Aiden’s POV:

The car is quiet now that all the girls subdued to the pill we put in their drinks, and no one has said a word. All I can replay were London’s last words and that look of utter betrayal she gave us. Adrian’s just sitting there, pensive. I know he’s wondering the same thing I am. I mean it’s normal for someone to freak out when they’ve been drugged but no matter how many times I told London she was going to be okay, she seemed reluctant to believe me.

“Do you think she’ll forgive us?” Adrian breaks the suffocating silence. He might not be the talkative person but you can tell he cares about London, we all do, same with Avery.

“I hope so, but what do you think they’re hiding?” Ashton asks from the front. Usually he’s all jokes but after what just happened he’s deadly serious.

“I think it has to do with London. I mean when we were at the hospital, Avery was very protective and she said she couldn’t tell us why London wasn’t getting rest. It makes sense that London’s the one hiding something, don’t you think?” Athen explains.

“I think you’re right but the thing is how do we find out and if not that how do we help her?” I say looking at the sleeping girl on my side with the tormented expression on her face. Right now we’re headed to the docks where we will board three speed boats to get back to town as quick as possible.

“Do we just put them in the rooms below dock?” Athen asks as he struggles getting Naomi on the boat and dropping her once again for the third time.

“Dude, she’s already unconscious are you trying to make sure she doesn’t wake up?” Asher asks clearly amused at our dear friend’s lack of strength.

“Would you shut up and help me since you already got Avery in?” he asks. Asher rolls his eyes but helps him anyway. We all turn to the boat in the middle where we heard a loud bang coming from.

“That’s definitely gonna leave a mark,” Ashton says as he takes a look at Ruby’s head which he just bumped very not gently when he turned trying to get her on the boat.

“Please let us try to get these girls home with at least minor injuries. Every single scratch that these girls have will be another fist to our handsome faces from London,” they all shudder at my warning and continue to load the girls in very carefully. After that we begin our journey back to town where we have two Hummers waiting since we can’t take our cars but we have people drive those back as well.

Once we make it back we’re once again to hopefully the last stop to our hometown. We decided to head to Asher’s house which is close to London’s and it’s big enough to house all of us. When we arrive at the two story safe haven we quickly take the girls to the room. There are six bedrooms so we place two girls in each bed in three rooms that way the rest of us can share the other rooms. Wouldn’t want these girls to think we were trying to take advantage of them. We are all so tired we just make our way to the other rooms before we collapse from exhaustion.

“Aiden, wake up,” I feel delicate hands trying to shake me from sleep. “Aiden, wake the fuck up!”

“London?” I mumble with hope that it’s my angel that decided to wake me up.

“Damn, you got it bad. Now get up!” I sit up to look into the brown eyes of Avery.

“Avery?’ I question as I rub the sleep from my eyes.

“Avery?” Asher sits up a little too eagerly for his liking.

“Uhm, yeah,” she says blushing a little bit. I turn to my best friend and see him blushing a bit as well. Oh, wait till the guys hear about this, big bad Asher blushing, unheard of.

“What’s wrong, is London alright?” I ask once I get over this little episode.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, do you remember how much time passed when you gave her the sleeping pill?” she asks looking pointedly at us. Asher takes me by surprise when he looks down shamefully I smirk but when I see the look Avery gives me I look down as well. Sheesh, do they take lessons on ‘deadly stares’?

“Uhm, sure it was like ten-twenty minutes,” I inform her. She nods her head.

“We have a problem,” she tells me before leading us out to the room in which they slept in.

London’s POV:

At first, darkness is all I see, and then I begin to see images, blurry images. It’s like when you play back a film and then you finally settle on a certain scene. The images finally begin to come into focus. I see a dirty old house, its dark very dark. Suddenly a lamp in the corner of the room lights up and I gasp at the scene before me. Two girls sit there tied up, tears staining their cheeks, one a bit older than the other, maybe a year or two, the younger one shaking from fear or cold who knows.

“Stop crying Dum-Don, we’re going to be fine and when we’re through we’ll eat all the ice cream you can dream of,” the older girl tries to placate the younger, who I’m guessing nickname is Dum-Don.

“Ally, I don’t feel good,” the younger, sobbing girl tells the other and with that the scene fades away.

Aiden’s POV:

“Well, when we woke up and remembered what you idiots did we agreed on leaving once again ‘cause you cut our vacation short. We were waiting for London to wake up and peel out because there was no way she was going to say ‘no’. Plus, I was doing you a favor because when we left you wouldn’t get beaten to death by her but she hasn’t woken up. And let me take this time to inform you that if something happens to her, I’ll kill you,” Avery explains and threatens at the same time. I try to keep the poker face but I may be shitting my pants on the inside, she can be scary. No wonder she and London are best friends.

I called my family doctor over and explained to him what happened. After checking on London and lecturing us on the dangers of drugging someone he declares her healthy. We explained to him what happened earlier and her trip to the hospital. He explained that her body has to regenerate that used up energy since it’s been pushing itself to the limit. The guys walk the doctor out listening to him ramble once again with the dangers of drugging people to sleep as if it’s the first time we do this. Asher, Avery, and I stayed behind in the room looking over London.

“What is she or rather what are you guys hiding?” Asher breaks the silence and we both turn to look at Avery.

“That is none of your business,” she says coldly. “Did you guys have your people drive my car back or is it still in the shop?” she questions.

“I had someone drive it back and I paid your bill so don’t worry about that. The car’s parked outside waiting for you,” Asher explains.

“Thanks, I’ll come back with the money to pay you back in a bit,” she informs him.

“Where are you going?” he asks crestfallen.

“I’m taking London back to my house,” she explains as she looks at the horrified expression on London’s face. She’s probably considering how to carry her out to her car or how to kill us.

“No, London stays here and since your mom’s not home you will too,” Asher states rather than suggests. I can tell it will be very hard for these girls to leave the house, especially if it’s on Asher’s orders. It seems though like Avery has some tricks up her sleeve. She begins to walk towards him and this dude is so whipped he doesn’t even notice they’re menacing steps. She backhands him and I internally cringe cuz that’s gonna leave a mark. Apparently she wasn’t through and I visibly wince when she knees him in his family jewels.

“Look, you guys are not our masters and I am taking London out of here. You might only want to bag her or whatever it is you guys do but think about someone else for a moment. London’s got some issues to deal with just look at her, does that seem like a peaceful slumber to you? I don’t think so, we are leaving,” she punctuates her last words to make her point. And I thought London was scary.

“You’re right we have to think about you guys. You can leave,” Asher gives in and just when I’m about to knock some sense into him he adds, “But we’re coming with you.”

“Absolutely not,” she retorts shaking her head reluctantly.

“Okay, Aiden let’s go tell the guys to get ready,” he motions for me to go with him. I go behind him and we begin to make our way out. “You can stay here and get her ready,” and with that he closes the door behind him.

“What are you doing? I thought we were going to keep them here,” he motions for me to be quiet. I look at him weirdly when he begins to look for something in his pockets when he finds it he looks at it like it’s the best thing in the world.

“The girls are under house arrest,” he says as he locks the door. When I hear the click of the lock so did Avery and she begins to scream a string of profanities. “Shush, don’t want to wake London up, do you?” he asks.

“When I get out of here I’m going to rip you apart,” she says and I know she’s burning holes in the door.

“If you get out sweetheart and that’s a big if,” he says as we walk away. We walk down to the living room and come across a very interesting scene. The girl Destiny is on Aaron’s back screaming at him and demanding where Avery and London are at, Ruby has Ashton in a headlock, Adrian’s on the ground with Katya standing above him. Athen is getting his oxygen supply cut off by Naomi who won’t release his throat.

“Enough!” I bellow and they all freeze. Wow, I love being the bad boy who everyone seems to listen to. “Girls, Avery and London have decided to stay here for a little while. Well Avery decided since London’s still out cold and Avery’s mom is not home she thought it’d be safer to stay here,” I explain. They don’t look quite convinced so I throw in my ‘parent charmer’ smile which seems to seal the deal.

“Okay, tell Avery to call us if anything happens. Let’s go girls,” she tells them and they follow shooting us all glares. What’s with these girls and their deadly glares? Once they’re out the door Adrian breaks the silence.

“Don’t you think that was a bit easy?” he asks.

“Not at all, who would dare argue with me?” I ask. They all let it go and we begin to lounge around the room doing routinely checks on the girls and taking food for Avery. We slip it in really fast and leave because the first time she might have thrown a vase at Athen. What’s with Asher and all these vases?

It’s been a while since we last checked them but they were both sleeping so we think they’re alright.

“I think someone should go check on them,” Adrian suggests.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” Asher stands up and begins to make his way up the stairs. “Shit!” we hear him scream and we all race up the stairs to see what’s going on. When we get there Avery’s hanging from the window when she sees us she drops. We move over to the window when we see her running to a car with those other girls from before in it. Once she’s in they peel out.

“Lock that window because they will try to come back for London!” Asher screams and I can tell he’s very angry. Adrian begins goes to the basement for the tools to secure the window. The other guys follow Asher I’m guessing to look for Avery, when I hear the cars and the motorcycles my thoughts are confirmed. I decide to sit by London and just enjoy being with her while she can’t speak. I absentmindedly begin to stroke her hair I feel a pang in my chest when she subconsciously flinches.

“Ally don’t leave me,” she mumbles so brokenhearted that I feel like she’s about to cry.

“Who’s Ally?” Adrian asks, since when had he been standing there.

“I don’t know I think she’s just having a nightmare,” I suggest. But we both know that might and might not be true.

“Avery,” she’s beginning to stir.

“Uh oh,” Adrian says my thoughts out loud. We both let out a sigh of relief when her breathing evens out again. Adrian finishes locking the window up and leaves while I stay next to London. After a while my eyes begin to close and I’m out.

I don’t know how long I was out but I jolt awake when I hear a door slamming so hard I think the whole house shook. I stand up about to make my way to Asher’s room to give my bro a helping hand but I freeze when the door slams open with a bang. There stands a very pissed off Avery.

“Get out,” she tells me as she moves inside the room for me to get the hell out, she didn’t say it like that but might as well have. I decide not to argue though and get my ass out of there.

“How’d you find her?” I ask my voice fading out when I make it to the living room and come face to face with four very pissed off girls. I can feel the tension in the air and I’m not talking about Jesse J’s Domino.

“The bastard has people everywhere that is how he found us. I was taking Avery to my house since I thought you guys didn’t know where I live, but no there they were when we got there,” Destiny rants.

“Why are you girls here though?” I question.

“Because when we said that we were not letting Avery go alone anywhere with him, Asher decided to bring us all here,” Ruby explains. That does sound like Asher.

“So looks like you’ll-,” I’m cut off by Asher.

“London’s awake,” he tells me. Now imagine around eleven people trying to go up those stairs at the same time. We finally make it to London’s room with minor injuries only, but I wish I hadn’t been the first one to make it there. As soon as I opened the door London broke free from Avery’s grasp and jumped on me, both of us landing on the ground. Hey I like this new position, my thoughts were cut off by London’s fists pounding repeatedly on my face. What’s with this girl trying to disfigure my money maker?

“You. Bastard. Drugged. Me. I’m. Going. To. Kill. You,” she emphasized every word with a hit. If she said anything else I don’t remember because I eventually blacked out.