This is me caring about you. It’s a side effect of loving you.
Drake has the blunt in his hand, and I tear it away from him as I bristle. He starts to object until I take three long drags in quick succession.
“What has you chasing the dragon?” the prick asks with a grin.
I say nothing, my eyes on Maya as I take two final draws and hand it back to him.
“Nothing bonds two girls more than nearly dying together,” Drake says, stoned as fuck, gesturing toward Maya and Colleen.
Eve is in Drex’s lap, and I’m admittedly a little annoyed with the fact Maya seems so content so far away from me. Which is stupid. That’s not who I am. That’s not what this is between us either.
She’s going back to New York, after all. After the shit-storm she barely survived, that much is glaringly evident.
That thought has me taking the blunt away again. Damn girl is fucking ruining me.
CHAPTER 30
MAYA
Axle peers at me over the paper, his eyes narrowed and his body tight. I’m not sure what his deal is, unless he regrets sharing all his dark secrets with me.
For the past two days, he’s basically avoided any physical contact and he keeps looking at me but looks away when I catch him. So I pretend not to notice he’s staring at me right now.
Sledge walks in, his eyes meeting mine, and I tense. Axle turns his attention to Sledge, who just stares at me before moving over to the coffeemaker.
Axle goes back to pretending he’s reading the paper, even though we both know he’s staring over the top of it at me.
Talk about annoying.
Everyone else is gone right now, tending to business as usual. There’s a trailer full of bikes that Drex and Dash brought back, including Axle’s skinned up one. He went for a ride just this morning, but he wasn’t gone for long.
Axle’s phone rings, and he glances at the screen, grimacing. Standing, he answers it, walking away and heading outside.
For the first time in two days, I’m alone with Sledge, and I sort of hope this hasn’t all been an act, because he could easily kill me. Sledge is an apt nickname, considering he has all the brute strength of a sledgehammer.
I watch him warily as he sips his coffee, taking a seat in the chair Axle just vacated. He doesn’t pretend to study the paper; he merely stares at me openly.
“You want to say something, so feel free to say it,” I tell him, my toes poised on the floor and ready to launch me up so I can run.
“I have to go back to Liza tomorrow, before she gets suspicious,” he says gruffly, surprising me. “You’re the only person in this bunch that’s ever dealt with betrayal from someone you cared about. I need you to tell me how you did it.”
Ice runs through my veins, and I take a deep, steadying breath. Apparently they all know about my scars.
Our situations are similar, even though a stark difference rests in there too.
“I trusted the wrong person. My brother used his knowledge about me against me, and he groomed Thomas to be the perfect boyfriend that he knew I couldn’t resist. Thomas was relentless, and I loved being chased. He eventually won me over,” I say with a grim smile. “He worked in my father’s crew and had the balls to tell my father to ‘fuck off’ when he tried to intimidate him into breaking up with me. He earned my father’s respect that day, and I fell harder.”
As Sledge leans up on his elbows, listening intently, I stare down into my coffee, trying not to think of that day but unable to do so.
“I’m begging, please! Baby, don’t let them do this to me. You know me,” Thomas pleads, the gun to his head as I skate toward him, pretending to be aloof and cold, hiding the broken pieces inside me as the gold mask rests on my face.
He’s not allowed to say my name or his tongue will be cut out. Too many others are here to witness this—people who don’t know my name. People who need to see Blackbird is fucking crazy as hell.
“Ah, but then you forgot to tell me you and my brother were working together, didn’t you?” I ask him with mock giddiness, skating backwards now. “You forgot to mention my brother at all. Now he’s missing, our parents are dead, and you were curiously packing a bag for one. Not two. Trying to leave me behind, Thomas?”
“You love me,” he goes on, not trying to argue the truth. He knows me too well to think a lie will swim the shark-infested waters and make it to me.
The video evidence of him speaking to my brother, telling him everything about the meeting my father never should have trusted him with…it’s all there. Plain as day. On a camera he never knew existed.