As I opened my eyes again, I turned first to my right and then to my left, looking out along the horizon for any sign of anything which might tell me where the fuck I was.
“Motherfucker!” I yelled loud enough to startle a couple of seagulls who had been fighting in the sand...oh wait, they were fucking actually and looking rather scandalised at the interruption, but that wasn’t the point.
The point, was that beyond the cerulean sea and the long stretch of white sand, far off in the distance lit up by the first rays of the rising sun, I could see a goddamn pier with a goddamn Ferris wheel parked up at the far end of it. Not just any pier and Ferris wheel either, oh no - that right there was what me and my former boys liked to call Sinners’ Playground. It used to be my favourite place in the entire world once upon a time. But the thought of coming back here now had me wishing Shawn had done a better job of choking me to death. My gut tightened and a lump of dread rose in my throat.
This place had been my home once. The only one I’d ever known. Where I ran the streets with the Harlequin boys at my side and the world seemed full of endless blue skies and a thousand possibilities. And look how quickly that had gone to shit...
Fucking Shawn in his final act of fuck you had driven me out here to bury my still warm corpse in a shallow grave in the one place in this world that I hated above all others.
If I hadn’t already wanted to kill him for putting his fucking hands on me, then I sure as hell did now. I was going to go ahead and slap a nice, big post-it note at the forefront of my mind holding a life goals to-do list and right at the top of it would be the words kill Shawn Mackenzie. It would have helped if he wasn’t the current leader of The Dead Dogs, the second biggest gang in the state, but I didn’t care. He’d bought his death with mine, I’d see to that even if it cost me all I had.
It was just a shame that right now, that was a sum total of nothing. Well…twenty dollars and the key I kept on a leather thong around my neck.
I sucked in a breath and quickly grasped at my shirt, right between my cleavage where the key always hung and relief filled me as I found it there. I wasn’t really surprised. Shawn had always called it my sentimental piece of crap so of course he hadn’t taken it. But that was just because I’d told him it was the key to my dead grandma’s liquor cabinet which I’d worn since her death to keep her close to my heart. Never had a string of bullshit served me so well. Because this key opened something far more precious than a cupboard full of booze. Even if my imaginary grandma had had expensive tastes.
My gaze strayed to the Ferris wheel in the distance again and I licked my lips, tasting damp soil coating them.
I used to think my life might just have been perfect. The Harlequin boys and me. One big, happy, unconventional, marginally fucked up family.
Maverick told me once that all four of them were in love with me. He said one day I'd have to choose between them and that would be the end of it all. Our happiness dashed to pieces by me choosing one of them and rejecting the others.
Little did I know that the end would come much more swiftly than that. The only kiss my boys had ever given me was the very same one that Judas offered up to the man he was supposed to love.
At least when your heart breaks at sixteen you learn that lesson well. I’d never trust the promises of anyone who claimed to love me. I’d never believe in anything other than myself.
When they’d cut my heart out and left me bleeding and alone, I’d done what any self-respecting runaway brat did best and ran the fuck away. But maybe it was time I stopped running. Ten years was a long time to bear a grudge and I still held the key to their dark, dirty little secrets. Maybe it was time I claimed what we’d locked away…
My fingers tightened around the key and I strode down the beach to the water. I needed to rinse the grave dirt off of me before I made any decisions. Because if I chose to let the Harlequin boys back into my life again, then I knew that I’d have to bring my A game. No falling for their bullshit, no listening to their sweet talk and no more talk of heartbreak – not even to myself. They could never know how much they’d hurt me that night ten years ago. How shattered my heart still was and how keenly that pain still found me when I thought about them. And over the years, that hurt hadn’t dulled a scrap. So it might just be time for me to pay them back for it.
Sinners’ Playground will be out on November 13th – preorder your copy here!
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