Page 46 of Pray for Scars
“Sid,” Ria says quickly, after my brother shuts the door, “what is going on?” She keeps her tone even, and I admire her for that. I wonder how badly Mayhem has fucked her up, to make a situation likethisone she can speak calmly through. I wonder why she wasn’t at Liber.
“Atlas,” Natalie gasps out, “he said Lucifer was looking for you—”
But before Nat can finish, my brother gets in the car, slams his door, and hands me the gun.
“Keep it on them.” He presses the button to lock the door with his free hand, and I stare down at the grip of the Glock, my hands still in my pockets.
“What’re you doing?” My voice shakes, and I hear Natalie’s rapid breaths in the back.
I wonder what exactly Atlas told her. If she knows I ran away.
Jeremiah’s eyes harden on me and he gestures with the gun. “Take it.”
I shake my head. “What do they have to do with any of this?”
A slow smile curves on Jeremiah’s lips. “I told you to find Ria,” he reminds me quietly.
“I did,” I argue, still not taking the gun. I twist in my seat so I can keep an eye on Jeremiah, and the girls in the back. “I did find her. She didn’t know shit!” It’s a lie, but I’m not comfortable with this. Any of it. Mayhem might fuck Ria up over and over again, but if someone else does…well, he’s like my brother in that way. He won’t let this go.
And Natalie…I like Natalie.
But I should know better. Jeremiah always knows how to ruin the shit I like.
Jeremiah blows out a breath, one hand on the wheel, other still holding the gun out to me. “Take the goddamn gun, Sid, before I fucking blow their brains out in my back fucking seat.”
With trembling fingers, I take it.
“Keep it trained on them,” he says without looking to see if I’ll do as he says. Instead, he puts the car inDrive, and we slowly start to leave the parking lot.
“Where are you going?” I ask him quietly, still turned in my seat, not daring to look at the girls. I have the gun haphazardly aimed at them, careful not to put my finger on the trigger. “What are we doing?”
“Ask them where they were going.”
“No.”
Jeremiah slams on brakes in the middle of the fucking road, and the seatbelt catches me. The girls shriek, putting their hands out on the back of our seats to stop themselves from smashing into them.
“Ask.Them.”That’s my real brother. Violent, aggressive, not giving a single fuck. Not the boy that held his carved-up arm out to me at Nicolas’s, showing me his sacrifice. No, that’s the actor. The manipulator.
My real brother is this one in the car. The one who grabbed my ass, wanted to break my jaw. So he could keep me all to himself.
“Where were you going?” I ask the girls, my eyes slowly sliding to Ria’s in the backseat. Jeremiah presses the gas again and we start moving once more.
Ria glances down at her hands clasped in her lap. I wonder where their phones are. Natalie has a fringed bag on the seat between them, and she’s careful not to touch it. Not to draw attention to it.
“T-to…” Ria shakes her head and I see her swallow. Her golden eyes flick up to meet mine. “To Lucifer’s,” she whispers.
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Why?”
Natalie has her arms crossed over her chest, her shoulders hunched. She’s staring at the gun in my hand, and her bottom lip trembles before she answers for Ria.
“A party.”
I don’t know why, but suddenly I want to bash this gun over the side of my fucking brother’s head. It’s not that he has anything to do with this party, with Lucifer, but someone needs to get hurt, and it sure as hell isn’t the girls.
I don’t do that, though. I just tighten my grip on the gun and grit my teeth. Lucifer tried to fuck me up again, let his best friend chain me to his bed, fed me acid, slept with Ophelia, and then he…had a fuckingparty?
“What the fuck do you want with them?” I snarl at my brother, turning to face him, the gun still aimed at the girls.
