by Ace Gray
Now he was free. He was free to come for her, for the crown jewel. But he hadn’t. I felt the ominous shiver trickle down my spine. There had to be a reason and not knowing made my blood run cold. He could take her. I knew he could take her. Another shiver wracked my body.
I could lose her.
Inside something in me cracked at the thought of losing her. I had no intention of putting it back together either. Whatever was unleashed reached out and bound me to her.
I slid onto the floor beside where she slept on the couch, barely moving so I wouldn’t wake her. She nestled into the pillows and tugged at the edge of her blanket. I crossed my arms and rested my chin on my forearms to watch her, my sea breeze curls framing my vision. Framing her as I watched her sleep.
She’d moved her stuff into my room when Bert moved in but she wouldn’t stay. Danger was right, she slept on the couch, whenever I was home. Somedays it infuriated me, somedays I reminded myself she was saving herself for me, for something special. Next time I’d lie about my return date so that I could catch her in my bed. Because when she was out, when her breathing was steady, I could slide into bed with her. Her body would move toward mine and it would be the most glorious gift. I reached for her but kept my hand from grabbing.
That would wake her.
And I didn’t want to wake her. Did I?
Not while she was sleeping. Not yet. She was so pretty at peace. She was so pretty here with me. Her hair fanned out, her lips parted the slightest bit, as if she might murmur my name. And she would murmur my name. I would show her. I’d take her if I needed to.
Maybe that was how I’d wake her…
After all, her lips called to me. The land of milk and honey. For me to taste.
I leaned forward and drank in the smell of her. Sunshine, sea salt, and all the prettiest flowers. She was beautiful. So freaking beautiful. And I needed her. Needed her. I risked letting my nose run along her jaw and my fingertips graze her hidden hip bones. She shifted but she didn’t wake.
But now I kinda wanted her to. I wanted her to see me the way I saw her. The way Dantè Rogue would never be allowed to see her again.
Because she was mine, the voice inside my head roared, propelling me forward.
To kiss her.
I kissed her hard and fast and deep. She was limp beneath my lips at first, then ever so softly she kissed me back. Warm and wet against me, her body rolling like the waves I loved so much. Until she became a tempest, shoving at my chest with a wild cry.
“Good morning, beautiful,” I said still riding the high of tasting her.
“Diego,” she shrieked. “What are you doing?” She shoved back and gathered her blanket up to her body. As I if I didn’t drink my fill of her almost naked body each and every time I could.
Her eyes were wide, and I saw the venom poisoning them like it so often did.
“You can’t…” She gasped, and the words lashed heat and hate inside me. You. The way she said it seemed like an accusation. A very pointed one. One that was so much more about who I wasn’t than who I was.
He wasn’t even here. He never would be again. I’d make sure of it.
“If I can’t then who can?”
I could hear Mercy yelling at Diego through the paper thin walls. My blood boiled in my veins. She’d been so hurt—we’d fucking obliterated her—and now it seemed as if he’d finally snapped. I’d tried to stop him before, tried to help him find his footing but the back and forth of their voices, the edge in hers…His crazy no longer lurked beneath the surface, fuck if we weren’t all going to drown in it now.
I stood, wanting to go out there—to wrestle her free from his grasp again—but I didn’t know what to say anymore. Dantè was free and I needed the friends that shared my sin more than ever.
God, it made me want to puke. They made me want to puke.
Fear like I’d never known coursed through my veins. I felt it in my very bones. It was guilt and self-loathing and something else. Something more. Fear had Diego unhinged. Danger too. But I was afraid for different reasons. I was afraid of what looking him in the face would do to me. The color it would turn my soul. And if Mercy knew the truth…
That was the shackle that kept me in my room rather than running over and playing savior.
I shoved my hands through my hair then loosely clamped my palms over my ears. Anything to drown out the wicked words and too sad tears from down the hall.
If Dantè saw what I’d let happen to his girl, written on my face the way I felt it was branded on there, I stood no chance at redemption, and that was a frightening thing indeed.
“Say his name god-damnit. If you love him so damn much and want him so damn much, say it. Fucking say it!” Diego yelled. It wasn’t the volume that set my teeth on edge.
“Don’t make me.” Mercy’s heart split, I’d become used to the sound. “Please God, don’t make me.”
He was going to break her. The stitches were the first stop, but now he was chipping away at something far deeper. I shoved up from my bed, convinced I couldn’t listen one more word.
My door snapped behind me, my footfalls echoing on the wood slats of the hall. None of the echoes slowed them, slowed his assault on her.
I took a deep breath as soon as I shut the front door behind me, breathing in the crisp California air. Basking in the sudden silence around me. I took another deep breath and left the bullshit back in that little house of horrors as I walked toward the garage.
The creak of that door was the only homecoming I got these days, and when I opened it, the sight of my car calmed me. I ran my hand along the curves of the hood as I walked back toward the driver’s door. I settled into the creak of the leather.
This is what I had killed for. Or it symbolized it all anyway. I’d wanted my own piece of the world—something to finally call my own. And I’d wanted to be the best at everything that portion contained.
“What are you doing?” Danger stepped into the bright white swatch of light that was pouring into the garage, his body left in shadow.
“Just taking a moment.”
“A moment to do what?” The acid and accusation in his voice said he’d already decided.
My hackles rose, and a snarl started to roil in my chest. How fucking dare he?
I shoved out of the car, letting the door bounce on its hinges before I slammed it. I stalked toward him with the reverberations in my bones then fisted his shirt. Surprise widened his eyes for just a moment before he collected himself back into the asshole skin he wore best.
“A moment to steel myself against the realization that I’ll see him. I’ll see him someday and have to look into his face and fucking lie.” My words spattered against his cheeks as I let go of him and shoved at his big barrel chest. “I’ll have to fucking lie about it all.”
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. I could see the dots in their perfect shape hanging in the sky even as dawn took back the night. Glittering and alive as they twinkled where they seared into my sleepless vision. Even here, even now, I couldn’t decide if Cassiopeia was more beautiful hanging in the sky or dotted on Mercy’s skin.
Did she know what she had ruined?
The rest of them did. With a better understanding of a dark and devious mind, I could see what they had wanted. How the jealousy had eaten at them and turned their insides putrid. But Mercy…I would have cut those stars out of the constellation itself and given them to her if only she’d let me.
What did she stand to gain? What had spoiled her soul against me?
I suppose I’d never know. Those secrets were her ultimate betrayal and they reminded me of the ones I was keeping from Max now. Max wasn’t my soulmate—I didn’t think those existed anymore—but she was kind and cute and cared for me. I’d come so close to tasting her, to taking her even, but I hadn’t yet. Something was holding me back.
Secrets.
I tried to reason that I wasn’t keeping anything from her because my plan wasn’t fully developed. She didn’t n
eed to know that I was going to take Rousse’s luck from him, or Danger’s success. Not even that I’d steal love from Diego, and in doing so, ruin Mercy too. She didn’t need to know because I didn’t have a fucking clue how to do it. There were no secrets to keep if they weren’t secrets yet, right?
A cloud passed in front of the early morning sun and cast a shadow across the room, a match to the one cast across my insides. I sighed.
“Okay, times up.” Max’s groggy voice came from where she leaned against her doorframe.
She was all legs below her slouchy sweater, and her hair was a wild bun, whisping off in any direction it pleased. Her shaggy bangs hung in her eyes; she hadn’t bothered to put on her glasses yet.
“You finally calling in those sexual favors?”
I thought about rolling onto my back on the pull out mattress and putting my morning wood on display if only to see how flame red I could turn her. My words were enough. She burrowed down into the sweater’s giant collar and tried to hide the wildfire overtaking her skin.
“Why don’t you wanna see your friends? The ones from the trial? I deserve to know.” She forged ahead anyway.
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath as I rolled over, semi be damn. “Why do you ask?”
The answer had to be secrets. Max had felt them ebb and flow between us too.
“Because one of them up and called me this morning, and it felt a little more like an inquisition than a concerned call.” She arched her eyebrow as she climbed onto the pull out couch and found a perch facing me.
“Who called?”
“He didn’t say.” She crossed her arms, giving shape to her curves for the first time. “He was too busy panicking that you were free.”
“Panicked?” I didn’t know if that made my heart race for good or bad reasons.
“I know you can’t remember things about that night, but what the hell happened?”
I closed my eyes and blew out a deep breath. How did I give shape to these words? To a lawyer no less. I looked her over, and, despite everything warm and soft about Max, there was a hard edge waiting for my answer.
Trusting people was what got me here, but in the early morning light, I found myself wanting to trust Max.
“I met Danger, Diego, and Rousse the same year. We were in the same class. I don’t remember how I met them exactly, just that one day there they were after school. A part of me I’d never known was missing suddenly snapped in place.
“My family wasn’t bad but they weren’t great. My house was nothing to run from but it was never really home. Those fuckers though…” I sighed.
“We did everything together. Skate and surf and howl at the moon.” I smiled in spite of everything. “We were blood brothers.” I held my palm up, remembering how it looked in that silver moonlight, and showed the thin sliver that marred the middle of my palm to her.
Max cradled my hand and her small, delicate fingers made it look more like a bear paw. I smiled, but all too quickly, it turned to something sad. Wistful.
“I stared at that scar in prison day in and day out. I told myself they deserved a better friend than me, than a cold blooded killer.”
“You aren’t a murderer.” She grabbed my thigh and shook it as if it was an exclamation on her point.
“But when I couldn’t remember, I convinced myself that I was. When everyone around you is steeped in guilt, it feels right that you are too.”
Her face fell and her fingers clutched at my skin.
“All I could think was these guys, these guys that were my family, my everything, don’t deserve the black I brought into our lives. That I’d let them down. That I wasn’t worthy.”
“And the girl?”
The growl was natural in my chest, an automatic reaction to anyone questioning Mercy, though I didn’t know if the source was protection or her treachery anymore.
“I wanted to make her my wife and give her everything. The universe itself wouldn’t have been enough. To say that I wasn’t worthy of her anymore…” I faded off as Mercy still plucked at the rough strands of my heart.
Max’s face shifted to the soft smile I knew she wore when she read romance novels.
“But why wouldn’t you fight for that girl? Now that you’re free? What happened? What changed?”
I took in a deep breath and decided to gamble on Max. On the truth.
“I remembered.”
Confusion crinkled her brow at first but then it smoothed and her eyes went wide, her lips parted ready to ask the question. I took the words from her.
“I remembered that they set me up. That they drugged me. She got me out of the house. They murdered that kid and then coated my hands in his blood.”
She gasped, and her small hands flew to cover her mouth but I wasn’t stopping now.
“I realized they lied on the stand. Each one of them. And on purpose.”
“They lied to ruin you,” Max finished for me.
I nodded once, meeting her words head on. My heart didn’t race. The new ice that flowed through my veins beat to the steady syllables of revenge. My eyes rose to Max’s, usually so bright and twinkling beneath her bangs, but suddenly sharp and calculating. The line of my jaw went rigid as I clinched my teeth and waited.
Max shoved her bangs up then let them fall. They split and revealed faint freckles covering her forehead. I wanted nothing more than to smile but the weight of the moment wouldn’t let me. She needed to break the silence first; she needed to pass her judgment on my sins. I wouldn’t apologize, but I held my breath all the same.
“His name was Jessie,” she started with words I hadn’t expected. “He was my older sister’s friend, and I fell for him the day I turned thirteen.” She pulled her sleeves down and balled them in her hands. “He died three years ago.”
“Max…” I sat up and reached for her, pulling her into my chest. She folded into me as I laid back on the pull out.
“Died isn’t the right word.” She was so quiet I could barely hear her; I held her even tighter. “He was put to death.”
I twisted to kiss the crown of her head, wishing there was something I could do to chase away her pain.
“He had a motorcycle, he rode with a crew.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I whispered.
“I do. I have to tell someone.” She burrowed into my side, hiding from the world as she spoke. “You have to know that I get it.”
I blew out a deep breath and kissed her one more time then waited.
“He kissed me when I turned fifteen and it was like he sucked the life out of me, only to give it back in small sips. I lived for those kisses.” She chuckled at her own memory as she started drawing a shape on my bare skin. “I think at first he was just humoring a kid, but somewhere along the way, he fell into me too.
“That crew…” She swallowed a knot large enough that I felt it against my chest. “I loved the rumble of his engine and the feel of his body as I wrapped around him on the bike. I hated the things he did.
“I can’t tell you how many times I looked the other way when he wiped down his gun or washed blood out of his shirt. I thought that was all that was happening that night too.” She shuddered against me.
“He came home and went straight to the kitchen. The water flipped on and I remember closing my eyes and counting to ten but it didn’t calm me down this time. The anxiety kept gnawing at me. I got up, knowing I wouldn’t like what I saw but needing to see it anyway. Jessie was hunched over the sink, crying. Crying.” She drew an exclamation point. “I would have rather he be washing blood off his hands.”
Her tiny fingertip went back to drawing on my chest.
“‘They’ll come and they’ll ask where I was tonight,’ he said. ‘Don’t you dare lie to them. You tell them I was gone, that I came home with mud on my boots and blood on my hands.’” She made a deep voice when she played Jessie. “I tried to fight him, to tell him there hadn’t been blood on his hands, or mud on his boots, but he was adamant.”
>
I felt her warm tears hit my chest before I realized she was crying.
“They pinned four murders on him, a whole family. They said gruesome, awful things about how he’d done it, but I know he took the heat for someone higher up. He confessed, but I know he didn’t do it.”
My heart sank, and I wondered if she could hear it beat beneath her ear.
“We lived in Texas, they like to push that shit through the courts and then push that shit into their veins. He was gone before I could figure out how to save him, before I could legally fight it. I hadn’t even sat for the bar.”
I shifted enough that she slid off me while I pushed up above her. Hovering over her, I could see tear tracks trailing down her cheeks undeterred even where my thumb moved to wipe them away.
“They stole him from me,” she murmured, and fresh tears spilled from the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t save him.”
I wiped the tears away again and this time let my hand linger on her cheek, learning the shape of it beneath my fingertips.
“But you did save me,” I whispered, and she managed a small, sad smile for me.
More tears poured down her cheeks, making her all the more beautiful beneath me. She was so soft, so strong. And whether it was her story, how her broken soul spoke to mine, or just that I’d wanted to erase the taste of Mercy forever lingering on my tongue, I leaned in.
I leaned in and kissed her.
Three Months Later…
My seventeenth birthday.
Thunder sounded above me and rattled the rickety mailbox beside me. I looked up at the fast-moving gray storm clouds and prayed for rain. It would cover up my tears.
I turned to look down the street, hoping that the rumble in the sky had covered up the rumble of Dantè’s engine. The cracked pavement was still as lonely and beat down as me. My dad had tried to slip his hand up my shorts again today, and I could still smell warm beer and stale cigarettes on his breath as he told me I needed to be a good girl this time.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
My tears fell in perfect domes on my forearm where it wrapped around my knees, there on the corner a quarter mile from my house. I’d run from my dad, and our doublewide, with the smallest amount of hope that Dantè wouldn’t see that side of me.I wondered if I could hide it forever; keep him in a bubble like the beautiful rainbow-flecked one on my arm. I sighed, letting more tears fall in their perfect shape onto my skin. When I was free of the peeling, tobacco-stained wallpaper of my shitty home, there was magnificence in the world. I saw it everywhere.