Page 99 of Scars Run Deep

Eyes were on us. That usual blindingly bright spotlight was shining down on me.

But this time it wasn’t so unwelcome, such a fucking burden.

Because I wasn’t trapped within the façade this time. I wasn’t heaping on the fake and putting on a forced show.

And because she was right here with me. Not just in body, but in mind and spirit too.

Aurora had become really well attuned to me.

Sometimes she knew where my head was at, and what I was feeling, before I did.

I wasn’t used to expressing real emotions, the way I actually felt about anything, because of the façade. So it wasn’t a given for me to understand right away where something was rooted, why I was reacting in a certain way to things.

But she was here with me now and she could figure that stuff out. Really well, actually. She was helping me.

Hell, she was helping me in so many ways.

Ways I hadn’t even realized I’d been needing.

I tightened my hold around her.

On our way through campus, drinking our coffees, several of what Aurora termed my fan club made eyes at me or threw daggered looks at her. No longer needing to leash myself and plaster that golden boy bright smile on my face, I gave it back to them the second I noticed the barrage coming anywhere close to her. And, sure enough, people caught on, their gazes bouncing off Aurora real quick after I made my feelings clear. Don’t fuck with what’s mine. I was fucking ready for it to go beyond that, into physical territory, because I didn’t have to hold back there either. Years spent bottling shit up had added up to a ton of time in the octagon with Jonah, so I would destroy whoever came at me.

That had really been proven these last couple of weeks.

We’d being going at it hard, sticking right to Asher’s—and Aurora’s—strategy and taking two dollhouses down every other night. We’d made it to eight now. Jonah had even been surprised just how hard I’d brought it down on those motherfucking guards and trainers that we’d laid into on our missions together.

There was one big one left, triple the size of the others we’d decimated and gotten the victims clear from. That one, we were all gonna do together. Even Ash’s contact, Caleb, was coming in on it as an actual combatant, alongside the four of us. That was happening in a few days. And tomorrow night, Ash and Aurora were gonna take the last smaller one left.

Ash hadn’t been at Hexwood U much, because he’d been called in on a ton of video calls with the Head Infidels and all the faction leaders as a result of this big hit against them—that they had no idea we were responsible for. They were scrambling and torn between thinking it was some new enemy or Revenant. Some figured he was actually dead already because nothing had been heard from him since that one time he’d resurfaced to pull Carson’s focus away from Aurora. Some, including Reed Keller, Jonah’s old man, figured it was somebody carrying on out of a tribute to Revenant. The actions were too bold, they believed, for it to be him.

Asher was really giving them the runaround with this strategy of his.

It wasn’t like him either. He was all about slow and steady action—and manipulation. He didn’t go in for bold displays normally. But this had been perfect to throw those fuckers off.

Of course, the smokescreen he’d created wasn’t gonna last indefinitely.

Not for much longer even.

They were on the hunt now.

And bastards like our fathers wouldn’t stop until they caught their prey and punished.

I knew Asher had plans for his fucking plans, so he’d have a way to deal with that.

All he’d said when I’d asked a few days ago, just before reports had started to come in about the dollhouses falling, was that which plan he used would depend on how the Head Infidels chose to respond to the attack. He wouldn’t know until it really hit.

That time was right upon us.

I figured after him and Aurora took down the last site, he’d roll it out to us.

A beaming smile spread over my face, even bigger than the one I’d already had from being able to be out and about with Aurora in public.

Because I could almost taste it.

That fucking freedom so long denied all three of us.

It was almost here.

---