Present

The coffee that Esmond made for me was cold. I had told him I would need to contact people on the inside, but when we arrived at his apartment, I shut down instead. I'd held the mug of coffee in my hands until it cooled down to the temperature of the unheated room.

Jake was dead.

And it was all my fault.

I worked with Queen. I did the dangerous shit that she put me into. Even though I knew I was making myself a target, I climbed as high as I could. The lack of care I had for my safety over the drive to be unstoppable... it got him killed.

"Max, we have to get to work." Esmond's voice reached me through my shell. I slowly looked at him and nodded. He passed me a phone, a burner from what I could gather. It would be idiotic to turn on my phone and immediately be tracked by Queen. If she had wanted to kill me by using that drug, I had an even bigger target on my back than I originally thought.

"Do you know the numbers of who you need to call?" Esmond asked next. I nodded once more. "Okay, I need to make a phone call, too. If you need me, just grab me from the bedroom. Yeah?" I nodded again, and he finally left me alone. I let one tear fall down my cheek. The image of what they had turned Jake into kept flashing behind my eyes. I kept seeing it in my peripherals.

I took a deep breath. When Queen was dead, I would grieve. I punched the numbers into the burner phone and held it to my ear. The person I called picked up not even halfway through the first ring.

"Max, if that isn't you..." her voice was like the sweetest of honey to my ears.

"Jacques..." I trailed off, and I could hear her breathing change. She knew something was wrong.

"Max, what's going on?" She asked, but I knew she already knew.

"What do you know about the drug?" There was a moment of silence on the other side.

"I know they did a test, used five people for it. I'm assuming you already know what it does if you're calling me."

"One of those five, the first..." I trailed off, giving her the benefit of the doubt. She knew most of what happened in the court, but details can get lost.

"Who? Who was it?" She asked, which meant she didn't know.

"It was Jake. Queen killed him."

"Fuck. Shit." There was a lack of words for a moment, but I could hear her moving. "I knew it would be personal, who she put in there, but I didn't even think... stupid, Jacques, why are you so stupid?"

"You're not stupid. Queen is just fucking insane. Thomas was the second. I didn't recognise the others."

"Thomas? Fuck me." There was more movement. "Look, I've had an emergency bag packed for two months because of this shit. You're in London, aren't you?" She asked. I looked straight ahead and thought about how bad it must be for Jacques to have an emergency bag. She was one of the safest members of the Court because no one could replace her, no one could work with machines like she could.

"Yeah, just got out of prison today."

"The Agent?" She was one of the few people I trusted with that information, with Es, because Jacques had been wary of Queen since her recruitment.

"Yeah. I'm at his apartment. Will you find it?"

"I need something to do on the plane ride over. Are you okay?"

"I will be..."

"Once Queen's dead?"

"Obviously." I replied, the smallest of smiles cracking onto my face.

"Okay. Well, we both know how much I love the mess, so I will be over in England on the next plane ride from Paris. Give me only four hours. If I'm not there, send a search party." She said, before I could respond with anything, she hung up. Typical. I dialled the next number I needed to call.

"Kid?" Leigh. Hearing his voice... I choked up. He had always called me Kid, even though he was only five years older than me. I couldn't stop the tears or the ugly sounds of pain that came from my throat. "Shit. Oi, Lex, Jax, Kieran..." He aimed his voice away from the phone, but I knew it was on speaker.

"I think it's Max." Leigh whispered, which made me realise I hadn't said anything yet. I had just been crying.

"Maxie?" Jaxon asked. It made me cry harder.

"Max, you need to say something." Kieran said, blunt as usual.

"You have left me alone with these people for too long to ignore me." Alexis said. She was the most recent member of our team. Queen recruited her a few months after me.

"I'm sorry, Lex." I could hear the collective sigh of relief from the other side of the phone.

"Way to give me a fucking heart attack, Kid." Leigh said as I sniffled and wiped away my tears. "What's going on?"

"Queen... she killed Jake." I said, feeling their energy shift.

"That's the last fucking straw. I'm done." Kieran said, and I could tell he was walking away from the phone in a rage, about to do something completely stupid.

"I'll get him to calm down." Jaxon said. There were a few moments of silence. I could hear Jaxon and Kieran in the distance, but it wasn't loud enough for me to know what they were saying.

"They're still fucking, so Jaxon's got it sorted." Lex assured me, which made me laugh, even if it was more hollow than it should have been.

"When are we coming to you then?" Leigh asked, changing the topic slightly.

"Not yet. I need eyes on the inside. Jacques is bailing. Do you know about the drug?" I asked. There was another pause.

"She used Dusk to kill him?" Dusk? How fucking apt.

"If Dusk is the zombie drug, yes." I said.

"Fuck. Zombie? Queen just warned us all that it was bad, that it fucks you up. Told us not to take it. She didn't say it was a..." Leigh had to stop himself. I could imagine the six-foot-five man on the other side of the phone, running a tattooed hand over his cropped hair.

"We'll monitor it. And I'll keep an eye on everyone here." Lex said. Her brown hair was probably in a ponytail, showing off her multitude of earrings, rubbing her hands together, her hand tattoos and rings overlapping to create a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours. While you would think that Leigh was the protector of the group, looking like a literal dark God walking the earth, it was little five-foot-two Lex, an ex-French Marine, who would kill with her bare hands. If it came down to it, I'm sure she would win against Leigh.

"Thanks Mum and Dad." I joked, as I always had. The obvious tension between them had been there for years. They may actually do something about it after this is done.

"Max..." Lex warned, so I heeded it.

"I'll let you know, or you call me when you get in shit. Yeah?"

"We'll be waiting. Hopefully Jaxon has Kieran sorted out." Leigh said.

"I'm sure a little hand job has him completely calm by now." Lex joked.

"I'll talk to you guys soon."

"Keep in touch. Message me every day." Leigh instructed.

"I'm supposed to be the leader of the group, but of course, as long as you keep messaging me. I'm not losing anyone else, understood?"

"Aye aye, Captain." Lex said before the line went dead. There were just two more numbers I needed to call. The first one was Micah. Although I knew better than to make a deal with the man, I still had to speak to him. But the line was busy, so I left a message, figuring he would call me back when he had time to.

I dialled in the last number I needed to call. I let it ring out. I knew it had to. But I just had to hear it. I had to hear his voice one last time before I started this. The last ring went through, and the message tone played.

"Look, unfortunately, you have missed the amazing Jake Simmons. If this can be a message or email, do that. If not, it sounds like a you problem so... catch you later."

I hung up and looked at the screen. All of his pictures were on my phone, the one I couldn't turn on for my safety. I couldn't even see his face without it being the monstrosity of what the drug did to him. Not until this was done.

I took a breath and pushed everything down, bottling it up and compartmentalising it until I had time to deal with it. Until I had the safety to deal with it.

Until Queen was gone.