Page 82 of MC Princess
“Where is Zoe?” She asks after leaving the room and coming back.
“She took some sketches to the police this morning with Tough I really thought she'd be back. Wait what time is it?”
“It's after 9, where would she be?”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket where I left it when I fell asleep and immediately shoot her a text message, right away I see that she's read it and she's responding.
“Tough took me to breakfast, we're on our way back now.”
“Oh, how cute, lovebirds first date!” Bell's voice is all sarcasm, but it's really Raven's face that makes me start laughing.
“What? Didn’t you know that she had a thing for Tough?”
“No! He looks old enough to be her dad!”
“Hey! Age is but a number, honey!” Bell throws a pillow at her, when you get to know the guys it's hard to remember that they’re so much older than us.
“OK that's a good point, but I thought she was dating Top and Hollow?”
“I'm dating three men, why can't she?”
Raven doesn't respond just smiles and shakes her head; I want to ask her if she wishes she had a life like ours. There is always more love to give and there is always room to receive more love, plus it's just really fun to be dating three men. Not to mention the things that you can get down to in the bedroom.
Bell and I are still in the bed when Tough and Zoe come into the room, they aren't holding hands but he's standing awfully close to her. Shit, the fact that she was willing to be alone with him that whole time says that she's comfortable enough. Maybe it's not going to take her as long to get over this as she thought it would, hopefully as soon as she's out of the city and away from this school she'll be okay.
“Did we blow up that warehouse?” Zoe plops onto the foot of my bed.
“Oh, so the club is a ‘we’ now?” I want to give her so much shit about how quickly she has just stepped into this family, but secretly I love it. She needs people to protect her, to love her unconditionally, and be there for her no matter what. It's clear that she never got that from her family, and I know without a doubt that my family is willing to pick up the slack.
“Not the point, did the club blow up the warehouse?” Raven quickly shuts the door to our room even though it doesn't sound like there's a bunch of people in the house.
“We did but only because that was the warehouse for the gang that Travis was getting the drugs from.”
“Why didn't we blow it up sooner?”
“Well, Bell and I just got the address to the place over spring break, and there was a lot of scouting, and planning, and, well, you know,planning, that goes into setting a building on fire. And really, they didn't even blow it on purpose. They just lit it on fire, it blew up on its own.”
“Well at least now maybe no one else will be able to get drugs.”
“I think that was the plan, well that and just helping takedown the ASG.”
***
It takes a week for Zoe to decide that she's leaving before the end of the school year. Every day that week her and I talk about it, I continue to go to class but Zoe hasn't so much as walked across campus since the day that we watched the dean get arrested.
Speaking of the dean getting arrested. He did in fact have friends in high places that got him out of jail, and he listened to my advice and disappeared just as quickly. My dad sent pictures to every single chapter of the Ghost Riders, if he's still in the country somebody is going to find him. If he's smart, he picked one that had no extradition and him and his wife just left. Then again, we already decided he wasn't a smart man.
I stand in the kitchen and listen to Raven try to convince Zoe to stay, yet again. She’s not wrong to think that things are changing, and I get why she doesn’t want them to, but collage just isn’t for us anymore. She doesn’t understand that she has always seen herself going to college, I never imagined that I would, and Zoe, she only came here to get away from her parents. She has decided to leave now, but I will be staying until everything with these guys is taken care of. I can’t leave here and feel good about it until they are gone.
Zoe gave the pictures to the police, Travis's been brought in for questioning, but he didn't give up the name of the other guy, well the other two guys. We never were able to finish the face of one of them, he either didn't have a big part in it or whatever his part was didn't do enough trauma to Zoe for her to really remember his face.
When they picked Travis up his parents supplied him with a really good attorney and they ended up having to get a warrant to get his DNA to match it to one of the samples the hospital has. When it came back as a positive match, he was given the same treatment as Noah, marked as a flight risk, and held until his court date. Part of me wishes that they would let the two of them go, let him walk around until their a court date, I'm confident that the club would take care of it and no court date would be needed. Sadly, that's not what Zoe wants, and the guys have agreed to listen to me.
“It's only a few more weeks!” Raven slams the refrigerator door and the stuff inside of it clanks together.
“I don't think you understand what being on this campus is doing to my recovery. I understand you don't want to lose your friend, but if I have any chance of moving past this and getting on with my life I have to leave.” Before now Zoe had been nice about it, joking and kind of bouncing around her real reason for leaving but Raven wasn't taking the hint. Sure, Raven has some trauma from what happened, but it doesn't hold a candle to what Zoe is going through. She has already set it up with her therapist to continue virtual meetings once a week, and she's available on her cell phone anytime between when Zoe needs to talk.
I know that Zoe just wants Raven to understand, maybe because she doesn't want to lose her as a friend or because of the fact that she's leaving today, and she doesn't want to leave with things unsettled. Raven is being kind of stubborn though.
