smirked.
"Of course you do, Foxy. Let's go." He slapped his hand to my back and I nodded to him as he walked around to the passenger side of the truck while I climbed into the driver's seat.
Maverick opened the cab door and I frowned as I realised there weren’t enough seats. He usually took his motorcycle when we were heading anywhere together or sometimes everyone sat in the back when we didn't have the boards. But that wasn't exactly an option right now.
Rogue was on the far end of the bench, her fingers clasped with Chase's beside her who was staring at her with a look I simply couldn't place.
"Sit on my lap," Maverick told Rogue, stepping into the truck and lifting her up without giving her a choice.
We didn't exactly have a better idea right now so it would have to do. Her hand was tugged from Chase's as Maverick placed her on his lap and yanked the door shut behind him.
“Give her to me,” Chase growled, tugging her from Maverick’s lap into his and winding an arm around her waist. Maverick snarled like a damn pitbull and started pulling her back.
“Stop it,” she snapped, but they both still had a hold of her.
She pushed off of Chase’s lap, dropping onto JJ’s and his eyes widened in surprise as she wrapped her arms around his neck. JJ’s hand took her hand firmly and she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder.
A tug of jealously filled me over the fact that I couldn't be the one comforting her right now. But I had enough to focus on. I had to get us to the marina and somehow get a body onto dad's boat without being seen. It might have been late, but there was always life on these streets, no matter the time of day.
But I was the son of the most ruthless man in Sunset Cove, and though I had zero experience of dumping a body, that shit was in my genes. So I was damn well gonna figure it out.
I leaned against JJ as I was crushed on top of him in Fox's truck, the scent of blood still clinging to me even after I'd washed it all off. I felt like I was going to need to bathe in bleach to ever feel clean of it again. Or more to the point, to feel like I’d cleaned the feeling of Axel’s hands off of my flesh. Not that I'd change what I'd done for a second. I didn't care that that bastard was dead. In fact, I was glad of it. I clearly wasn't the first girl he'd done that to and Mary Beth had been running that group home for fucking years with girls walking up and down that street every damn day. I was clearly just the latest in a long line of his victims. But what he should have realised about me was that I was no victim. Life had been trying to kick me in the ass since the day I was born. My mom gave me a freaking adjective for a name and the bad shit didn't stop coming my way from there on out. And I’d long since learned how to roll with the punches.
But that was cool. Because I had my boys now. And it didn't even matter what else I had to live through in this shit hole we called home because a bond like ours was unbreakable. Un-fucking-touchable. They were the kind of friends I could call up and tell I'd killed a guy and they just showed up and helped me fix it. If you had one friend that good in life then you were damn lucky and I had four. I was the luckiest bitch I knew.
I shifted in JJ's lap and he growled something that made the hairs along the back of my neck prickle as I turned to look into his eyes. He was so freaking pretty it was untrue. His mom was from South Korea originally and she'd told him his dad was Malaysian even though he'd never been on the scene and Christ that combo had created something really damn captivating to look at. He'd been the kind of kid who should have been on diaper commercials making shit catchers look cute and now he was growing into the kind of dude who girls couldn't take their eyes off of. Me included half the time.
JJ kept running his hand in small circles on my lower back and it felt stupidly good, like he was soothing my damn soul.
"I love you boys," I said, looking between the four of them and smiling as the panic of what I'd done finally subsided just a little.
"I love you too, hummingbird," Fox said instantly, looking over at me with a grin and then shooting a scowl at J which I was pretty sure I wasn't supposed to notice.
Maverick thumped him in the shoulder. "We all love you, beautiful," he said firmly. "And I'd kill that motherfucker again if you hadn't done such an awesome job of it. In fact, that really just makes me love you more. You’re a bloodthirsty badass and it’s hot as hell."
"Shut the fuck up, Rick," Chase growled, his eyes flashing and I was guessing he didn't like the fact that I'd been exposed to violence like that.
He kept looking at my busted lip like it actually caused him pain and I reached out to take his hand to try and reassure him that I was okay. He'd seen too much fucking violence in his life for anyone and I knew this had to be rough on him. All he ever wanted was to be able to protect his mom from the violence of his dad and now he had to face the fact that he hadn’t been able to protect someone else he loved from pain either. It wasn’t his job to look after me, but I loved that he wished he could.