Page 48 of Why Cruise

“And yet, Ren somehow put his freedom on the line to steal you a Camaro.” Mackenzie raised an eyebrow at me.

“Long.” Ren countered and turned his full attention to Mackenzie and gushed. He fucking gushed like he was some grandma at the hairdresser. “I can’t remember a day that I didn’t know Justice Twill. We met on the first day of school. And I think I fell in love with him that very second. Of course, I was six, and I didn’t know what that meant.”

My breath caught in my chest. I hadn’t known that.

“His parents weren’t great,” he noted to Theo, to pull him into the conversation, “Neither were mine. But mine were never home. They owned a restaurant, so there was every kind of food you could possibly want in the house. So, what else does a teenage boy need but snacks and video games and his best friend he’s madly in love with?”

It had started with snacks. He had said his mom kept putting sour cream and onion chips in his lunch bag and that he hated them. Then giant sandwiches, so big he’d have to give me half or throw it away. I would have eaten that fucking glass just to sit next to him at lunch.

He leaned into Theo. “Do you want to know adirtysecret?”

“Of course.”

“Mackenzie, cover your ears. This is not something a lady should hear.” She snorted, but complied. She’d still be able to hear everything. Even if that wasn’t the case, Theo would tell her later.

“You know how boys are enthusiastic when they first discover masturbation?”

“Oh, fuck yes.” Theo laughed. “And then rediscovering that when you perfume.”

“The locker room was in a tizzy about it. I made Justice spend the night so we could ‘figure it out’together. So we could go back to school on Monday and be all wise and shit.” He wrinkled his nose on the word ‘together’. “That’s when I discovered my favorite thing in the entire universe.” He directed that to Mackenzie.

“What’s that?” She leaned into him.

“Making someone come, again and again and again. Poor little Justice. We had to skip school that Monday.”

“Ren!” Mackenzie swatted his arm.

Poor little Justice.It had started an addiction. Following him everywhere just for the chance to pull him into dark hallways and bathroom stalls. I braved closets, the clawing dark, for his hands on me. I swirled my wine glass like that would get my lungs to function. He was everything, and then he took it all away.

“But why are you angry flirting now?”

“We are not angry flirting.” I wadded up my napkin and tossed it on the table.

“Because I’m an asshole and a coward.” He said that almost cheerfully.

“I don’t think…”

Ren cut her off.

“We were at the mall when my aura presented. I ditched him and disappeared for months.”

Pathetic little Justiceand all the weeping, begging phone messages.

“I don’t think I can fully articulate what it was like. You’re normal one second and the next, unbelievable power is floodingyour entire being. I stumbled out of the jewelry store and Justice was talking with this pretty little goth girl mall rat. Rage filled every cell. I scared myself, because I knew I could, and would, tear her physically apart.”

I had been almost 21 when it happened to me. Far beyond the age auras typically presented. I had been awake for three days coding. I didn’t remember what happened next, but when I woke up, my dorm room was trashed. Everything hurt. Daisy had been sitting in a corner.“Welcome to the fucking club.”

“That sounds awful.” Theo said softly.

“When I could walk again, my parents were delighted. They were mid-level mobsters, of the ‘nice little shop you have there, would be a shame if anything happened to it’ variety. But they were betas in an alpha dominated world. And they just got handed their own little alpha weapon.”

Fuck. Fuck me.I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. I hadn’t even considered that. Not once in 15 years. His parents weren’t mean like mine. At least not to me. But they talked casually about violence. I knew what they did. We never talked about it. But I knew.

“So they forced me into the family business and I broke kneecaps for a couple of months.”

“Ren,” Mackenzie’s voice dripped with concern. She reached a hand out toward him, which he did not take. “How old were you?”

“17 almost 18.”

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