Page 5 of Never Trust the Living (Battle Crows MC 7)

He could fake a lot of things—like being sane, being a good brother, being rich—but he couldn’t hide the truth from me.

Not any longer.

“I didn’t say anything,” I whispered.

And I didn’t.

Because, if there was one thing that I knew, it was that the punishment for tattling was always bad.

So, so bad.

CHAPTER 1

No matter how stupid you feel, remember that Little Red Riding Hood couldn’t flush out that a wolf was dressing in drag and acting like her grandmother.

-Dory’s secret thoughts

DORY

“What’s the one way you’d never like to die?” Lulu asked. “Like mine? I’ve had a fear of log trucks. After watchingFinal Destination, I am terrified to drive past one because all I can see is the log’s chain breaking, and them falling on me.”

“Suffocation,” I whispered, so desperately wanting to fit in, to be a normal nineteen-year-old. “I’m terrified that someone will hold me under the water and drown me.”

Or smother me with a pillow.

“What about you, Della?” Lulu asked. “What’s your worst fear?”

“Worst fear? Or worst way to die?” Della asked curiously, sipping on her illegally bought alcoholic drink.

“Either,” Lulu said.

Della shrugged. “I’m terrified of being beaten up and raped while I’m running. I carry mace and a knife with me.”

That was a horrific thought.

But since I didn’t run, that had never occurred to me before.

But, since Della was well on her way to being a superstar runner in track and field, I could see how that would be a scary situation for her.

“I have a fear of losing my boyfriend,” the newest girl to our group, Mimi, said. “Like one day, I’m gonna wake up, and he’s going to be dead.”

I would’ve laughed at the thought, but she was so dead serious that I didn’t.

Not that the thought of losing someone wasn’t scary.

It was.

But the funny thought was me actually having a boyfriend.

Having to get one would be a feat in and of itself with trauma. But having to keep one for any length of time? That would be downright comical.

Hence the laughter in my thoughts.

“Why do you ask what our worst fear is?” I found myself asking instead. “Seems kind of morbid.”

As I asked it, I started to take in the sights around us.

We were at a bar with about a hundred people milling about around us. Some were standing up drinking at high top tables. Some, like us, were filled with younger adults that couldn’t drink yet—as evidenced by the bright neon green wristband we all wore.

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