Page 98 of Cruel Lies

The fat fuck who owned the garage strolled out behind a few other employees, but Harper was nowhere in sight. In fact, she and that new hire boy were both nowhere to be seen.

But Flagg. I recognized that name. It was her alias.

She really went back like she never left.

A part of me had known. Had expected it, even. But what I didn’t count on or expect was the emptiness that lingered inside me, making me feel like half of myself had been violently ripped away and cast out overnight.

I tailed her every night, waiting for her on the rooftop across from her job until she started her walk home. Father hadn’t gotten what he wanted, so it wouldn’t serve him to kill her now. Ro hadn’t said much this last week, and I was beginning to think her departure would change us all permanently.

I watched one of the doors on the far side of her building open with a metal screech of protest, and out rolled a shiny pink Camaro with a man behind the wheel. I squinted against the setting sun, spotted the jumper from the garage, and sucked in a breath.

Was it her?

Alas, once parked, the driver stepped out, and it was not, in fact, Harper, but her new coworker. I didn’t know what the fuck his name was. I didn’t care. All I cared about was her.

I needed her like plants need sunshine to survive. Like a starving man needs food. Fuck, she was like a drug, and I, her willing addict. I wanted her like my next shot of heroin, swimming through my veins like a slow-acting poison determined to kill me one day. Like a cloud of acid rain—I knew it would hurt to stand under it, but I welcomed the pain.

Iwantedto hurt.

It made me feel alive in ways nothing else could since she walked out that door.

"Sport, you coming, man? We’ve got another engine to pull, and then we can get the hell out of here."

Her voice echoed from the depths of the building, and for a moment, I forgot I was perched on the building’s roof. I nearly jumped down to my death, just to see her face.

Sport—unlikely that was even his name, because come on, who names their kid ‘Sport’—jogged happily back into the shop, and my fingernails started to dig into the fleshy palms of my hands as the door closed between me and her, locking her in with another man.

Did we mean so little to her now? Was it that easy to just forget us?

I was just glad Rowan didn’t know. If he saw how easily she’d moved onto another man, anormal man,he’d lose it. Fucker was already waist-deep in depression and in serious need of therapy, but I wasn’t about to offer up my expertise, and I didn’t know any therapists, considering I avoided them like the plague.

Pacing on the roof was fast becoming my new habit, and if I wasn’t careful, I’d wear a pathway in the damn concrete.

Hours passed, until there wasn’t a single ounce of sunshine left in the sky. Even dusk had come and gone, leaving the darkness to take over like a ghostly specter, a low fog rolling in from the river as each streetlight clicked on and poorly illuminated a section of the sidewalk.

The far door opened, and out walked Harper and Sport, both wearing their normal street clothes again. I didn’t like the way he looked at her, the way he stared down her shirt because he was taller than her, or how his eyes continually flicked to her lips when she talked. He was bad news, even more so than Tony the Twit.

At least that man was blunt and open about his hatred for her.

I stared at the sky for a moment, the stars still faint and almost invisible thanks to the city lights. I’d never see them here like I could when I was interning, living away from home in a one-bedroom apartment in a place called Covenant Hollow.

I still had nightmares about that place. Creepy people, fake ass small-town vibes, and a whole lotta church-goers who looked at me like I was the devil incarnate when that bitch cut my face up.

That was what I got for dating someone whose rap sheet included a lengthy stay in the local sanatorium.

Like a legitimate one, not like the one we occupied for housing.

I was terrible at recognizing red flags back then, and it cost me the boyish good looks that paved the way for most of my life.

I hopped from roof to roof as she walked alongside him, both heading in the direction of her apartment. If there had been any chance I thought this was just an innocent arrangement, it was dwindling with every step the boy took.

He didn’t stop at the door of her building, either. The fucker followed her inside, and I had to bite back a howl of rage as I counted in my head and held my breath, just like every day.

Maybe today would finally be the day they finally gave me a reason to turn into an all-out murderer.

One. Two.

Fucker better not try my patience today.

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