Furtive

His Past

Chapter 16

The metal door slammed behind us. I walked into the cold and empty warehouse. It was long and practically made entirely out of concrete, and I though our accommodation couldn’t get any worse. I strolled to the corner of the room and slumped down. I hugged my legs to my chest and buried my face. I wished I could have stayed like that forever. A hand rested lightly on my shoulder and I looked up. Maddy was crouched down in front of me. She looked at me, concerned but caringly.

“If you and Jax stay here, I’ll go get us some dinner. I’m guessing you’ll be a bit hungry,” she smiled as best as she could.

I had totally lost my appetite but I knew I needed to eat something. I’d starve otherwise. I nodded at Maddy. I trusted that she would stay safe. She was agile and speedy and would be difficult to catch. She stood up and began to make her way to the exit.

“Be careful, please,” I said quietly. Maddy turned and smiled.

“Always am.”

The heavy metal door slammed behind her and echoed throughout the room for at least ten seconds. Jax, who had been looking around, came down and sat next to me.

“I had some explaining to do, didn’t I?” asked Jax as he mimicked my position; hugging his legs to his chest.

“Yeah,” I replied quietly as I rested my head on my knees, facing his direction. Jax rubbed his face for a bit before looking at me.

“Brooke did tell you about, uh, Nicole,” began Jax, semi-choking on his final word.

“Mmm,” I answered.

“Well, after that… incident, a handful of people warned me not to get close with any other girls in the coterie,” said Jax, “some of them had suspicions that I was a bit of a psychopath.”

I stared at him intently, surely he wasn’t madman.

“It was three years ago, I thought they had let it go by now,” added Jax.

“You’re not crazy are you?” I asked carefully.

“No,” confirmed Jax confidently, “I’m not. What happened that day was not at all my fault.”

“Then whose fault was it?”

Jax looked off into the distance. He bit his lip. I could tell he was reliving that fateful day in his head. No matter what anyone said, I wasn’t afraid of Jax. He honestly didn’t seem like the murdering, mad type.

“She ran off, she couldn’t live with the Furtive Coterie anymore,” he said finally. I knew it was rude to ask questions, but I couldn’t resist.

“Why?” I blurted.

Jax looked at me and sighed.

“She was pregnant.”

Wow. This happened three years ago, so Jax would’ve been, what, fifteen?

“Not with me,” Jax quickly added, “no, no, no. We were friends, and nothing else.”

I was still unsure and completely speechless.

“See,” he began to explain, “it’s easy to think that it was me, but it wasn’t. That’s why she had to leave. We knew people wouldn’t believe any excuses we made.”

A peculiar feeling seeped through me. I was probably the only other person besides Jax and Nicole that knew about this. Everybody else was clueless.

“Who was the father then?” I asked a little too eagerly. This was juicy information.

“Nicole’s boyfriend. They met at his place every so often. Nicole would have to sneak out to see him and I would help her. It’s forbidden to have outside relationships, so she kept it very hush hush. Nobody except her and I and her boyfriend knew about that relationship, so that’s why we knew nobody would buy the actual truth. Plus, if we told them about her boyfriend, she would’ve gotten in all kinds of trouble anyway.”