Page 21 of Savage Hate
“Righting a wrong,” Silas growls, moving us inside the studio. After he closes the door, we all release her, and she stumbles forward, grabbing onto the desk before whirling around and facing us with a furious expression.
I must admit, she’s kind of cute when she’s angry.
“You’re all fucking psychos,” she snarls, grabbing her purse from where Jude threw it on the ground. Walking toward the door, she stiffens when she sees who’s slumped over the chair by the door.
“It’s locked,” I muse, smiling. “Oh, and as you can see, we have a guest.”
Lennon’s fists open and close at her sides as she studies the man in the chair, and then she twists around.
“Is this some kind of sick joke?” She nudges the man with her toes. “How did you—”
“Homeboy came in for a tattoo,” Jude responds leisurely, picking at a thread on his shirt. “I took the opportunity upon myself to…enhancethe beer we offered him.”
She scoffs. “You fucking roofied Noah Adelmann?!” She turns to face all of us. “Why?”
Silas steps forward. “This isn’t a favor to you, princess. But we thought you’d want to see the other side of Savage Ink. Maybe this will be enough to make you reconsider working for us.”
Her face goes white, and I almost have to laugh at how terrified she looks. I take a step toward her, holding out my butterfly knife. Her gaze flits from the knife and back to my eyes, and then she looks over at Noah as she pieces the situation together.
“You—you’re going tokillhim?”
I grin. “No, princess.Youare.”
fourteen
Lennon
The man’s warning from earlier clangs through my mind.
You need to be careful. Those guys are unhinged.
Unhinged.
I flick my eyes between the three of them, palms sweating. My chest rises and falls quickly because of the exertion of trying to fight them off, and I look over at Noah.
Noah freaking Adelmann.
I hadn’t seen him since that graduation party. Not since he beat the shit out of Silas, Damon, and Jude. If anything, this istheirretribution. Not mine. I’d moved on and tried to forget about that night. Whenever I did think of it, an inky mass of guilt would lodge in my belly, so I just ignored it altogether—the thing with Noah, and then what happened afterward.
But was it bad enough to kill him?
I scour my memory of that night, going over every little detail. I’d left early, and I hadn’t seen the outcome of the fight, nor did I want to know. I kept my head down all summer, secluding myself at Mindy’s house and making an excuse for leaving for Cambridge two weeks early. I needed to get out of Greythorn. I couldn’t wait to leave.
But this was not worth murdering Noah for. That night… nothing happened to me that night.
Thanks to the three of them…
I look up at Damon Brooks. “You can’t be serious?”
Damon walks closer, the creaking of the wood floor getting louder the closer he gets. He gives me a monstrous smile, the kind of smile that has ice seeping into my bones.
“I spent two weeks in the hospital for a broken rib. It punctured my lung.” I wince. He continues. “Three of Silas’s teeth are veneers, and he had to save up for them, since his parents refused to pay.” My eyes find Silas’s over Damon’s shoulder, and he glares right back at me. My heart leaps into my throat. “And Jude? He pissed himself. The psychological toll—”
“Damon.”
Jude’s commanding voice causes me to scan his face, the beautiful yet deadly face. And I realize, with a sinking, dreadful feeling, that I might be in over my head with these guys. That my life after high school wassomuch different than theirs.
Ten years can make a person, or it can breed a monster.
