Bite The Hand      ✸      Chapter One.

the tie is lowk giving major red flags...

       𝕿he thing about monsters is that they don't always look like they crawled out from under your bed, all fangs and dripping shadows and eyes like twin pits of soulless despair.

No, sometimes monsters have business cards. Sometimes they have LinkedIn profiles. Sometimes they make small talk about the weather and shake hands and drink overpriced macchiatos from cups with their names spelled wrong. Sometimes they say things like reasonable doubt and due process while they look you in the eye with something that might be sympathy, but definitely isn't.

Jade knows this because she lived with one. For years. Years that sat on her like a fat cat on a warm laptop, pressing, suffocating, impossible to shake off.

The McBride family lawyer is wearing a tie the exact shade of an old bruise, deep plum fading into something sickly at the edges. Purple, like Mackenzie McBride's favorite color, which is a stupid little thing to notice, but Jade's brain is a magpie for stupid little things. It hoards details that don't matter and forgets the important ones, like what she was supposed to say to the cameras or how to keep her hands from shaking when people are watching.

And when the lawyer said her name at the press conference― oh, she felt it. The hesitation. The way his voice tripped over the syllables like he was stepping over something rotten in the street. Not enough for a normal person to notice. No one's gasping, no one's pointing, no one's saying Did you hear that? But Jade hears it. Maybe Lia would too, but Lia isn't here, so it's just Jade, standing there, absorbing the way he tilts her name, ever so slightly, like a painting that's just a little bit crooked, just enough to drive you insane.

And the thing is, monsters aren't stupid. They're not going to broadcast their monstrosity. No one walks into a courtroom with a flashing neon sign over their head that says Hi, I'm a terrible person, nice to meet you. No, they wear expensive shoes and they speak in even tones, and they make you feel crazy for remembering what they did. They make you wonder if maybe you imagined it, if maybe you're the problem, if maybe all the things you know, know, like a second heartbeat in your bones, are just paranoia wrapped up in teenage melodrama.

Jade wants to laugh, but she doesn't, because that would be weird. So instead, she furrows her brows in a way that would seem like an expression of utmost concentration to anyone who isn't Michael Townsend.

"You're doing that thing again."

Michael's voice slices through the tangled mess of thoughts in her head, cutting them clean in half like a guillotine. A particularly smug guillotine. She startles slightly-just a little, not enough to give him any real satisfaction-but when she looks over, he's already sunk into the couch beside her like he's been there all along.

And of course he's stretched out like he owns the place. Like he built this couch from scratch, hand-stitched the cushions, felled the trees for the wooden frame with his own two hands. His bad leg is sprawled in front of him, the other propped up at just the right angle to make it very clear he's been through some things (Michael loves a well-placed reminder of his suffering). His shirt is slightly askew, his collar popped like he's about five seconds from starring in a black-and-white cologne commercial:

Brooding Man for Men. Smells like whiskey and misplaced arrogance.

"What thing?" she asks, raising an eyebrow, tilting her head just enough to make it clear she's bored, which is an absolute lie but whatever.

Michael gestures lazily, wrist going all loose and dramatic like he's some 19th-century aristocrat about to faint onto a chaise lounge. "The whole brooding, lost-in-thought, contemplating-the-depths-of-humanity thing. Let me guess. You're thinking about McBride?"

Bingo. Nail. Head. But he doesn't get the satisfaction of knowing that. Not from her. Not today, Satan.

She leans back, mimicking his slouch, folding herself into the couch with the exact same brand of deliberate nonchalance. If he wants to act like he's too cool to care, fine. She can do that too. She can do it better. She lets her voice drop into that effortless, rakish charm he somehow pulls off without looking like a complete douchebag. "Who's brooding? I'm just admiring how impressively you've managed to weaponize your bad leg to claim the best seat in the house. It's honestly inspiring. You should teach a class."

Michael's lips quirk, and there it is: the game. The eternal, never-ending tug-of-war they've been playing since the dawn of time. Well, maybe not that long, but it feels that long.

"And yet," he says, voice dipping conspiratorially as he leans in closer, all smug and warm and irritatingly good at this, "you haven't moved. Which means I must be doing something right."

She rolls her eyes so hard she half expects to glimpse the meaning of life on the way back down. But it's a close call―he almost gets her to laugh. Almost. Which is infuriating because Michael always wins these little exchanges, even when he doesn't. Even when she technically comes out on top, she still walks away feeling like she lost something.

The worst part? She doesn't actually want to move. The space beside him is comfortable in that strange, inevitable way, like the corner of an old sweater or the exact right spot on her pillow. And Michael knows it. That's the worst part. Or maybe the best part. She hasn't decided yet.

"Speaking of doing something right..." Michael trails off, tapping his fingers against the armrest in a rhythm that feels dangerously close to the theme song of impending disaster. Tap, tap, tap. The soundtrack to a bad idea forming. "Word on the street is Lia's got a score to settle. Something about Jell-O. Interested?"

Jade levels him with the kind of look that, in a just world, would turn people to stone. "Not unless it involves you drowning in it."

Michael laughs, head tilting back, loud and careless, like they're not sitting here on the knife-edge of disaster, waiting to find out if they've just saved a little girl or if they've―

Too late.

The words press down on her ribs, sink into her bones, turn her insides into something heavy and jagged and unnameable. Something like grief but not quite, because grief feels too final, and this―this is still suspended in time, still waiting for an answer. She doesn't do waiting. She doesn't do sitting still. If she thinks about it too much, it'll crush her, steamroll her flat like a pancake someone forgot to flip, burnt and useless and stuck to the pan.

So she does what she does best.

She adapts.

Michael is watching her. Of course he is. The way he always watches her, like she's some strange, fascinating specimen under a microscope. And then, suddenly, with absolutely no preamble, he waves a hand toward her face. "Your face," he announces. "It's doing that thing again. The trying-to-smile-but-actually-looking-like-a-serial-killer-at-a-kid's-birthday-party thing."

She blinks at him, affronted. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You know. The smile. It's―" He gestures vaguely, like that explains anything. "Deeply unsettling. If I were a child, I'd be traumatized."

This time, he does get the laugh―short and sharp and unwilling, like it escaped before she could shove it back down.

She cuts it off almost immediately, glaring like that might somehow undo it. "Go away, Michael."

But instead of listening like a normal person, he leans in, closer, practically breathing her air, like he's made it his personal mission to commit crimes against personal space.

"Not until you admit I'm your favorite distraction." His voice is all smug, all warmth, all daring her to contradict him.

She exhales slowly, measuring her words with the kind of precision usually reserved for bomb defusal. "Favorite, no. Persistent, definitely."

Michael grins like that's the best compliment he's ever received. And honestly? Maybe it is.

Before Michael can lob another one of his insufferable, irritatingly well-timed comebacks, the universe intervenes. And by the universe, she means Dean―who strides into the room like a bad omen in a Nordstrom sweater, shoulders tight, jaw clenched, looking like he just got off the phone with God and the news was not good.

Jade's body reacts before her brain does, something hot and twisting snapping to attention inside her. Dean doesn't stride. Dean doesn't do tense entrances or dramatic reveals. He moves like a shadow, calm and controlled, the human equivalent of a well-oiled machine. For him to look like this, like the air itself is pressing down on him, squeezing something unbearable into his ribs-it means something is wrong.

"Dean?" Cassie's voice, sharp with worry.

Dean doesn't hesitate. Doesn't ease into it. Just says, "They found her."

And Jade―

Jade stops. Stops breathing, stops thinking, stops existing for half a second, because her brain is an old TV set and someone just yanked the plug out of the wall. The whole world fuzzes with static.

But Dean keeps going, because he's cruel like that, because time doesn't stop just because she needs it to. "Cassie, they found her on his property. Exactly where Sloane's schematics said they would."

Jade's stomach lurches. She feels it physically, like a plane dropping midair, like the ground just tilted at a 45-degree angle beneath her.

Her mouth moves before her brain catches up. "Alive?" she asks, and the word cuts. It doesn't float into the air all soft and hopeful, it slashes.

A desperate, jagged thing with claws, tearing through the thick, unbearable weight of silence.

Dean nods. "Alive."

Jade doesn't move. Not at first. Her body is stuck, locked in place by some unseen force, the words still ringing in her ears like a fire alarm she can't shut off. Two stupid little syllables, rearranging her entire goddamn life.

Then, it hits. The relief. The unbearable, stupid, tidal-wave-sized relief, crashing into her at full force, cracking through her ribs, sending every tightly wound muscle in her body into free fall.

Cassie moves first, because of course she does―because Cassie is pure, undiluted emotion with zero impulse control, a human firework, a barely-contained explosion of feelings. One second, she's standing there, and the next, she's launching herself at Dean like a rabid raccoon that just found its long-lost family. She collides with him full force, like she's trying to fuse them into one person via sheer willpower, which, honestly, wouldn't even be the weirdest thing that's happened today.

And Jade is not far behind.

And suddenly she's moving. Too fast, too much, too everything. She's on her feet before she even knows what she's doing, blood rushing to her head so hard it makes her dizzy. It feels like she's been holding her breath for weeks, months, years, and now, finally, someone's cracked her chest open and let the air rush in.

Michael is saying something, but she doesn't hear it. Her pulse is too loud, hammering inside her skull, drowning out everything.

Her hands are shaking.

Her whole body is shaking, the adrenaline still curling through her like electric wires.

Somewhere in the back of her mind-the very, very back, behind all the adrenaline and the chaotic screaming-she registers that this is not a normal reaction. Normal people don't go feral over good news. Normal people don't sprint at their friends like crazed Olympic athletes. But she is not normal and this is not normal and holy shit, they actually found her, and she's alive.

Alive.

Alive.

Alive.

Like if she thinks it enough times, it'll actually start to feel real.

Because she's a mess of relief and joy and unprocessed emotions and Michael is there, existing in his usual space of cocky, vaguely-annoying stability, and Jade needs that right now.

And then the bastard laughs.

Like, full-on laughs, loud and triumphant, the kind of sound that would be so annoying if she wasn't actively using him as a human anchor to keep from floating off the goddamn planet. He spins her around like they just won a championship game, like they're in the final scene of a rom-com, like they're ridiculous.

Then he plops them both back onto the couch like she weighs nothing, which is honestly kind of rude.

Michael, still grinning like the smuggest little shit in the world, says, "You're really not this affectionate with anyone else, Jade. I feel special."

And God, she wants to be mad, but she can feel the stupid grin tugging at her lips, so she shoves at his shoulder, aiming for mildly violent but landing somewhere around annoyed kitten.

"Shut up, Michael," she says, because that's all she has, because her brain is short-circuiting and her hands are still shaking and she's still buzzing with this unbearable, impossible relief.

Michael, because he has no self-preservation instincts whatsoever, just smirks like he knows.

Like he knows.

Which is annoying. But also kind of fine. Maybe. Whatever. She'll deal with that later. Right now, she's too busy not losing her mind.

Dean perches on the arm of the couch like he's finally learned the concept of relaxation-though, knowing him, he's probably still calculating six different worst-case scenarios in the back of his mind. But for once, he looks lighter. Less we're-all-going-to-die and more maybe-we-won't-all-die-today. Which, for Dean, is basically the equivalent of someone handing him a piña colada and a pair of sunglasses.

Cassie, on the other hand, is radiating. Literally, she's everywhere, bouncing between them like a pinball, bright-eyed and borderline manic with joy. Jade half-expects her to spontaneously combust into a confetti explosion at any second. Honestly? Wouldn't even be mad about it. Just mildly concerned for the cleanup process.

And then.

Lia walks in.

The energy in the room does not shift―it snaps, like a rubber band pulled too tight. Because Lia doesn't just walk anywhere. She arrives. She enters a room like she's a guest star making her debut in a high-stakes drama, like the camera just panned up to her face for a slow-motion reveal.

"Is this a private party," she drawls, voice smooth as glass, cool and clipped and dangerously bored, "or can anyone join?"

Michael, who was born without the ability to not have a comeback, doesn't even blink. "Admit it, Lia. You're just as happy as we are."

Jade nods. "If not, I'd say you were happier, even."

Lia arches an eyebrow, stepping further into the room with the kind of impossible, inhuman grace that makes Jade irrationally angry. Like, it should not be legal to move that smoothly. Olympic gymnasts would watch her and immediately retire. Cats would see her and take notes.

"Doubtful," she says, because of course she does. Her gaze sweeps across the room, assessing, calculating―like they're pieces on a chessboard and she's already three moves ahead.

Then, her lips twitch, just the slightest hint of a smirk.

"Although," she adds, flicking her gaze toward Cassie, "Cassie does seem particularly thrilled."

Cassie flushes―a rare, horrifying thing that Lia is clearly about to capitalize on, because she's like a shark that's just smelled blood in the water. Jade can see the moment she gears up to absolutely ruin Cassie's life, but before she can even part her lips, Dean does the most un-Dean-like thing imaginable.

He crosses the room, scoops Lia up like she's a ragdoll, and bodily hurls her onto the couch beside Jade.

It's glorious.

Lia lands with all the grace and dignity of a cat that just got pushed off a counter. Her scarf goes askew. Her scarf. Lia never lets her accessories betray her.

"Dean!" she snaps, scandalized, immediately fixing said scarf like that's the real crisis here. She scowls up at him, looking personally offended that he's just manhandled her like an unruly toddler mid-tantrum.

Dean just grins, unbothered, as if he didn't just commit a war crime against her entire personality.

Michael, who clearly values his own life less than Jade originally thought, takes this golden opportunity to poke Lia in the cheek.

It's a light poke. A testing poke. The kind of poke that says, I wonder how close I can get to death without actually dying.

Lia turns her entire body toward him with all the measured menace of a villain from a James Bond movie.

Jade has seen people murdered for less.

Michael, ever the idiot, just grins and echoes himself from earlier: "Admit it. You're just as happy as we are."

And Jade watches it happen. The moment Lia considers violence. The way her fingers twitch like she's weighing her options. The microsecond where she almost, almost says something sharp enough to send Michael into immediate spiritual crisis.

But then.

She tosses her hair over her shoulder-the classic Lia Dodging a Direct Answer maneuver―and refuses to meet anyone's eye. Not Cassie, not Dean, not even Michael, which is saying something because she usually relishes making him her personal verbal punching bag.

Instead, she stares straight ahead, all regal indifference, and says, "A little girl is going home. Because of us. Of course I'm as happy as you are."

And just like that, the energy shifts.

Because that's the whole thing, isn't it?

That's why they're all here. That's what matters.

Jade glances around the room, at Cassie still half-suffocating under the weight of her own joy, at Michael with his half-smirk that doesn't quite reach his eyes, at Dean, standing there looking like he might actually relax for once in his entire life.

And then she looks at Lia, sitting perfectly still, staring at nothing, looking like maybe she's letting herself feel it, too.

And then:

"Well, statistically," Sloane begins, voice perfectly level, "the probability of four people experiencing identical levels of happiness is―"

"Sloane." Michael cuts her off like a man clawing for survival, like a soldier in the trenches who knows the next words out of her mouth might actually kill him. "If you don't finish that sentence, there's a cup of fresh-ground coffee in your future."

This makes Sloane pause. Which is wild, because nothing makes Sloane pause.

Girl could be mid-firefight, bullets whizzing past her ears, and she'd still be rattling off obscure probability statistics like she's narrating a goddamn TED Talk.

Her eyes narrow. Suspicious. "My immediate future?"

Because she knows. She knows Michael has been waging psychological warfare against her caffeine intake for years―blocking her espresso access, intercepting lattes like a villain in a dystopian novel. It's been an ongoing battle, and one that, frankly, Michael always wins.

Jade watches the whole thing unfold with morbid fascination, because Michael is a bold man to play these kinds of games. The only thing more dangerous than a Sloane with caffeine is a Sloane denied caffeine.

Sloane looks deeply skeptical but―shockingly―does not protest when Dean, apparently on a manhandling rampage, scoops her up like a feral science experiment and unceremoniously plops her directly on top of them.

Jade lets out a small, involuntary wheeze as Sloane lands, elbow-first, somewhere in her ribs.

"Oh, excellent," Sloane muses, not even remotely bothered by the fact that she has just been used as a human game piece. "I was wondering what full-body compression would do for my serotonin levels."

"Sloane, I love you, but shut up," Lia gasps from underneath what is now a tangled mess of limbs and questionable life choices.

They're all crammed together.

Jade, squished between Michael and Cassie, Sloane perched like an unhinged scientist in the middle of the mess, Lia somehow managing to still look like she belongs in a Vogue editorial despite being forcibly seated, and Dean hovering over them all like the world's most exhausted, unofficial team dad.

For once―for one, fleeting, impossible moment-it actually feels like they've won.

Like they've taken something unfixable and fixed it. Like they've done the impossible and turned it into something real.

Somewhere out there, Mackenzie McBride is going home.

And that means something.

There's a beat of silence. Just a second. Just long enough for Jade to almost process the weight of everything―

"Celebration?" Lia suggests, her smirk curling back into place like it never left.

Michael glances at Jade, eyes sparking with that specific brand of impending disaster. "Jade? Any preferences?"

And oh!

Oh, shit.

Jade knows that look. She knows exactly what it means.

And just like that, she knows the night is about to get very, very interesting.

( from lyn! )
date published; 01/02/2025
word count: 3608.

-i. okay so i totally rewrote this bc like, the first version just wasn't giving what i wanted,

-ii. i didn't want this chapter to be a carbon copy of the book, so i took out a few things and added my own spice! do we dig? yes/no?

-iii. also, pls tell me what you think of jade and michael so far! i'm lowk obsessed with them, but like, is there anything you'd change or wanna see more of? lmkk!