Oops - CinderScoria (the best books to read .TXT) 📗

escape if I got the chance, I needed energy. Slowly, I nodded.

Maya smiled again in grim triumph and lifted the chicken to my lips again. I grabbed it with my teeth and chewed, staring at the floor, anywhere but her face.

I was on to the third piece of chicken when the door started to open. Maya stood immediately and cupped a hand over my mouth-- not in a violent way, just telling me to be quiet. Nani was alert instantly, staring at Maya, who shook her head. They sure had a discreet way of communicating.

The door slowly creaked open. Maya reached for her pocket, where she undoubtedly had a gun or a knife or any other random lethal weapon. Light flooded in as the door opened all the way, and a figure stood there, hands in his pockets.

"Something told me you'd be here."
Chapter Four

Blake woke with a jolt. He stared at the ceiling above him, not recognizing the criss-crossed plaid patterns that danced across the tiles until he realize a second later that it was his ceiling, over his bed, in his bedroom. Going on tour, in addition to having six houses all over the United States, usually meant him sleeping in hotels. Different beds, different ceilings. And unfortunately, his own room was no exception.

He rubbed at his eyes and sat up slowly. A dark, heavy feeling settled in the pit of his stomach and Blake couldn’t figure out why until it all rushed back to him. The concert, feedback and the girl and Rocky and the cops, the FBI agents and Detective Dawson. But Rocky. Mostly Rocky.

He leaned forward and drew his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs. Blake honestly didn’t know what to do. His emotions were so jumbled up in a bundle of hormones and confusion that all he really wanted to do was scream—be it out of anger or sadness, he had no clue.

The door to his bedroom opened, and Shane popped his head in. Blake opened his mouth to say something, and then it all poured out as he began to cry.

This was stupid— Blake was seventeen, for God’s sakes! Seventeen-year-olds didn’t cry, and yet here he was, doing the exact thing he wasn’t supposed to at this age. Shane rushed over to him, sat on his bed, and pulled his head to his chest. Blake sat there and tried to get his sobs under control. He hadn’t cried since Mom died. Rocky always told him that much emotion trapped inside of him was going to make him explode one day. Turned out he was right. Blake felt like a walking pressure-sensitive case of C-4, just waiting for the next thing to go wrong so he could blow all over again. He was a wreck.

Shane was incredibly patient with him. Blake knew that his brother had to have been taking this just as hard, if not harder. But he held him and he didn’t cry. Blake was grateful for that.

Slowly his sobs faded to hiccups. He felt like he could pass out again, despite the clock on the side table reading 5:12 PM. Shane had pulled the curtains open, too, so that the setting sun reflected off the Pacific Ocean and right into Blake’s eyes. He squinted and then turned his face away, annoyed. Being blinded was the last thing he needed.

A knock on the door interrupted whatever Blake was about to say to his brother, an erratic three beats in rapid succession, followed by five longer ones. The two switched glances and Shane got up and opened the door to reveal Dawson standing there, grinning from ear to ear. The detective hadn’t changed much since last night— literally. He still wore the same trench coat and fedora, although he did have two bags of McDonald’s in his hands.

“Evening, sunshine!” he exclaimed, pushing past Shane and into the room, despite not being invited in. “Your dad let me in. Thought we should get started.”

Blake pursed his lips and looked at the bags in his hands. “We don’t like McDonald’s,” he said shortly.

Shane frowned at him disapprovingly and then turned to the detective. “But thanks anyways,” he said. “You didn’t have to do that for us.”

“No, it’s my bad,” Dawson admitted sheepishly, and put the bags down on the small side table next to Blake’s bed. “I planned to do some research about you guys, but I got interrupted.”

“By what?” Blake asked curiously.

Dawson’s eyes glittered excitedly. “One of my sources found a boy who’d been shot. He wasn’t Rocky,” he said hurriedly at the stricken look on the boys’ faces. “But he was found holding your brother’s necklace, the one your mom—”

“Gave to him for his birthday,” Shane completed. “Yeah, we know."

“Anyways,” Dawson said, shrugging, “he’s in the hospital right now. He’s fine, by the way, and he woke up a couple of minutes ago. We can go ask him questions about how Rocky’s necklace came into his possession.”

“What are we waiting for?” Blake demanded, swinging out of bed.

Dawson looked him up and down. “Well, you can start by getting dressed,” he pointed out.

Blake scowled, grabbed something from the drawer by the bed, and shuffled off to the bathroom to take a shower. Shane was left with Dawson.

“So…” the detective drawled.

Shane wanted to ignore him. He had no patience for this hyperactive man. But if his assistance let Rocky come home sooner, he was going to suck it up and let the detective annoy him.

“Have the cops already talked to this guy?” he asked him, just to fill the silence.

“Nope.” Dawson popped the 'p,' making Shane grind his teeth together. “Kid woke up half an hour ago. I don’t even think the cops know about it yet.”

Shane looked at him, curious. “Then how did you know about it?"

Dawson leaned forward with shifty eyes and said in whisper, “I have friends in high places.”

Or friends in low places, Shane couldn’t help thinking. The idea of Dawson having any friends anywhere was a bit of a stretch for him to comprehend.

Blake came out then. Shane gave him a look— that was fast— and Blake shrugged, grabbing his jacket and shrugging it on. “Are we leaving now, or what?”

The three jogged down the stairs— Dawson panted the whole way like he wasn’t used to climbing stair cases— and swung into the kitchen. Blake looked around, furrowing his brow.

“Where’s Dad?” he asked Dawson.

It was Shane who answered. “He went with the FBI to answer some questions.”

Blake shot him a look. They were probably routine, but he had a feeling they were grilling him about him and Shane about the relationship the brothers had. Or maybe that was his paranoia setting in. Either way, it didn’t matter. Shane wrote a quick note in his ironically messy shorthand and left it on the counter.

They left a couple of minutes later in the limo. Shane’s bodyguard, Keith— who’d been their bodyguard and chief of security for the four years they’d been a band— was driving and didn’t even look annoyed when Dawson mock-punched him in the shoulder and attempted to joke about the hectic life of a bodyguard.

The detective, for his part, acted like he’d never been in a limo before— and maybe he hadn’t, if the only items he owned were the trench coat and the hat. He helped himself to a Dr. Pepper from the cooler in the side, even though he never really had asked permission. Blake and Shane let him, too busy staring out the window, lost in their own thoughts.

The hospital was in Los Angeles. Dawson breezed through the hospital check-ins, flashing his wallet at the nearest doctors who tried to stop him. Considering he was a private detective, Blake assumed he didn’t even have a badge, but the staff must have recognized him on sight because he moved out of the way.

“Andre Morreno,” Dawson said loudly as he opened the door to the hospital room.

The kid who looked up couldn’t have been more than twelve. He was scrawny and skinny— and the brothers could tell because his chest was exposed and only half-covered with the thick white bandage wrapped around his right shoulder. He has scraggly, oily black curls that dropped to his chin and mischievous brown eyes that twinkled when he looked at them.

And then he opened his mouth.

Blake and Shane stared at him as he rattled off a multitude of Spanish that neither of them understood.

“Por qué hay cantantes famosos en mi habitación? Qué es eso, algún tipo de broma? Porque me estoy reiendo. Que gracioso!"

The two brothers looked at each other and then at him. “Sorry, dude,” Blake said shortly. “We don’t speak Spanish.”

Andre grinned, flashing teeth that looked more yellow than white. “Yeah, dude,

why you think say it? Man, what the hell you doin’ up in here? You checkin’ in the mental ward or somethin’?”

Blake blinked and Shane frowned, while Dawson just tipped his hat coolly.

“Listen, you little punk,” he snarled, placing two hands on the hospital bed and leaning in so his face was two inches from Andre’s. “You’re going to tell us what you know, and you’re going to tell us now— unless you want some bullets to go with that hole in your shoulder.”