Warlock - Jericho's Boys #5 - ch. 2 (Patreon)

Unbeta'd/Unedited. You finally get to know what Matty and Jordan are up to.

Jordan was quickly becoming one of those people that he used to roll his eyes at. His heart had skipped so many beats since Cree had arrived, he was worried he had an arrhythmia. Maybe this was it. Maybe he’d die of embarrassment right there in a strip mall café. But he couldn’t help it. He’d called Aiden for help, but it was Cree who’d come to rescue him—er, them. Rescue them.

Cree had come. Not because he had to. Not because he was family. But because Jordan had needed him. Right? He snuck a peek. He didn’t look like he’d come out of any sense of obligation.

Jordan knew he was being ridiculous, but who wouldn’t be? Nobody had ever made a fuss over him before. Cree had been hovering over him since the moment they’d laid eyes on each other, watching him like he worried any second Jordan might disappear. When had anyone but Matty not wanted Jordan to disappear?

The answer came too easily.

He was shaking. Well, not shaking exactly but…vibrating with this nervous energy. Like his bones were humming. Like the night in that holding cell hadn’t fully drained out of him yet. They were at this small little cafe tucked into the strip mall across from campus, wedged into a back corner booth that smelled faintly like syrup and burnt coffee only adding to their weirdly cozy bubble. 

When he’d slid into the leather booth, he’d expected Cree to sit on the other side, but instead he’d slid in beside him. The vinyl creaked under Cree’s weight. The space shrank. The air changed. It was hard to breathe normally whenever Cree was close. 

Had Cree chosen the spot to be closer to him or was it purely tactical?Was he just trying to keep eyes on the front door of the restaurant? It was probably the latter option but Jordan was absolutely going to pretend it was option number one.

Cree took up so much space beside him. Jordan forgot how big Cree was until they were face-to-face again—or side-by-side in this case. Jordan rarely felt small but next to Cree he felt tiny. Or maybe he just liked how Cree took care of him, liked the feel of Cree’s thigh pressed against his. The way his shoulder brushed his arm every time he shifted.

When the server arrived, Cree sat up straighter, almost like he was trying to put a barrier between him and Jordan. Was that just instinctive? It wasn’t like the server—Bailey according to his tiny gold name tag—was any kind of threat. He was adorable, like a small woodland creature. He looked like any minute now he would ask to sit down and tell them about his favorite dinosaur. 

He was slight and nerdy and had a gap in his front teeth. Jordan had seen yorkies more terrifying, but Cree put his arm around Jordan’s shoulders, folding around him like some guardian angel in a painting. Like if anyone even looked at Jordan wrong, Cree would flip the table. The idea had him biting his lip to hold back a laugh. Cree was always so gentle with him but there was no forgetting that he was a murderer. He’d killed more than one person. It was just…mindboggling. 

“Do you know what you want?” Cree asked softly.

The softness did him in,  sending Jordan into his next existential crisis. He looked down at the menu, all the letters swirling together as he tried to concentrate on what the place had to offer. The more he tried to focus, the less he absorbed. Fuck.

His brain felt cotton-packed. He hadn’t slept. He’d barely eaten. He’d spent the night replaying every possible way this could have gone worse. He shot Cree a panicked look, watching as his thick brows knitted together in concern…or maybe confusion. Who wouldn’t be confused by someone having a meltdown over a menu?

Guilt shot through him, cheeks staining red as he made a whiny noise he couldn’t hide. Cree’s hand tightened on his shoulder, the warmth bleeding through the material of his shirt.

Bailey shifted restlessly, looking between the two of them, then over his shoulder at the crowded tables. “Do you need more time?”

“I don’t think that will help,” Jordan muttered under his breath.

Cree ducked his head, close enough that his breath puffed against his ear. Jordan’s stomach flipped. “Do you just want me to order?”

Jordan jerked his head toward him, only realizing too late that it put them almost nose to nose. Or lip to lip. He sucked in a breath, noting just how pretty Cree’s brown eyes were even in the dim lighting of the tacky stained-glass lamp hanging over the booth.

They weren’t just brown. They were almost black. Steady. The kind of eyes that looked like they’d fight someone for you. Jordan almost sighed wistfully like an idiot. Cree didn’t look mad. Jordan hoped he wasn’t mad. Jordan hoped he kept touching him, kept looking at him. Oh God. Abort mission. Abort eye contact. 

He nodded, looking away from him back to the useless menu, hands flailing a bit.

“Is there anything you don’t eat?” Cree asked, voice still that same low soothing tone, like he worried Jordan might bolt.

“Anything with a weird texture,” Jordan blurted, face somehow growing even hotter.

Had anyone ever spontaneously combusted in a restaurant before?

“Pancakes okay?” Cree asked.

Jordan’s heart was beating like this was some kind of life-or-death situation. He managed another nod. “Anything is fine.”

He would eat drywall and smile if Cree handed it to him at this point. His large hand settled on the back of Jordan’s neck, squeezing rhythmically as he turned his full attention to Bailey, his whole demeanor changing.

Jordan felt the shift instantly. The soft voice didn’t disappear, but it sharpened. Protective. Certain.

“We’ll just share our food. Can I get the pancakes and the southwest omelette cooked well please? Are there mushrooms in that? If so, can you take them out?”

Jordan’s eyes went wide at the authoritative tone. It just went to show how far gone he really was that listening to Cree order breakfast felt like a monumental accomplishment. The feel of his hand tightening and loosening on the back of Jordan’s neck was starting to feel intentional, like he was tricking Jordan’s brain into relaxing. Like he’d done this before. Like he knew exactly how to anchor someone spiraling. Had he done this to someone else? God, of course, he had. He was closer to thirty than twenty. It was Jordan who was the raging virgin. 

“Got it,” Bailey said. “I’ll bring you refills as well.”

Jordan looked at his near-empty Diet Coke. Had he really drunk that much without noticing. He felt like he was in some kind of fugue state. The adrenaline from last night was still circulating in his system, but beneath that was this bone tired fatigue that made him want to curl up with his head in Cree’s lap and ask him to play with his hair until he fell asleep. 

When Cree shifted toward him, his hand shifted as well.

“Don’t stop,” Jordan cried, clapping a hand over his mouth at how loud he sounded.

Yeah, he was definitely going to burst into flames from humiliation. Cree’s hand returned to the back of his neck without question, but now he was turned so one leg was on the bench seat, his whole body blocking out the din of the crowded restaurant. Blocking out the noise. The clatter of plates. The press of strangers.

It was just them now.

“Sorry,” Jordan muttered.

Cree frowned, looking genuinely perplexed. “For what?”

God, he was so gorgeous. How was anyone this beautiful in real life. 

Jordan shrugged, tongue poking at one of his piercings from inside his mouth. “Sometimes I just get anxious in new places.”

Cree looked around. “You’ve never been here before?”

Jordan shook his head. “We usually eat at the diner across from our apartment or the coffee shop on campus. This place usually has too much of a wait.”

“Ah,” Cree said, as if that made perfect sense.

His hand never wavered, his fingers now rubbing at the two points at the base of his skull in a way that had his eyes rolling back and a low moan escaping. Jordan’s eyelids fluttered shut as he bit down on his lower lip to stifle another embarrassing sound climbing up his throat. When he looked again, there was something almost…predatory in Cree’s expression, in the way he stared at Jordan’s slightly open mouth like he was thinking about…more than just talking.

A quiet zing shot through his lower belly even as the tension in his shoulders melted under Cree’s fingers. The hum in his bones finally quieted.

“So are you gonna tell me how you ended up in the slammer, rockstar?”

Jordan sucked in a breath, eyes flying open as he found Cree, once more, not even an inch from his face.

Close enough that Jordan could see the faint scar near his eyebrow. Close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.

Jordan had known this question was coming, but now that it was there he had no idea how to tell Cree the truth without revealing their secret. Could he just tell him? Should he? He didn’t want to lie to him.

He didn’t want to be the kind of person who lied to someone who showed up for him.

“It’s a long story,” he hedged.

“Well, lucky for you I don’t work until late,” Cree said, his voice that same low soothing register he always had with him.

He talked to Jordan like he was an easily spooked animal. Which—clearly—wasn’t entirely wrong. He let his gaze slide away from him, but Cree took up so much space there wasn’t really anywhere else to look. Broad shoulders. Solid chest. Steady, veiny hands with long fingers...

“If I tell you the truth, Matty will kill me,” Jordan confessed, dragging his eyes from his hands and forearms before he really made a fool of himself.

Cree sighed. “If you don’t tell me, Lake will drag it out of Matty anyway and then he’ll come home and tell me. We don’t have any secrets between us either. I don’t want to keep secrets with you either.”

Jordan groaned softly. “Ugh, Matty is gonna kill me for calling Aiden and if he doesn’t, he’ll kill me for not telling him that I knew that Miguel was Lake. Now you want me to tell you something that is supposed to be our take-it-to-the-grave secret?”

“Is it illegal?” Cree asked quietly, holding his gaze.

So very illegal.

“And if it is?” Jordan mumbled, dropping his gaze to his hands like a child caught in the act.

His fingers twisted in the edge of the paper napkin, shredding it without realizing.

“So what?” Cree countered quietly, hooking a finger beneath Jordan’s chin to make him look at him. “Are you forgetting where we met? We hunted down an old woman together with about forty other people. You know the Mulvaney’s secret. You know mine, too. Unless you’re hurting innocent people, you can’t possibly be doing anything worse than what we do? Right?”

Jordan’s throat tightened.

“Its not that it’s worse,” Jordan confessed quickly, eyes wide. He needed Cree to know that. “It’s just…they’re not our secrets to tell?”

He didn’t mean it to come out like a question, but it did. Like he was asking Cree for permission. For absolution.

Cree’s brow creased. “Can you at least tell me how you ended up getting into a bar fight?” Cree asked, clearly trying to put the pieces together.

Jordan huffed out a breath. He didn’t want to lie to Cree. He didn’t want to keep secrets from him either. Ever.

“It’s all…tied together.”

Cree dropped his forehead to his, his hand tightening on the back of his neck.

The contact was grounding. Solid.

“You’re killing me, rockstar,” he said, breath smelling faintly of the coffee in front of him. “You’re gonna have to trust me because this isn’t going to just go away. Thomas and Aiden will have questions, Jericho too. If I’m being honest, there’s a very good chance all of them already know whatever secret you and Matty think you’re hiding anyway.”

Oh, God. He was right. Thomas had clearly investigated them before he invited them to move there. Maybe they had been stupid to start up their side business again so quickly after moving. But what they did was important, especially to Matty. And if they had the skills, how could they not help?

How could they look at someone begging for help and just walk away? And now he had to decide if Cree was someone he could let into that part of his world. He knew he was. He knew with certainty that even if he was only temporary in Jordan’s life—why did that idea have teeth—that he’d never betray his trust. But it still felt like asking him to catch him before jumping off a bridge. 

Jordan wanted to tell him. He wanted to tell him everything. What he and Matty did, what Hicks had found, what Bryce had done. All of it. Wouldn’t he find out eventually anyway? And if he found out from someone else, would he look at Jordan differently?

He took a shaky breath, then let it out. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

Cree nodded, sitting back enough to let Jordan think without his scent flooding his nostrils and making him stupid.

“To explain last night, I need to start way before then.”

Cree nodded. “Go ahead.”

Jordan sighed, scrubbing his hands over his face before grabbing Cree’s coffee and chugging it. 

Finally, he said, “When Matty and I were in high school, a friend of ours broke up with her boyfriend after he cheated.”

Cree’s brows somehow grew even closer together. “Okay?”

“When she dumped him, he flooded the internet with her nudes.”

Cree huffed out a breath through his nose, but didn’t say anything, just nodded, his jaw tensing. The muscle there ticked once. Twice.

Jordan’s lip curled as he remembered the situation. “The police wouldn’t do anything about it. They said there wasn’t enough proof that he was the one who distributed them and worse, they said since she sent them to him and she was underage, she could be on the hook for sending CSAM.”

The disgust on Cree’s face soothed something in Jordan, as did the rhythmic stroking of his thumb across the back of Jordan’s neck.

He wasn’t looking at Jordan like he’d done something wrong. He was looking like he was ready to break something.

“We told her we’d help her get the images off his phone. But she said it didn’t matter because they were everywhere now. She had her scholarship to Princeton revoked, her life completely destroyed. Her parents were furious. They said she brought it on herself. She swallowed a bottle of pills and almost died. She was in a coma for six weeks and had to have a liver transplant last year from the damage the pills caused.”

“Jesus.” The word came out low. Controlled.

“Her ex didn’t lose out on a single fucking thing…at first.”

Cree’s brow hooked upwards. 

Fuck. He was so hot. 

Jordan shook the thought away. Concentrate, stupid. 

“Did you know that Matty is a math genius,” Jordan asked. “Like, an actual bonafide Einstein-level genius. He could solve almost any complex math equation thrown at him. But he excels at writing computer code.”

Cree tilted his head. “Go on.”

“Matty decided to create a software, one that could…crawl the internet, finding and killing any material that met certain criteria. Basically, he created a spider that would find and delete any traces of her videos. It’s not a quick fix, it’s something that basically has to run forever, but anyone who looks her up on Google would have to go 400 pages deep to find any trace of those photos.”

“Holy shit,” Cree said, sounding as genuinely impressed as Jordan usually was with Matty’s genius.

Jordan’s chest tightened a little. “Matty found a way to plant a virus on her ex’s computer that allowed him to dump some…not only morally reprehensible but highly illegal stuff on his computer. Then anonymously called the cops. He’s in prison for another eighteen months minimum.”

Cree didn’t flinch. Didn’t recoil.

His grip on Jordan tightened. “What does that have to do with last night?”

Here we go. 

“What we did for her? People found out. Word got around about what Matty’s software could do. There were a lot of girls out there who needed help. Well, not just girls—anyone who has had their life hijacked by someone they trusted. But overwhelmingly girls. Sadly.”

“You help them get revenge?”

Jordan swallowed. The word sounded ugly out loud. Revenge. Like something selfish. Petty.

Jordan started to shake his head, then nodded instead. 

“We help them get justice,” he corrected quietly. “Or at least…something close to it. This stuff comes back to bite people in so many different ways. School. Jobs. Hell, even holding public office someday. If you’re a woman, they look for reasons to take you down.” 

Cree nodded. 

“Matty’s program—We call it SALT. Search. Archive. Locate. Takedown—it allows us to help these people get potentially damaging stuff off the internet or at least make sure it’s so buried that it’s not worth the effort of trying to find it. We neutralize the weapon, even if we can’t negate the inner damage it’s done.”

He’d never said the acronym out loud to anyone outside their tiny orbit. It felt like handing Cree a key.

“But why?” Cree asked.

“Why?” Jordan echoed, blinking rapidly at the absurd question. “Because it’s not fair. It's not fair that this sort of shit only seems to affect girls. Nobody would care if your nudes showed up on the internet tomorrow—well, I would, but nobody else.” Cree smiled, but Jordan steamrolled ahead. “Do you know the kind of disgusting shit these guys do to girls all because of them rejecting them or breaking up with them? We’ve dealt with date rape stuff, revenge porn, leaked nudes, fake OnlyFans profiles, fake profiles on kink sites inviting strangers to the girls house to assault them, deep fake videos. These assholes get more creative every fucking day.”

His voice had sharpened without him realizing it. The panic replaced with anger.

Cree squeezed his neck. “I didn’t mean why do it. I meant why you two in particular?”

Jordan blinked. “If not us, then who? Nobody came to help our friend. They only wanted to punish her. The Mulvaney’s and Jericho, they punish the guilty, but what about the victims? What does anyone do for them? I know what you do is important. But you can’t unring a bell or unbreak a dish. Even if the bad guy’s dead, the victim’s not magically healed. We try to…minimize harm.”

Try to give them something back. Control. Dignity. A future.

“So you’re like…vigilante victim advocates?” Cree asked.

Jordan thought about it, then nodded. “Yeah. I guess that’s what you could call us.”

Cree didn’t look amused. Or scandalized. He looked…thoughtful.

“And last night’s bar fight happened because of something to do with that?”

Jordan sighed, gaze darting over Cree’s shoulder as Bailey delivered their food. The scent of syrup and eggs filled the space between them. He watched as Cree divided up the food between their two plates, deliberate and careful, then set Jordan’s in front of him.

“Eat.”

The command was gentle but firm.

Jordan managed to eat a few bites of both the pancakes and his omelette, but he wouldn’t be able to enjoy it until he told Cree everything. He could already feel his stomach rebelling. Now that he’d started, it felt urgent to tell him everything so he could try to understand him…them. If Cree understood, maybe he wouldn’t walk away. 

When Jordan set his fork down, Cree did too. “Tell me how this all ties into last night.” 

“The guy whose ass Matty kicked last night? His name is Bryce and he’s this entitled former rugby player who has a weird gift for robotics. A girl came to us saying he and two friends raped her but that nobody believed her because they had her on camera consenting. She has no memory of that. At all.” 

“Did she go to the cops?” 

“No, she went to the dean. But Bryce showed him the video and said it was just sour grapes and that she was just having regrets over being such a ‘slut’. Then they threatened to kick her out of school for violating some student morality clause,” Jordan said, rolling his eyes. “Being one of those guys didn’t however, just in case you were wondering.” 

“They said she violated a morality clause?” Cree echoed, shaking his head. 

“Yeah. Which is crazy because August and Lucas get caught fucking all over that campus…so much so it made the school paper. But somehow the students have a different code of conduct? They just wanted to punish her.” 

His hands had started shaking again. Not from anxiety this time. From rage.

“I thought you and Matty used computers to get revenge. Why confront him at the bar? Why put yourself in danger?”

Jordan’s stomach tripped over itself, his pancakes threatening to make a second showing. This was the part that Cree wasn’t going to like.

“Here’s the thing…Matty’s program can run independently of the assailant. We don’t need his phone, laptop or permission. But for us to get rid of the original copies or plant evidence, we need access to their network, their devices. That’s where I come in.”

“Meaning?” Cree asked, tone harsh as he sat up straighter.

The warmth on Jordan’s neck vanished.

His gaze slid to the wall of windows, too afraid to meet his gaze. “Well, I gain access to their phones or laptops.”

“Gain access how, Jordan,” Cree asked sharply.

Hearing him call him Jordan instead of rockstar was jarring. It felt like being pulled out of a warm bath and dropped into ice water.

“I-I break into their dorm rooms, ‘borrow their phones’, hijack their passwords. Whatever Matty needs to get the job done. I’ve gotten really good at getting in and getting out.”

“How?” Cree said. “You don’t exactly blend in.” 

Jordan shrugged. “People don’t see me. Not when I’m not on stage anyway. Even the piercings don’t really grab attention. Nobody wants to be caught staring.” 

“Are you crazy?” Cree whispered. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

Jordan’s hand floated to his bruised face, giving Cree a lopsided smile. “I do now?” he tried, giving him a hesitant smile.

Cree did not return it. His jaw was tight. Protective anger simmering just beneath the surface.

“What happened last night?” 

Jordan let his tongue poke at his piercing once more. “We had already started getting rid of Kayla’s videos off the internet. We were having a hard time getting Bryce to leave his phone or laptop anywhere we could access it. And since we didn’t know his passwords, I’d have to find a way to break into his dorm room or grab his phone while it was unlocked.”

“And you decided last night was the night?”

Jordan shook his head. “It sort of just…happened.” When Cree opened his mouth, Jordan held up a hand. “I’ll tell you. Our friend, Hicks, wrote an article in the school paper yesterday, one that got a lot of attention. It accused Bryce of not just being a rapist, but claiming that he was only one in a network of rapists.”

“A…network?” 

Jordan nodded. “He thinks that there’s a secret society operating in our school and that they’re playing a game.”

“A game?” Cree parroted. “A game that involves raping girls?”

Jordan swallowed. Saying it out loud made it sound even more insane. Even more monstrous.

“We don’t know. Hicks was supposed to meet us at the bar last night, but he never showed. Bryce and his buddies did though. I think they were looking for him. They posted up at the bar where they could watch the doors, being loud and annoying. Bryce had his phone out, he was showing his friends something that had them all laughing like hyenas.”

Jordan’s fingers curled around his fork, though he made no effort to pick it up. He couldn’t eat if he wanted to. 

“Matty and I decided to snatch it while we had the chance.”

“While you had the chance?” Cree parroted, his exasperation evident.

“Matty picked a fight with him. Well, with all of them. It took some shit-talking on Matty’s end but if he’s good at anything other than computers, it’s saying some shit that will make people want to punch him.”

Cree’s lips twitched like he was fighting back a smile.

“He punched Bryce in the face so hard his phone flew out of his hand and ended up under a booth, then he started in on his friend, Tanner, taunting him about his shitty grades, his ugly girlfriend and his senator mother who’s on the wrong side of history.”

Jordan exhaled slowly. It had been chaotic. Loud. Violent. Calculated. And it worked perfectly. Until it hadn’t.

“Wow.”

Jordan nodded. “That started the brawl. Once they were all distracted, I crawled under the table and did what I needed to do. I’ve got that shit down to three minutes, tops. I was lucky he had his lockscreen set to five minutes before it went to sleep. I almost missed it. I managed to get it all done without issue but when I went to casually plant the phone somewhere closer, Tanner saw me with it and punched me. That’s when campus police showed up. And the rest you know.”

Cree stared at him like he was trying to calculate all the ways that could have gone wrong.

“Do you know how incredibly dangerous what you’re doing is?” Cree asked, softening his words by running his thumb along Jordan’s swollen cheekbone.

The touch didn’t match the edge in his voice. It was gentle. Furious, but gentle.

“Of course, we do, but someone has to do it and it’s obviously not the cops,” Jordan said, needing him to understand this wasn’t just something cavalier, they weren’t just kids playing a prank for funsies.

Cree’s finger traced his lips, sending heat flooding his lower body. “You can’t order your own breakfast, but you’ll break into dorms, start bar fights and let stupid jocks do this to your pretty face?”

Jordan’s heart stumbled over its feet.

“You think I’m pretty?” he asked, batting his lashes at him. 

Cree blinked. “That’s what you heard out of all that?”

Jordan shrugged, heat creeping up his neck. “Breaking into empty dorm rooms isn’t scary. Getting my face punched hurts, but it’s not scary. Someone staring me down when I need to make a decision is awful. I hate it. My parents were constantly rushing us, to hurry up, to get things done. It just…gives me anxiety when people rush me.”

His voice had gone smaller without him meaning it to. Cree’s expression shifted. Not confusion. Not frustration. Something softer. He dipped his head and pressed his lips to Jordan’s forehead and Jordan was almost positive his soul ascended. Nobody had ever responded to his anxiety with softness before. Usually it was annoyance. Or mockery.

“What are you guys going to do next?” Cree asked quietly. “Bryce must know you did something to his phone?”

“We want to talk to Hicks first. Maybe he can tell us what he knows about this secret society or whatever he thinks it is,” Jordan said. “He’s a really good reporter but Matty thinks maybe he got in trouble with the school for even hinting that there’s a secret society. Maybe that’s why he didn’t show up at the bar last night.”

Cree’s thumb didn’t stop moving. Slow. Grounding.

“Do you know where he lives?” Cree asked.

Jordan thought about it. “Kinda? I know the building, but not the apartment number. He lives in off-campus housing. They’re not dorms, but apartments.”

“Finish eating and let’s go talk to him,” Cree said.

Jordan frowned. “Why?”

Cree’s hand slid from his neck to lace their fingers together on the table. Firm. Decided.

“Because I’m not letting you do this alone,” Cree said. “Revenge porn and hacking is one thing. Secret societies are a whole different level of fucked up. They’re like a cult. And cults will do anything to protect themselves and their ideology.”

There was no bravado in his tone. Just certainty. Experience.

“How do you know that?” Jordan asked.

Cree’s jaw flexed once.

“Because my parents were in a cult. Well, they called it religion, but it was a cult and they were adamant that anyone who wasn’t a part of it, was their enemy and should be destroyed by any means necessary.”

Jordan’s chest tightened.

“Why do I have the feeling they thought you were their enemy?”

Cree gave a tight smile. “Because you’re entirely too perceptive.”

The smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Was he? He didn’t know. But the urge to hug Cree, to cuddle him, to build him a blanket fort where they could both hide away, had him reaching for both his hands and squeezing. Cree squeezed back instantly. No hesitation.

“Let’s go see Hicks.”

For the first time since waking up in a jail cell, Jordan didn’t feel like he was staring down a firing squad  alone.