Page 13 of Cruel Lies

"I’d be careful laughing at him," Angel drawled, his brow quirked playfully at her. "He’s not exactly known for his kindness or his sanity."

She shook in my arms, laughter bubbling out of her uncontrollably. She sounded unhinged, like something inside her had broken a long, long time ago. It was a shame she was our target. She would have fit right in with the other crazies in the Guild.

"Would you just hurry up and take a lock of the hair?" Nash sneered, waving his knife in her direction. "Let her go, and I’ll do it myself. I like ‘em when they’re moving."

I shrugged and turned the girl loose, not surprised when she didn’t immediately try to run. Hell, she let Nash get close enough to reach out and touch her hair, his fingers threading through it as amusement turned to frustration and, finally, anger on his features.

She dodged right past Angel and down the alley again, leaving us all stunned and angry and now in hot pursuit.

Angel got to her first, but it was Nash who grabbed her hair and yanked her to a stop, her whole body jolting with a sickening crunch when she landed on her back in the gravel and gods knew what else. He straddled her on the ground, his macabre skeleton facepaint bleeding off him from the sweat. I watched as he dragged his blade across his tongue, whetting it and leaving some of his own blood behind as he prepared to kill her on theground in the middle of an alley that smelled faintly of piss and rotting garbage.

"Time to say goodnight, bitch. Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll make it quick for you."

She squirmed beneath him, refusing to give in, her eyes wide open and yet refusing to beg. I had to give it to her; she was a tough bitch, or she was stupid. And she certainly didn’t seem stupid.

And then she opened her mouth just as Nash raised that blade and the blood in my veins ran ice cold.

"Hell will never be good enough for men like you. But I’ll see you there, fuckwad."

With a sick sort of clarity, borne of years of self-torture and internalization, of lost moments and memories I’d buried deep, deep in my psyche, hoping to never see again, was the realization that I knew that voice.

And as he knocked her glasses from her face in the struggle over the knife, her eyes met mine over his shoulder. Those eyes held all the condemnation of seven years of secrets, of lies, of a life she had been forced into by myself and my brothers.

Fuck.

Fuck!

"Stop!"

My hands tore at Nash’s shirt collar as I yanked him backward, the knife lost in his struggle as he scrambled to his feet to turn his attention to me.

"What the fuck gives, asshole?" he spat, his anger mounting, manifesting in his fists as he landed a right hook to my jaw that made me see stars. "Why’d you stop me? It’s my turn, youpromised?—"

As his hands gripped my throat and he shook me, choked the life out of me, I gasped a last breath of air and prayed he could hear me through his rage.

"It’s her, man—it’sHarper."

I’d never before seen him go so still so quickly, and we’d been brothers since I was born. His hands released me and I fell to my knees, gasping for air, my eyes drawn to her standing before Angel like some sort of vengeful hellspawn, crawled from my nightmares to specifically torture me in new and unpleasant ways.

I thought I’d never see her again. Thought she’d be far away from here, living out her life in peaceful bliss and ignorance, I had never imagined ever gazing into those eyes in my lifetime once more.

And here she was, living right under our noses, her hair a shade I’d never seen it before, fake glasses, and no doubt colored contacts to hide her identity.

Nash froze, his eyes searching the back of her for some recognizable trait that would prove she was the same girl we’d ‘killed’ seven years ago on our father’s orders. Something to reinforce the truth that had dragged its way out of my throat. Of course, the only way to tell was hidden from view, and there was no way he’d even remember?—

"Show me your scar," Angel whispered, his eyes already trailing down her body to rest on her right side. I knew what scar he meant—hell, we all did.

We’d all seen the evidence of her devotion to those she cared about the summer she earned that mark. She wasn’t shy about hiding it behind a layer of clothing. No, not Harper. She slapped on the skimpiest bikini she could find and paraded around like it was a war medal or something.

Her eyes narrowed, and I could practically hear the gears in her head whir to life as she tried to make sense of how we knew about something she’d likely never shown anyone in the seven years since the incident. "Whoareyou assholes?"

"It doesn’t matter," Nash muttered, all in now himself as we crowded around her. Well, they did—I didn’t need confirmationto tell me what my eyes were seeing, what my heart was feeling, what I knew deep in my gut.

This was our step-sister, Harper Daniels. Or whatever she was going by these days.

Alive, well, and right down the street from where we slept each day.

Nash and Angel were getting impatient, their fingers twitching at their sides as the girl—Harper, it had to be—eyed them warily. "You were just three seconds away from killing me," she pointed out, her brows furrowed. "And now you want me to take my clothes off for you. Sounds kinda sus, I’m not gonna lie, boys."

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