Blood and Bone | 1

6 | 1

   

      The doorbell rang, making everyone in the compound jump. Armed with my double blades, as usual, I followed Riley to the door as she answered it.

     "Finn!" she exclaimed. I took a few steps forward to see him for myself. He looked weary, but intact and uninjured as he entered the house. Finn also had a distinct smell of smoke as he walked past me.

     "How are you? How did you escape?" Riley shot questions at the blond boy as we walked back to the others.

      "I'm fine now that I'm back here," Finn responded, his voice sounding tired.

      "Look who found his way back," Riley said to the others, who were waiting in one of the sitting rooms. Finn walked into the room to face the others. Everyone began talking all at once to him about what had happened.

      "Shut up and let him talk," Riley ordered and everyone was quiet. "Finn, tell us what happened to you."

"Uh...thank you, Riley," Finn spoke. "When I woke up, I was locked in a cell with a few of the Needles. They told me I'd been out for a long time, but they asked if there was any way I could get us out. So I burned down the wall and helped all of the Needles escape their cells as the place burned around us."

      "Where is Hundsen, then?" Kane asked Arlo, leaning back in his chair.

      "I don't know," Finn admitted. "But I don't think that he was there when the place burned down."

       Jake suddenly walked in the room after being gone for hours. Everyone's attention snapped onto him.

      "How the hell did you get in here?" Jaxon inquired the other boy.

      "Why would you hand me over to the Club?" Finn demanded of Jake. "He was going to kill us."

      "But he didn't."

      "You didn't have to knock him out and give him to our enemy!" Riley exclaimed.

      "Yes, I did."

      "No, you didn't. All I did was set fire to-" Finn paused as he realized what Jake had done. "You sent me so that I'd burn the place down and let the Needles escape. You knocked me out so that the timing would be perfect. And the rest of the Club wasn't even there to stop us because they were at the Needle's lair."

      "That's genius," Arlo commented. Everyone stared at him, but he only shrugged and said, "What? It's true."

      Frowning, Finn asked Jake, "How did you know that your plan would work so perfectly?"

     "My plans always work perfectly."

     "Not always. You don't have Hundsen like you promised Hunt in London," Riley pointed out, crossing her arms across her chest.

      Jake snorted. "Bringing in Hundsen to the ONNT was never part of the plan. Hunt has no idea what he's dealing with."

      "Yeah? Well, he's coming by tomorrow because you came back empty-handed."

      "Fine. I'll let Hunt try to deal with Hundsen. He will fail, mark my words." With that dramatic finish, Jake left the room.

      I stood up and followed him. I was aware that there was much that he wasn't telling us. He hated Hundsen too fervently to purposely let him go.

      "Evans," I called to him as he walked down a long hall.

      He turned. "Yes?"

      "Where were you all that time?"