Siege

1 | Brother does not know best

- VIPERS -

"Nox, are you even listening to me?" Arlo sighed, raking her hands through her soft blonde tresses.

"Totally," Lennox Carter replied as she continued furiously typing.

"What was I saying then?" The girl challenged.

"You were talking about the untimely death of Heather Monroe?"

Arlo blinked. "Heather's dead?"

Not yet.

"God, I wish." Lennox groaned. "Anyway, nice chatting with you but I've got things to do now." She hitched her backpack over her shoulder and walked out of the school hallways, ignoring the stares she got and the wide berth people left her when she walked past.

"Wait, but school isn't even over yet!" She distantly heard Arlo scream at her. Without breaking stride, she waved a lazy hand in goodbye and returned to angrily typing at people. God, do I have to do everything myself?

One day with her brother in charge and she was already regretting it. She hit the call button and a few seconds later her eldest brother - Silas - answered.

"I need someone to pick me up." She said, taking a seat on the stone staircase which overlooked the school's parking lot.

"Didn't school just start like 10 minutes ago?" Silas asked incredulously.

"And how have you done for the 10 minutes I was gone?"

Silas was silent on the other end while a black sleek car rolled into the parking lot.

"That's what I thought." She hung up.

Although she was only 17 years old, she managed her family's gang. She was adopted by them when she was 11. Her own mother had just called her a monster, she was right of course, but it still hurt to hear. With little feelings towards the abusive woman, she ran away.

Her life on the streets as a runaway was short-lived when she pickpocketed a certain angry man with ties to the local crime syndicate. Long story short, he hunted her down and was quite impressed with her abilities at such a young age - especially when nobody had ever dared pickpocket the leader of The Vipers. She was taken in and well the rest was history.

Sighing as she waited for her brother to pick her up, Lennox eyed the new car; she had never seen it before. She sent its number plate to Wyatt, the gang's hacker to get as much information as possible. Whoever they were, she needed to know. Knowledge was power.

Tapping her fingers impatiently, she found entertainment in watching the new car haphazardly manage the parking lot. It seemed to have difficulty parking, going so far as to knock the trash can over. After a while, three boys got out. She chuckled as one of them - the one who was driving, she presumed - was getting scolded by one with electric blue eyes while the other one with striking gray eyes hung back with his jaw clenched.

"My whole life just flashed before my eyes." Blue eyes screeched. "I thought you said you had a driver's license!"

"I do! my dad paid some guys to give it to me." The driver grinned sheepishly as Blue eyes glared at him.

As much fun as their conversation would no doubt be, she finally noticed her brother approach the parking lot in his race car. Lennox didn't know shit about cars but lots of people in her school - either girls who wanted to get with him or boys who wanted to be him - loved it.

Slinging her bag over her shoulder and pulling out her phone when she felt it ping, she quickly skimmed the message she received as she walked. Wyatt had sent back a file on everything he gathered about them. It seemed a lot thicker than the others at her school.

Suddenly, someone crashed into her, forcing the air out of her lungs and leaving her backpack sprawled a meter away. At least her phone was still clutched tightly in her hands. "Watch where you're going," The boy with gray eyes sneered at her, still standing.

"Get out of my way and I won't have to," Lennox scowled back, pulling herself up and dusting her clothes.

"I think she just fell for you, Cass." The driver whispered as he grinned. They both turned to glare at him while the boy with blue eyes smacked the back of his head.

"Ow! That hurt you know." The driver cried dramatically. He winked at her before proceeding to fake bawl his eyes out. "I'm telling dad!"

"Snitch." Blue eyes mumbled before dragging him to the school building.

The gray-eyed boy glared at Lennox as she raised an eyebrow challengingly. He scoffed and gave her one last sneer before following his friends up the school building.

Rolling her eyes, Lennox picked up her bag and hurried over to her brother's car.

"So how was your first day of school?" Kain asked as he pulled out of the parking lot, tapping his feet to the loud AC/DC playing. "It lasted what—" He checked his watch "10 minutes?"

"Well, nobody died." She replied as she skimmed through the file Wyatt gave her.

"That's always a plus." Kain chuckled. "So what do you think of Arlo? She's my girlfriend at the moment."

"And you made her talk to me?" Lennox looked up from her phone and glared at him.

"Well, yea didn't want you to be lonely." He rolled his eyes. "I take it, you didn't like her."

"First off, I don't need you to get me friends. I'm perfectly fine without them—"

"But—" Kain interjected.

"—No," Lennox waved a threatening figure "Tell her to get her fake nose out of my business."

Kain sighed but agreed to it nonetheless.

"So who were those boys you were talking to?" He brought up, smirking.

"I don't know. I've been trying to read their file but someone keeps rudely interrupting me."

Rolling his eyes, he let her read. She was always such a hard worker; Kain was pretty sure she was dads favorite. Ever since she joined their family at the ripe age of eleven, their gang has thrived. They became notorious, rich, and best of all - feared. The Vipers were tied as the biggest gang in the country alongside The Skulls.

Once they made it home, Lennox had just about finished reading the file. She called for an emergency family meeting. As Lennox gathered her thoughts, her family - albeit slowly - trickled into the meeting room.

"What's this about?" Her father asked as he strolled into the room, his bodyguards in toll. He did a double take. "Lennox, aren't you supposed to be in school?"

She waved a hand carelessly. "We have bigger things to worry about than trivial knowledge like...pythagoras theorem," She scoffed.

"What's that—" Her brother Jax mumbled.

"The Skulls are here." She stated, gauging everyone's reactions.

Silas and her dad were deathly quiet, they understood the gravity of the situation. Others, did not, to put it lightly.

"Like...spiritually?" Jax drawled.

"Here as in they've relocated to our territory, you idiot."

"Oh," he muttered, eyes widening. "Oh fuck."

Oh, fuck indeed.