Page 8 of No More Secrets

“I’m just watching out for you,” Ivy says.

When he was a kid, he longed for someone who would. For years he tried to get his father’s attention, get him to show that he cared. Parents should love their children unconditionally, but Dwight cared only about himself. Next on the list came Olivia. Dwight loved Lucas’s older sister beyond reason, and Livy basked in the glow of it.

Lucas had been envious of that attention. He excelled in sports, seeking Dwight’s praise. He aced his classes, was even on track for a scholarship at USC, hoping for a hint of approval from him. When nothing worked, when he hadn’t even received a pat on the back, he started picking fights. He resorted to stealing, and even held up a clerk at gunpoint at a minimart. And when those hadn’t worked, Lucas gaveup caring what people thought of him, how they felt about him. His dad, especially.

Then Ivy had to go on and show that she cares. And it’s leaving a weird sensation in his chest cavity. He doesn’t know what to do with it.

“Don’t waste your worry on me.” He opens the door. “I sure don’t.”

She levels with him with a look. “One of these days you’re going to tell me why you left wherever it is you came from. You’ll tell me what you’re running from.”

He grimaces. Doubtful.

An image of his dad’s mangled car comes to mind, along with the guilt and self-loathing.

His thoughts then flash to Olivia and the last time he saw his older sister. The way she shoved at his chest, got in his face. Practically thrust her arm down his throat to drag a confession from him about their father and his involvement in his death. He’d broken down, teared up in front of her like a pansy ass. But he hadn’t admitted fault. Instead, he’d gotten in his truck after spending hours staring at the bay, visualizing fragments of his life, his mistakes, his wrongdoings, willing them to float away. But they’d clung to him. Dug their claws in him. So he drove away, his demons going along for the ride.

He didn’t call or text goodbye. She’ll be livid if he ever sees her again.

“If not me, then tell someone else. Your troubles will eat you alive,” Ivy says.

His nostrils flare with a forced exhale. They already are. And there isn’t much left for them to chew on.

“Goodnight, Ivy.”

He shuts the door behind him.

Back in his apartment, Lucas eyeballs the switchblade on the toilet tank while he waits for the shower to warm. Sunshine Girl comes to mind again despite his efforts to not think about her. His reaction when he grabbed her wrist unsettled him. He’d thought she was Lily.Impossible, he knows. It’s been years since she ran. She’s thirty now. But the memory was instant and strong. His guilt over failing her even stronger, a baseball bat to the cheekbone. He felt like he was going to black out.

He looks at the tattooed vine riddled with thorns that twists up his forearm. His thumb traces the rigid scar hidden underneath that he’s had since he was sixteen. A devil lurking in the shadows.

Disgusted with himself, Lucas steps under the scalding spray and yanks closed the moldy curtain.

5

Shiloh arrives at the library a muddled mess of anxiety and despair. Her shirt is drenched underneath a backpack empty of cash. Mortified by her appearance, she takes a left down the hall, scurrying past the circulation desk to the restroom before she’s noticed. Sweaty and filthy, she hasn’t cleaned up in several days.

The women’s bathroom is unoccupied. She locks the door, drops her backpack on the floor, and strips off her shirt. Using paper towels and soap from the dispenser, Shiloh washes her hair, face, and torso. Her cheeks are sunburned, and the tip of her nose is peeling. She looks like a kid who spent too much time at the pool. She scrubs her hands and fingernails until her palms feel raw, then rinses her shirt. She wrings out the water, twists up the shirt, and swaps it for the less dirty one in her backpack. She’ll hang it to dry at the encampment, assuming she returns. With the windows broken, the car she’s been using doesn’t offer the security she needs. And she has a feeling Bob and Barton are just biding their time with her. Which scares her almost as much as returning home to Ellis. She’s alone, helpless, and out of her depth.

After she runs a broken hairbrush she found last week in the gutter through her hair and knots it atop her head, she wipes up the water on the floor and cleans the sink, pausing to study her reflection. She looks twelve without makeup, the squeaky-clean girl next door. She’s Zooming with Finn at three. He’ll guess she’s been lying about her age and won’t let her stay with him. She can’t let him think she’s younger than she’s led him to believe. He’s a total snack, and she really has it badfor him. She’s also counting on him. But more than that, he’s her only option for a place to live.

Shiloh heads to the kids’ reading area where a small table sits in the corner with a basket of crayons and felt-tip pens. She picks out black and brown pens and a couple of skin-toned hues, then settles at a computer. While it boots up so she can log on to her email, she retrieves the pocket mirror from her backpack and colors her eyelids, licking her fingertip to blend the shades, fills in her brows with the brown pen and slashes the black across the base of her lashes, hoping Finn won’t be able to tell the difference from her usual made-up face.

Satisfied she’s added a few years to her looks, she logs into her Gmail account. Eight new messages from her mom. Her stomach compresses into a tight, queasy ball. She wants to read them, but they probably say the same as the first one she sent.Come home, baby girl. Momma misses you. Ellis swears it was a misunderstanding. He’s an honest man. Just come home.

She wishes she could.

She wishes her mom would stop taking drugs and break up with Ellis.

But no. Her mom betrayed her when she didn’t believe Ellis attacked her, and she rejected her when she chose him over her own daughter. Even if she could go back, Shiloh doubts she could ever forgive her.

Hurt as hot and raw as the first time she felt it surges in her chest.

She deletes each email with a hard click of the mouse. She then opens the message Finn sent late last night after his gig.Can’t wait to see your beautiful face. See you at 3:00, shy girl.

A thrill of anticipation shoots through her. She smiles at the screen. Finally something good today. Her gaze slides to the time in the lower corner of the monitor. Four more hours.

Four hours to kill before she and Finn can figure how to get her from here to there.

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