Page 19 of The Good Girl

Avoiding my gaze, he begins picking at the label on the bottle. “Atlas know I’m here?”

“I haven’t said anything to him.” I don’t need to explain that if Atlas wanted to find him, he would. There was nowhere Hunter could hide. Atlas was practically already a Reaver and he was relentless by nature. It was in his blood to hunt, and that’s how he’d been raised. Sitting back, I sink into the plush cushions, watching as the sun gets lower in the sky, casting shadows across the water.

“I went with him last weekend, on a job.” Hunter’s voice is strange, strained as if he’s still processing whatever it is that has him on edge.

“That makes us sound like the mafia.” My mouth twitches, and I give a small smile, pulling a joint out of my pocket and lighting up. While I was trying to cut it out, even I wasn’t a saint.

“It’s not all that different. Might use different labels but we have the same bloody hands.”

“Is it part of your Initiation?” The Society was essentially a cult, and even though we were Legacies and had no choice about being part of the fucked-up ‘family’, we still had to be initiated. It was different for everyone, and it was supposed to help decide where to best utilize your skills and interests, but that was a lie. Really, it was a way to force us to commit acts that we could never speak about without incriminating ourselves. It was a failsafe for the protection of The Society and a way to test our ‘mettle’, as Rowan called it, before we were allowed to enter into The Council.

He snorts. “No. That’s the fucked-up thing. This was just because my father felt like it would be good for me.”

I watch him with a tilt of my head as I take a hit of my joint. “And?”

“I had to throw away my favorite sneakers.” He chuckles. “I couldn’t get the blood out.”

I laugh in response. “Is that what freaked you out?”

“No, it was the way he looked at me.” Hunter stills, knuckles going white as he tightens his grip on the Jack bottle he’s clutching like it’s his anchor and he’s trapped in the mother of all storms. “It was…it was like some sort of bloodlust had come over him. He enjoyed it. He thrived on it. I’m not naïve, I know what our world is like, I can appreciate my share of violence, but when he turned that look on me…”

“Atlas wouldn’t hurt you,” I remind him, even though the words feel hollow as they fall from my mouth. Some part of me toyed with the idea that there was actually something going on between Hunter and Atlas, but it wasn’t the time or place to explore that. It was between them and I was leaving it well alone. The other part of me recognized that loyalty was fickle. We were expected to swear fealty to The Society, and The Society alone. That meant that the players could change, but the game didn’t. As a Reaver, someone who enforced the laws of The Society and made sure we remained a secret, Atlas would be one of the people dealing with any indiscretions. As a result, if they decided to dispose of us, it would be his hands around our necks. It wouldn’t matter whose brother, cousin, or lover he was.

“He might. One day. He might tear me apart, like we did that guy.” There’s a flicker of fear, and I wonder if it’s for the thought of dying or dying at Atlas’ hands. “Does it ever bother you?”

“What?” I ask, even though I know where this conversation is going, before taking another drag of my spliff. It’s the same path my mind takes me down on dark days, when I wish we were just normal kids, in a normal town, with normal parents.

His eyes are glazed, as the combination of memories and alcohol overtakes him. “The blood and the violence. The gore of it all sometimes.”

With a small shrug, I blow out a plume of smoke. “No. That’s normal. I watched my first interrogation when I was eight.”

Fighting back images of a mutilated body suspended from a ceiling by a meat hook, I try to forget the sound of my father’s voice as he and Bennett Black, Tabitha’s father, had tortured a man for skimming money out of an account he was supposed to be managing. Sometimes I can still hear that steadydrip, drip, dripof blood as it ran down his chest before spattering onto the cold concrete floor.

I offer Hunter a drag, and he learns over to grab the weed out of my hand. He inhales deeply, exhaling slowly with his eyes shut. “I was twelve, and my father made me help with the clean-up.”

“It’s the price we pay.” I repeat the words we’ve been told our whole lives, hating how empty they sound. Who decided this was the price? Who asked us if we were prepared to pay with our lives?

“Money, drugs, guns, murder, corporate corruption, torture. It just always amazes me how we downplay it all, like it’s no big deal.”

I snigger bitterly. “Because to us, it isn’t. It’s as natural as breathing.”

He grunts in response, and together we watch the last of the light die over the water.

Chapter Seventeen

Elena

The tattoo parlor isn’t what I’m expecting, and instead of it being dark, grimy or filled with larger bikers, we’re greeted by a beautiful woman with honey-colored hair. The reception area of the store is white, with large pieces of framed artwork adorning the walls. Two black leather couches sit opposite a desk and cash register while potted plants add the only real pop of color in the building.

“Good afternoon, I’m Avalon. We’ve been expecting you,” her soft voice belays her British roots, as she shows us through some frost glass doors to the private tattooing area. Her red blouse clings to her curvy figure and tiny waist, emphasized by the white pencil skirt she wears in a way that has even Tabitha ogling her, jealous of the woman’s figure. As she moves, we catch the telltale hints of ink on her skin under her clothes.

A man wearing a T-shirt that reads ‘Off You Fuck!’ stands and shakes our hands. His arms, hands and neck are covered in intricate inking and I manage to make out a koi and some Chinese artwork before I realize I’m staring.

“This is Zeke,” Avalon says as she introduces us and reminds him of the design we want. Tabitha and Attie must have spoken to Zeke already, since he’s prepared a sketch with the birdcage design and it’s perfect. With a small smile, Avalon sashays away, hips moving hypnotically as we all watch her return to the front of the store.

“Christ, that woman will be the death of me one day,” he says with a chuckle as he pulls on black rubber gloves and begins to set up his tattoo gun.

“She’s beautiful,” Tabitha remarks with a small sigh as she settles down on a small two-seater sofa. Attie is quick to plonk herself down next to her, which means…I’m up first.

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