Tarnished Crown (Gravestone Elite #2) by Caitlyn Dare (top inspirational books TXT) 📗

His face heats as he stares at me with pursed lips, but he doesn't respond to my question. "We need to be moving in an hour, so get your asses ready." Shoving his still mostly full plate into the center of the table, he pushes from his chair and marches from the room, quickly followed by Ashton and Tim.

"Was that necessary?" Brandon asks, turning his eyes on me.

For some reason, the girls weren't invited to have lunch with us today. It makes me wonder if Cade knew we'd be called.

"What?” I shrug. “She is in my class."

He rolls his eyes, shoves some of his lunch into his mouth and stands. "Come on then," he mumbles around his mouthful. "The king waits for no one."

Ain't that the fucking truth.

Reluctantly, I stand with Alex and Channing and we follow where the others disappeared only minutes ago.

Channing climbs into my car and Alex goes with Brandon, like we did first thing this morning. I watch Alex as he climbs inside, concern trickling through me. Not so long ago he wouldn't have gone anywhere near Brandon's car. But less than two weeks into this life and he seems to be embracing it a little too easily.

"What's the job? Any idea?"

"Nope. Literally could be anything," Channing helpfully answers as he sits back.

"Okay… well, what kind of stuff do you usually do?"

He glances over at me. "You really want the answer to that?"

My lips part to reply, but I stop myself. Do I really want to know?

"Put it this way: all of us have blood on our hands and have plenty of reasons not to sleep at night."

"Great." Exactly what I was expecting. "How do you do it?"

"Other than because we have to?"

"Yeah."

He shrugs. "I dunno. It's hard to explain, but I kinda go someplace else when all that bad shit is going down."

"You're telling me you've got multiple personalities."

"No, yeah, maybe. Fuck knows. The whole thing is fucking screwed up, and you just gotta do what you can to survive."

"Jesus," I mutter, scrubbing my hand down my face.

The second we're back at the house, we head to our rooms to dress in our 'uniform.' Ten minutes later we're standing in the entryway, all head to toe in black and looking like we're about to go rob a bank.

To be fair, we might be.

"Right, let's go."

When we step out of the house, there are two black SUVs idling out the front. Cade and his sidekicks immediately slide into the first, whereas Alex, Channing and I climb into the second.

There's a definite divide appearing in the group, and I couldn't be happier that Channing seems to have chosen my side. Brandon is hovering in the middle, although I am worried about Alex.

I glance over at him; his knee is bouncing and his hands are twisting on his lap. "You alright, man?" I ask.

"Uh… yeah." He glances over at me and his eyes are blown.

"You fucking on something?"

"What? N-no. Just the come down from yesterday," he admits with a wince.

"You need to lay off that shit."

"I know," he mutters as Channing shoots me a concerned glance.

The drive to wherever we're going is only short, and when I look out the blacked out windows, I find we're pulling up to a deserted warehouse.

Well, this isn't ominous at all.

"Out," Cade barks, pulling the door open for us.

We follow orders like good little sheep. I want to refuse, but a bigger part of me is curious about what's going to happen next.

Cade leads us to the doors and throws them open when he gets there as if he's announcing his arrival at a party. I soon realize he is. The warehouse is empty aside from a few other guys dressed the same as us, and a guy sitting in a chair in the middle of the room with a bag over his head.

Cade nods at the others and they all immediately leave without saying a word.

"Who the fuck were they?" I ask Channing.

"Q security."

"Right."

"You ready to play, boys?" Cade asks, turning to us with a manic smile across his face. His eyes land on mine before they find Alex, making dread sit heavy in my stomach.

Whatever the fuck is going to happen here is going to involve us, that much is obvious. Our initiation might be over, but we've far from passed, as far as Cade is concerned.

"This motherfucker thought he would try his hand at selling our secrets. Didn't you?" He doesn't wait for the guy to answer; instead he pulls his arm back and punches him in his covered face.

I have no clue if the man is conscious or not, but he doesn't make a noise as his head snaps back.

"Now, we all know what happens to people who try to betray us. But I'm not sure our new recruits do. Moore, wanna fill them in?"

I look at Ashton, who's got a similar blood-hungry look on his face. He really is a fucking psychopath.

He rubs his hands together. "We kill them."

Great.

Cade reaches behind him and pulls a gun from his waistband. "But we're not going to be doing it this time." He steps up to Alex, and my heart falls into my feet. There's no way Alex will pull the fucking trigger on someone. "Rexford is."

"Uh, what?" he stutters, all the blood draining from his face.

"You might wear the mark of the Electi, Rexford, but you're not a true Electi until you make your first kill. You need to prove you’ve got what it takes. You've already shown us you're more than capable with the women; now it's time to prove your worth with the rats."

Cade holds the gun out and Alex reluctantly takes it. It's not even raised, and his hand is trembling. With a nod of his head, Cade stalks around the person in the chair and rips the hood off. The second he does, it's obvious that the man is conscious, but his eyes are resigned, as if he's long accepted his fate.

Blood pours from his nose and into