Page 35 of Homecoming

“She recognizes us,” Riot says, as his gaze switches between Ever and me.

Pride fills me.

She thought she was proving a point when she ran her hand up her leg, and I am willing to bet that she thought we were staring because we were judging her. She hadn’t recognized us at that point, or she would have known that we would never judge her on her appearance.

In reality it was quite the opposite, we were in shock, and that was the least of the emotions that I felt.

She has a scar on her leg that is huge. All of us are more than acquainted with scars; all of us have one somewhere from our various exploits. It is because of those exploits that we are also all aware of what knife scars look like, and there is no doubt in my mind that the scar on her leg was inflicted by a knife. I really hope I am wrong.

It is highly unlikely that she inflicted a wound as jagged and obvious as that, and that means that someone did that to her.

Rage, unfiltered and almost uncontrollable, fills me as that thought and what it means floods my mind.

Someone deliberately took a knife to Ever.

My Ever.

Our Ever.

Someone hurt her, and they did it with intent. There is no question about that.

I am going to kill them. I’m going to get her to tell me the name of the person who did this to her, and then I am going to use the contacts that we have gathered over the years to find them, and then I’m going to kill them, making sure that I give them the exact same wound that she has.

I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of pain that she was in when that was made, and since my eyes are now back on it, I realize something else, and I really hope I’m wrong.

I nudge Cash next to me to get his attention so that I can ask him the question that I really hope he knows the answer to. “Does her scar look like it was stitched?”

Cash’s eyes narrow as he realizes why I am asking and then he looks back at Ever and the scar on her leg. He squints like he is trying to see it better.

While he studies her leg in order to answer my question, I look at her and she is frozen to the spot, staring at all of us, her eyes playing over each one of us, and I can practically see the memories playing behind her eyes.

I really hope that she is remembering us right now.

“No,” Cash says, the anger making his voice harsher than it usually is. I glance over at him, and his face is blank, “That wound was not stitched.”

I growl, I didn’t think it had been, but I was really hoping that I was wrong. Ever has been through even more than we had thought she had, and I fucking hate it. I want to protect her; I don’t want any harm to come to her. But I can’t protect her from her past, and I find myself hating her father for taking her away from where she was safe and exposing her to something so dangerous.

If he hadn’t taken her away, then she would have stayed here and stayed safe. We would have made sure of it.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ever

Iam thrown back to the present, and my eyes widen in panic.

"Fuck!"

"What?" Ry asks, reading my panic.

"What are their names, Ry?" I softly ask, my eyes never leaving them.

Rafe pushes up to his height, realizing I'm putting it together.

"Rafe, Trick, Riot, Jensen, Luc, and Cash."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

They all start toward me, and I freak out.

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