A Bird in Flight | ✔︎

Chapter seventeen: Has he fallen down too deep?

Ensley

I'M STARTLED AWAKE to the loud ringing of my phone. Through the thin walls, I hear my sisters grumble their complaint and tell me to shut up. My mother decided to relive her stress from our eventful dinner at the Beckett's, she had to go stay at some colleague's house, so luckily she's not home.

Pissed at whoever is calling me at this time of the night, my hand swats at my lamp on my bedside table, managing to flick the switch and turn the light on. I grab my phone, answering before I read the caller.

"Why are you calling me so fucking late?" I bark at the person on the other end of the line.

"Because I need help," the caller replies in a small tone. A voice that belongs to Callan Beckett.

"Why?" I yawn, stretching out across my bed as I tuck my toes in, enjoying the warmth my bed provides. "What's wrong? Can't you call Maddox or someone? I'm tired."

"Fucking hell, Ensley!" he hisses, sounding pissed. "Just get your ass over to my house right now! Sneak through the lounge room window, it should be open. Come to the upstairs bathroom and for the love of God do not wake my father." And with that, he hangs up.

Half of me is mad at how he talked to me and I just want to fall back asleep and leave him to suffer but the rational half knows that his calling me for a reason. A reason which surely can't be good.

Still fuming, I slip out of bed, my toes curling away from the cold hardwood floors as they make contact. I pull my worn sneakers on and grab a hoodie without bothering to change out from my pyjamas. Yanking my phone out from its charger, I scribble a few jobs for my sisters to complete before I get back and rush out into the cold night, my breath frosting in the air.

I grab my bike from the garage, throw a leg over either side of the seat and peddle down the driveway, out onto the street, feeling like a complete weirdo. I don't even want to know what my hair situation must be right now.

After about fifteen minutes of furious peddling, I'm in a desperate need for a shot of caffeine plus I've reached Callans house. I stow my bike into the safety of a bush in their front garden and slip through the lounge room window just like Callan had instructed me to do.

I freeze as soon as my eyes adjust to the light and immediately zone in on the mess of glass and blood that dominates the floor. What the hell?

I creep upstairs, my heart thudding so loud I half-expect Callan's dad to spring out of the shadows and club me over the head with a baseball bat. A sense of forbidding washes over me as I push the bathroom door open. My jaw looses about fifty inches and falls into the Devils headquarters.

"Hey, Ensley." Callan smiles but it doesn't reach his eyes.

"What the hell—?"

Callan is propped up against the vanity, shirtless. Fat, red strap marks crisscross the scarred skin of his back, a few wrapping around his ribcage and stomach. A thin, white piece of fabric winds around his neck, loosely supporting his left arm which appears to be broken. A large gash stains the right side of his face a deep crimson. As for the rest of his features, the swelling and bruises nearly render him unrecognisable. His blonde hair is crusted with dry blood—hanging loosely around his bruised face—looking almost wet from water.

I fall to my knees at the threshold of the bathroom, yanking wildly at my hair. "Oh my God, this was all my fault! Oh my fucking God!"

"Hey," he says softly, as though I'm the one needing sweet talking and help. "It was my fault. I riled him up; I know the consequences to my actions."