Burn (Brothers of Ink and Steel #2) Read online

  Burn

  Brothers of Ink and Steel

  #2

  by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  Copyright © 2014 by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  All Rights Reserved

  Published by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Edited by Nicole Hewitt

  Formatted by Mike Mousso

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  And get all the info on the

  Brothers of Ink and Steel series and the True North series at www.alliejuliettemousseau.com

  Author’s Note

  While writing Burn, I was often surrounded by quiet. The songs that spoke to me the deepest when I did listen to music, I compiled for you—to take or to leave. I would never want my personal musical tastes to affect my reader’s experience. If there was one song on the list I would say, as a friend, that you just had to listen to, it would be “If You Ever Come Back” by The Script.

  Although fiction, this novel is based on true and actual events.

  I’m excited to bring you the Brothers of Ink and Steel series—a gritty, sexy spin-off of the True North series.

  All of the books in either series can be read as standalones.

  Of course, I definitely encourage reading every novel in both the

  True North and Brothers of Ink and Steel series

  because the men are delicious bad boys and the women are strong, sassy bad asses!

  (Burn contains mature subject matter.)

  Dedication

  For anyone and everyone who has ever spent the night outside on cold concrete—alone and terrified.

  Who has experienced the horror of being homeless, the pain of being betrayed, or the sting of abuse by someone you once trusted.

  If you have ever felt like there was no one in the world who loved you.

  With no one to love or protect you at your most vulnerable,

  And no place to call … home.

  Burn Playlist

  on Spotify

  “More Than a Feeling” Boston

  “Hurricane” Theory of a Deadman

  “Cemetery Gates” Pantera

  “Shatter Me” Lindsey Stirling ft. Lzzy Hale

  “You Found Me” Kelly Clarkson

  “Secrets” One Republic

  “Fire and Rain” James Taylor

  “Torn Apart” Bastille

  “Can’t Forget You” My Darkest Days

  “Wish You Were Here” Pink Floyd

  “Sugar” Maroon 5

  “Dare You to Move” Switchfoot

  “I Wonder” Kellie Pickler

  “Fix Me” 10 Years

  “If You Ever Come Back” The Script

  “Say You Love Me” Jessie Ware

  “Yours” Elle Henderson

  “The Humbling River” Puscifer

  “All of Me” John Legend

  “Ho Hey” The Lumineers

  “Burn” Elle Goulding

  “Thinking Out Loud” Ed Sheeran

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  About Allie Juliette

  Prologue

  July, 2005

  Quinn

  The heat of the night is oppressive.

  With every step, sweat streams down my back and mats my hair to my forehead.

  I pick up the filthy old payphone receiver and try not to hold it too close to my mouth. My hand is trembling—I’m in the worst part of the city after midnight.

  Most of the streetlamps in this section have had the bulbs shot out. It’s dark and there isn’t a visible star in the sky. I peer around me cautiously, like a mouse who’s trying to get across a long stretch of field watches for the owl, that harbinger of death from above.

  The street is empty—void of cars driving by or even parked. A low lit bulb staccatos above my head, illuminating a tiny circle where I stand, shaking with nerves, amidst the empty storefronts with iron bars on the windows and doors.

  I know better than to wander through here, but my mom lives on the edge of town, and there’s still on old payphone in front of the run-down out-of-business gas station. But it’s dangerously close to the area we locals call Westhill. Bars, strip clubs and sex stores line the streets; junkies search the place with their hands out, hoping to find another hit, while the dealers stand watch in full force, looking for new customers—anyone they can tempt to get high on a free ride, knowing they’ll have to come back for more.

  Then there are the gangs—the most powerful and influential of them is the Westhill Cartel, led by the brutal warlord Vince Ortega. His ruthless gang manages all the drug vendors in this section of the city. Vince is also a pimp. He and his cronies scour the streets and well-known hangouts for homeless kids—especially girls, especially the newbies who have fear in their eyes and empty bellies—and promise them a safe place to sleep and food in exchange for their “services.”

  He test drives each one personally, and then she’s passed around to his top lieutenants before she’s tossed onto the street. After the girl turns over a certain number of tricks, she gets a meager fifteen percent of her earnings. And from what I’ve heard firsthand, when supply and demand aren’t in balance, these girls are usually kept like slaves by Vince, beaten and sometimes tortured then discarded—often in the river or a nearby dumpster.

  Last year I met a girl who worked for him. He tried recruiting me, but I caught him off guard when I kneed him in the balls and ran like hell.

  I shudder and remind myself he has so many girls, he certainly doesn’t have time to think about me.

  After pushing aside the trash and cigarette butts with my foot so I can stand closer to the phone, I turn my attention to the keypad and dial North House.

  How could I have been stupid enough to think my mom would really want me? How can you love somebody so much, so deeply that it burns inside of you like a consuming flame … but they don’t love you back? You hold onto that fire because you’re so freaking sure that if you love them hard enough, they’ll wake up one day and feel what you feel and want what you want.

  That somehow that happy ending will come true, and everything in the world will be alright.

  “Operator.”

  “I need to make a collect call from Quinn.”

  But that isn’t the truth or the reality, not in my world. Not in Liam’s world. Not in any of the worlds that the people I hold closest to my heart live in. Living in the group home for these past several months has taught me that life isn’t only unfair, most of the time it’s utterly and mercilessly cruel.

  Is it horrible that I’ve taken comfort in the fact that I’m not the only kid in the world whose parents couldn’t give a shit about them? Who couldn’t care less if we lived … or died? How? How can you not care about your very own flesh and blood?

  Anger is good. It’s like a shield. Hope it lasts.

  “Hello?” the sleepy man on the other end of the line says.

  “I have a collect call from Quinn,” the operators informs. “Will you accept the charges
?”

  “Yes, absolutely.” Hearing Cade North’s voice comforts me. It’s so easy to imagine him as the father I never had.

  “Cade! It all went so wrong! She threw me out!”

  “Okay, slow down. Where are you?”

  “I begged my mom to let me use her phone, but she wouldn’t let me!” I cry. “And by then, it was so late everything was closed. I had to walk to the payphone on State Street.”

  “Oh, Christ, Quinn! I’m on my way right now!” I can hear him shuffle out of bed.

  “Cade, what’s wrong?” his wife Debra asks in the background, and he explains.

  Cade and Debra North are the house parents of North House, the group home for teens I live at with Liam—and twelve other kids whose parents love them about as much as mine loves me.

  “What kind of mother doesn’t let her child use her phone for a ride!?” Debra exclaims angrily.

  “Yeah, and the only payphone is the one left over by the old Town Pump.” Cade curses, which he only does when he’s seriously pissed off. “Didn’t that goddamn social worker give you a safe phone, Quinn?”

  “No, sir, he didn’t.” I explain, “He just dropped me off at her house, but she wasn’t there, so I waited. She didn’t show up until after nine o’clock.” I feel self-blame wash over me. “I shouldn’t have waited for her.”

  “You did what you felt you had to, don’t get down on yourself for that.”

  “Didn’t matter anyway, when she got there we got into a huge fight, and now I’m here. And, Cade, I’m scared to death!”

  At that moment, I hear the engine of his Pontiac GTO turn over. “I’m en route right now. I’m twenty minutes out. And that’s with running the red lights.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief; knowing Cade’s on his way makes me feel safe.

  I tell him, “I’m not going to do it anymore, I won’t! I don’t care what the social workers say, I never want to see her again!”

  The social workers call it reintegration. You go home for a visitation period and try to reconcile with your family.

  “No, sweetheart, you don’t have to. And you can bet, after I get you, I’ll be making some late night wakeup calls to some seriously irresponsible people.”

  I nod, grateful he’ll stand up for me.

  “Don’t hang up with me, Quinn,” Cade instructs.

  “I won’t, trust me.” I feel like this cheap, beat-up piece of plastic is my only lifeline.

  “You know,” I begin, and here come the tears, stinging my eyes and blinding my vision, “I’ve tried going home and making her love me too many times. Fuck it and fuck her! I don’t need her! I don’t want her anymore!” It hurts so bad, the agony is indescribable. “Oh, God, will the pain ever go away?”

  “You know the answer to that, Quinn,” he reminds me softly.

  The answer is no, it won’t. But other love can fill and mend the hole.

  I think of Liam. He’s the bone that keeps me standing and the muscle that makes me strong. He loves me … like no one ever did, or has, or ever could. And I love him just as much. We’ve been together for almost a year. He’s asked me to marry him. We’re just waiting until we turn eighteen.

  At sixteen years old, I’ve come to understand something about love.

  Real love always burns.

  In the case of my mom, the fire is threatening; it blisters, damages and destroys me every time I let my guard down. It ravages the relationship we should have as mother and daughter. The effects leave lifelong scars. Fire can be a wicked killer.

  When it comes to Liam Knight, our love burns bright and brilliant, shining the way home like a white hot star. But instead of scorching me, it warms my soul; it guards me and keeps me safe, feeds me and gives me light.

  It’s ironic, the great power of love as fire, it can burn destructively, leaving only pain, death and ash, or it can nourish and sustain the existence of life, like the sun.

  How it’s used is dependent upon the hands that wield it.

  My attention is taken by a pair of headlights from a lone vehicle as they crest over the hill. I can feel more than hear the deep thud of the bass cut through the stillness. As the black SUV with tinted windows passes me, it slows down.

  “Cade.” My breathing quickens.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a big SUV …” Panic drowns every clear thought in my mind as the vehicle pulls to the curb and stops.

  “Quinn!” Cade seems so far away now.

  Every false sense of safety holding onto the phone has given me is yanked harshly from my psyche.

  Vince Ortega, the gang leader of the Westhill Cartel, steps out from the passenger side of the vehicle.

  I have to run! The thought screams through my head, but doesn’t shake me from the paralyzing effect of Vince’s intentional gaze.

  “QUINN!” Cade shouts.

  “It’s Vince,” I say, watching as three of his friends follow him out of the vehicle and all of them walk towards me.

  “Can you run?” Cade’s calm demeanor is betrayed by his own fear.

  I know my surroundings. There’s nowhere to run, and no one to hear me cry for help.

  “You’re a smart girl! You talk them down, stall them. I’m coming,” Cade says. “If you have to, fight them. You’re strong. Whatever you do, do not get in that SUV!”

  Cade sounds like he’s talking underwater, or through a dream.

  My entire world is now focused on just two things—Vince’s cold, ruthless eyes … and my death.

  Chapter One

  October, 2004 (Almost a Year Earlier)

  Liam

  “What the hell is she doing?” I say leaning up against some dead guy’s headstone.

  “Fuck if I know,” Randy answers, popping the top of another can of Bud as we watch the girl across from us. “Maybe she’s stoned.”

  In that moment the sound of Boston’s “More than a Feeling” reaches our ears.

  Randy’s head spins around. “Hell yeah!” he shouts and slams against my shoulder. “Jamie and Scott are coming … and they brought girls!”

  I turn and watch Randy as he jogs up the worn dirt path that leads down the steep hill into the old cemetery. Sure enough, it looks like half the senior class is coming down to meet us. Good fucking thing they’re carrying coolers—Randy and I have already plowed through our six-pack since getting here. And although I can’t see it, obviously someone has an MP3 dock! This has the potential to become a real fucking party!

  School let out a couple of hours ago, and the Vine Street graveyard is where everybody comes to hang out. The freak warm autumn weather is giving us one more outdoor party before we’ll have to hang at someone’s house. Best part is, cops never bother us down here, since they figure we’re out of the way. They don’t give a shit about us unless we’re fucking around where it bothers the community. Here, we’re out of sight and out of mind. A lot of shit goes down in this cemetery. It’s not a safe place.

  My thoughts turn back to the girl over by the towering granite angel statue. She’s climbing around the pedestal with a white plastic grocery bag, but I don’t have a fucking clue as to what she’s doing. Whatever it is, she’s doing it meticulously. I squint my eyes to focus on her better.

  I recognize this girl. I met her briefly at a group home I stayed at overnight—at the end of summer, before I was transferred the next morning to a new foster home. I was a little surprised to see her at South Senior High a few weeks later in my same year. I’ve never talked to her. With her long blond curls and more than filled out t-shirts, she’s hard to forget, but fuck if I can remember her name. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her in school for a couple weeks.

  I look back up the hill. The group’s getting closer and so is Tina. Tina’s a junior—a year ahead of me. She let me know before school got out today that she’d meet me down here. It would definitely be a badge of honor if I bagged her, and she’d made it quite obvious that was exactly why she was meeting me.

/>   But that girl is gnawing at the edges of my mind … what the fuck is she doing over there? And why the fucking hell do I care?!

  I steal another view of Tina getting closer, in her skintight jeans and formfitting jacket, before I push myself up out of the dried grass.

  “Fuck it.” My curiosity demands to be quenched.

  My boots crush over the crisp, fallen brown, orange and yellow leaves as I trek my ass across the expanse of lawn to where the girl is.

  As I approach, I can see she’s picking up shards of broken glass from the pedestal around the statue. Shit must have been left over from parties past. Probably a bunch of partiers doing target practice with their booze bottles.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, folding my arms over my chest, annoyed.

  “Why the fuck do you want to know?” she stings back without bothering to look up at me.

  Her tone almost makes me laugh out loud. She’s a little thing, trying to sound all big and bad.

  Gingerly, her fingertips work around a jagged piece of green glass. She picks it up and drops it in the bag.

  “Why are you cleaning the glass?” I try impatiently.

  I look back at the party forming behind us. All the coolers are opened, and they’re digging in. I notice Tina smile my way and I throw her a smile.

  “Somebody has to,” the girl says. “It’s so disrespectful to smash glass all over someone’s tombstone!”

  Is she fucking nuts? “Who gives a rat’s ass? They’re dead.”

  At that, she turns on me vehemently. Her blue eyes flash with indignation. “You don’t even know who it is! She could have been someone’s mom … or daughter. She was obviously loved to have been given such a beautiful angel to look over her.” Her eyes follow up the weathered concrete angel almost adoringly. “And if she wasn’t, and this was a mistake, someone should be loving her now.” She looks back at me, her gaze still searing. “And you guys are assholes for vandalizing this place.”