Page 95 of Cruel Lies

"What, brother, are you too good to join us? Too good to wish Harper ahappy fucking birthday?"

The absinthe bottle tipped back, the remaining contents quickly disappearing down his throat. When there was none left to swallow, he growled at the empty thing and hurled it at Angel's door, sending glass flying everywhere as it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces.

"Arrogant fuckwad," Nash growled, slamming his door behind him as he disappeared from view.

And then there were two.

Harper refused to look at me as she rose from my now-soft cock and retreated to my bathroom to clean herself up.

I found her in the shower minutes later, when I’d cleaned up the mess in the common room. Her hands were braced against the wall, her head hanging low as she let the water drown her sorrows. I almost made to join her, until I caught the sound of her heart-wrenching sobs.

I’d heard that sound before from several people in my life, and every time, I chickened out. I gave them the space they so obviously desired, and let them cry their pain away. If they wanted me there, they’d ask for me. But something about the desolate resignation in her soft cries twisted my insides and made me feel like I was bleeding out on this cold tile floor.

I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring for us, but it was painfully obvious now that Harper needed to go back to her old life. She needed to be far away from us. We were darkness incarnate. Evil hellbeasts that destroyed everything we touched. We’d lost ourselves along the way and became the very kinds of people we despised. And now, because of us, the girl all three of us spent our whole lives loving was breaking down in a bathroom shower, and I was but a voyeur to her pain.

It broke my heart to think of letting her go, but staying with us would break her more. And I never wanted this for her.

I had to let her go. No matter how much it hurt.

FORTY

HARPER

"Hey Flagg!Speed it up down there; you’ve been working on that tune-up for an hour now."

Tony’s annoying ass voice barely penetrated the bubble of disinterest I found myself stuck in since the day I walked back into Big John’s shop.

Ron retired while I was gone; on day two of his freedom, he was gunned down in a drive-by outside of a cafe where he’d stopped for coffee. He was gone from my life in the blink of an eye, and it left me with a lot of feelings I didn’t care to deal with right now.

Mostly because I’d done the same thing to the Blackwood boys.

I walked out of their life like I’d never been a part of it. Nobody followed me as I slipped out of the front door of the asylum. Nobody tried to stop me when I passed through the gates and stood on the curb, trying to decide if I’d rather hike it all the way across town or dip into my meager savings and call a rideshare.

Home was exactly as I’d left it—the windows locked, plants in dire need of water, empty and silent, save for the low hum of the refrigerator.

It was too quiet.

The bolt I’d spent the last five minutes absently tightening and loosening over and over, like some sort of fucking robot stuck on repeat.

The newbie who’d taken Ron’s place on the staff line snapped a towel at Tony, the two of them like fucking children as they giggled and jerked around in a place that wasn’t designed to accommodate teenagers.

"Come on, Tony, give a guy a chance! You’re too fast; I can’t keep up."

"Who are you kidding? You’re out here gunning for all our jobs, fastest mechanic in the bays here."

My head hurt from the amount of times I’d rolledmy eyes at them since I returned. And it’d only been a week. "Could you two maybe cut out the bullshit and get to work? Jesus, I leave for a few weeks and this whole place goes to shit."

Tony openly mocked me now, having forgotten how he got that crooked bend in his nose. "Oh no, wouldn’t wanna offend the little ladyyyy." He laughed, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at me with his back turned. "Watch out for that one. She’sdangerous."He said the last word with air quotes and more than a hint of sarcasm. "Don’t ever bother to invite her out or anything. She’s antisocial, and a bit of an ass."

The new guy, who we’d all taken to calling Sport, rubbed the back of his military buzz cut and winced. "I dunno, she seems like a decent enough person to me."

"I’m only an asshole to people whoearnthat treatment. Ask Tony how he got that crooked nose."

He looked to Tony, who immediately ducked his head into the next open car and hid his shame. "Fuck off, Flagg."

It took me three days to stop having to do a double-take every time someone called me Hannah or Flagg. In a matter of weeks, the boys had reverted me back seven years, like I’d never been living in hiding under an assumed name. Like Hannah Flagg and her meager life hadn’t existed.

They made me forget everything I’d learned. Every wall I built to protect myself, I had to now rebuild. And yet, there was nothing more than a whisper of touch on my skin or an aching in my heart to prove they’d even returned.

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