Page 32 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

I looked at him skeptically, wondering idly if he actually cared.

Shrugging, because what did it fucking matter at this point, I continued to speak.

“What didn’t he do would be an easier question to answer,” I admitted. “He once collected mouse droppings and put it into a cake. He waited until I’d eaten a piece before he showed me what he’d done. I got really sick from that.”

I sighed. I’d spent two nights in the hospital for that one.

“Then there was the time that he’d known he couldn’t get away with it, and then he’d put cilantro into my food because that was the easiest way to hide the fact that he wanted to fuck with me. I can’t stand cilantro. It tastes like soap to me,”I admitted. “He did that a lot. And then I was forced to eat it because there wasn’t anything else to eat if I didn’t. And he liked to see me starve more than he liked to fuck with my food.”

Jeremiah’s fists clenched hard. “What else?”

“There’s a lot.” I shrugged. “I…”

“Yo, Dorcas.”

I looked up to see Price looking at me.

“Yeah?” I asked very quietly.

“You got any more beer anywhere?” he asked.

I licked my lips nervously and said, “No. I think I only bought three cases.”

That’d been all that I could carry.

“Fuck. That sucks. You should’ve gotten more,” Price grumbled, turning around and dismissing me.

“What’s that face for?” Jeremiah wondered.

I looked at him with a hint of fear in my eyes that I couldn’t quite hide. “He used to call me Dorcas in the most annoying way,” I admitted, changing my voice to sound like Amon’s soulless one. “‘Dorcas, does that food taste good? Dorcas, do you want to come sleep with me tonight? Dorcas, don’t you just hate it when you wake up and you can’t breathe?’” I shook my head. “Hearing my name gives me major ‘I want to stab myself in the eardrum with a knife’ vibes.”

When I looked at Jeremiah next, it was to see his face completely blank.

“When’s the last time you ate?” he asked quietly.

I had no clue.

At least not since yesterday sometime.

I’d been too nervous about today to eat what little my body would allow.

“What if you watched me cook you something?” he asked, obviously reading the look on my face for what it was.

I thought about that for a moment.

“I can sometimes only eat lunch meat and bread,” I admitted.

“What about a grilled cheese?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. “I think… as long as the cheese is pre-packaged, I could do that.”

There couldn’t be any butter, though.

“Come on.”

That was the first time that I ate anything that Jeremiah cooked for me—someone besides myself, as a matter of fact, that didn’t come from fast food. But it definitely wouldn’t be the last.

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