Enemy Basis | COMPLETE

14| crunch time

DORRAN

Darkness surrounded me where I sat on the old, passed-down chair in a forgotten room somewhere in the house. Shadows covered the room from head to toe until there was no speck of light to be seen, playing with each other ominously in the black. The clock hummed to the beat of the silence, the tick-tock echoing in the peaceful room, providing the only sound for what felt like miles.

Defiant, stubborn green eyes came to mind as I struggled to keep my mind blank and void like the content of this room, to try and keep it empty as it usually was. But ever since that girl had come to East Bridge, it had been impossible.

The clock continued to beat systemically, cooling the buzz on my skin with the controlled sound as I listened to it closely.

But it proved fruitless as a means to soothe my hyper-alertness when my mind wandered back to her again.

I knew that she was coming to East Bridge for a while and I knew my father was to marry her mother as it had been planned ages ago but I hadn't expected her. She was strong, unbelievably so and she never gave in, no matter what we did to her. It contrasted greatly against the meek girl that I was expecting, hoping for.

Whenever I was around her, my body felt different too, almost awake after being asleep for so long. But I wasn't going to analyse that one too closely; that was purely a physical attraction, nothing else. I couldn't stand the rest of her. Both she and her father were vile and they'd deserve nothing less than what was coming to them.

Her father himself had ruined my life but with one look at her, I couldn't help the disgust. She looked exactly like Mathew Ravencourt and if the physical characteristics were shared, then I couldn't help but believe that other traits, inhumane traits had been passed along too. Either way, if they had or hadn't and even if Darcy Coraline Ravencourt was nothing like her father, I didn't want her anywhere near me.

But still, there was a tiny bit in my chest, a little bit of doubt that begged me to go against everything and be on her side even if I couldn't fathom it. But I just couldn't; it felt like I was going against my very nature. I wouldn't.

I continued to sit in the darkness, listening to the repetitive song of the clock until I felt in control again, my mask slipping into place, just in time for a text message.

ARCHER:

She's in Granite Hill.

Right after I had read those words, I stood up quickly and left, getting in my car. I sent a text back to both Archer and Marcelo to be ready in five. The car came alive underneath me as I drove to pick them up.

Archer and Marcelo were my brothers in every sense of the word. It didn't matter that we didn't share the same blood; we were linked by far more important things, forged from the same painful experiences. There were no two other people who understood me quite like they did, which is why we were so alike in our hatred for the girl. They understood why I couldn't stand to look at her and they felt the same, knowing what her life had each one of us.

When I got to Marcelo's house, both guys jumped in silently with a dark blankness on their faces, already ready for what was about to happen. Today, we would get what we wanted and we would finally see some progress.

We had been keeping an eye on her whereabouts through Archer's installation of a tracker on her phone, deciding to resort to more meticulous methods to monitor the girl, but since the football game, she had stayed at home or otherwise gone somewhere in Finchley. It was all boring, all safe and that meant we could do nothing about it. However, today that had all changed.