Page 21 of Pray for Scars
Atlas laughs from down the hall, then he comes into view, adjusting his backwards hat on his blonde hair. “Luce is always pissed off.” He winks at me, then joins Cain in the kitchen.
“What now?” Cain asks. He has a glass of something clear in his hand as he watches me, expression unreadable. I see his Unsaint tattoo, the U with a skull, smoke coming through one eye, on the top of his massive hand. I ignore him.
“Where’s that traitorous big bro of hers?” Atlas asks cheerfully, pulling on a beer as he leans against the black marble counter in the kitchen. He’s got a grey hoodie on under a black vest. He pulls the hood over his cap, which is fucking pointless considering we’re still inside.
“I don’t know,” I grind out, turning to glare at Mav.
Mav shrugs, leans back in his recliner. “Not my problem.”
“Fuck you say,” Ezra says without raising his voice. “This is all of our problems. My dad is on my ass and I know yours is too.” His gaze turns to me, eyes narrowing. “Whatever that bitch did—”
“Watch your fucking mouth. You sure couldn’t keep your hands to your damn self when you found out what he did to her.” I remember him losing his shit on Jeremiah, pulling Sid into a hug, kissing her head. Then ignoring her and us while we stayed at Raven Park.
He doesn’t look away. For several seconds we just stare at each other, and then Atlas’s uneasy laughter pulls us from our standoff.
Ezra has always seemed to like me least of all my brothers. I still have no fucking clue whyhewas the first to attack Jeremiah when we found out who he was to Sid.
Which was all bullshit, after all.
My teeth grind together so hard I’m surprised I don’t fucking break my own jaw when I think of it.Him.What he did. What he still might do.
But I glance at the ceiling again. She’s up there. She’s here. He’s not. She’s fine.
I can relax. For now.
“Ria find out anything?” I ask Maverick without looking at him. I look at my hands instead, one balled into a fist, the other clasped atop it.
“No.” Mav’s tone is short. Ria did some digging a long time ago. Too much. She did more, when Mav asked. She has easy access to historical documents we don’t at AU, considering she’s still a student and she’s in the history department. She found nothing but the usual on the 6. On us.
Business deals, legal ones. The things we do in public. The investments we make money on. We don’t have day jobs. Instead, we do what we’re told. By our parents. Sometimes that’s as simple as attending a bullshit ceremony at Sanctum. Sometimes it’s more complicated and we get blood on our hands.
Sometimes, there are long stretches where we don’t do shit. I mean, we stilldoshit. But not for them.
I run. Ezra and Atlas make music. Cain fights. I don’t know what the fuck Maverick does. There are long stretches of time I don’t know where he is. Maybe he skewers people on poles in his backyard while he writes fucking sonnets about it. When I catch his light eyes on mine just now, I wonder if he wouldn’t mind skewering me, too.
Maybe so he could go at Sid again.
Fuck, get out of my fucking head, Lilith.
I drop Mav’s gaze, glance at the clock on the microwave in his kitchen. Nearly midnight. Sid has had a few piss breaks, water, but nothing to eat, which is how I need her for tonight. Starving. Delirious. Fucked up.
“Ready?” I ask the room as I stand to my feet. I make to head to the stairs without waiting for any of them to respond. Cain comes in from the kitchen, blocks my way, watching me with those coal eyes.
“We have to find him, too.”
“No shit,” I say, making to go past him.
He doesn’t move.
I narrow my eyes.“Get the fuck out of my way.”
Atlas whistles, and the guys go quiet again. But Cain does as I ask. He’s bigger than me—bigger than all of us—but he doesn’t make the calls here.
I do.
I detour from the stairs, walk into the kitchen, grab the rum bottle from the counter by the sink, pour it in a new cup until Atlas gently takes the bottle from my hands. “That’s enough, man. Don’t get sloppy,” he says so quietly only I can hear him. “You don’t wanna rough her up too much.” Then he twists the cap back on and sets the bottle down.
I don’t look at him as I drink.
