Page 45 of Pray for Scars
“Tonight,” he agrees. But Jeremiah has always been a good liar.
Chapter Twelve
I’min the passenger seat of my brother’s black AMG, and he’s got the window cracked, his hand on the gearshift as he gazes out the window. We’re parked around the back of an apartment complex, and I don’t know what we’re waiting for. I’m not really sure how he’s going to find whatever it is, anyway, since it’s fucking dark as hell out here.
It’s nearly midnight, and we’ve been here for an hour.
I’m starting to think that whatever it is he wants to show me, it’s not coming.
I run my palms over my black jeans, slide my hands in my hoodie pockets; clothes picked up at a store up from Nicolas’s apartment. We ate together, a silent meal that tasted like ash in my mouth. The memories from whatever fucked-up ritual Lucifer got me into kept threatening to burst in my mind, but I clamped them down, forced them back.
I’m not going down that road.
Jeremiah asked what happened to me when I was with Lucifer. I refused to answer. He, shockingly, let it go.
If there’s something back there in the dark recesses of my mind that the Unsaints want to murder me for, thinking about it won’t change anything. And it’ll have consequences I’m not ready to face yet. That I’m not gonna face, ever. So Lucifer can drug me and let his friends put their hands all over me, inside of me, around my throat, but they can’t get into my head.
They can fuck my body all they want. I’ll kill them before they get into my mind.
“Wait here,” Jeremiah says softly to me. Before I can ask him where he’s going, he hops out of the car, shuts the door quietly behind him.
I cast my eyes around the parking lot.
I don’t see anything but my brother in a black wool coat, hoodie beneath, the hood pulled over the collar. He’s got his hands slid into his coat pockets, and he’s headed to the stairwell straight ahead, but I still don’t see anything. Don’t know what the fuck he’s on about.
I lean back in my seat, blow my bangs out of my face.
And then I hear it.
The faint giggle of a girl, and then another’s voice, and an echoing, feminine laugh. I sit up straighter, hands clenched into fists in my pocket.
My brother is waiting at the bottom of the stairwell, hidden in the shadows.
And I see him pull something out of his pocket, see him grip the gun tight with both hands.
My heart thunders in my chest and I reach for the handle of the door, but I don’t move. I just wait, frozen. The footsteps from the stairs grow heavier, and then I see two girls coming down, side by side, smiles on their beautiful faces as one is still laughing while the other is saying something, her dark curly hair wild around her face.
The girl laughing has her hair in one braid down her back, a long-sleeved, cream-colored dress on over top brown boots. And when Natalie and Ria hit the second to last step, my brother moves from the shadows.
The girls stop, Ria holding out an arm to prevent Natalie from taking another step. Their eyes are wide, and even from the car, I can see their bodies tense.
What the fuck are you doing, Jeremiah?
I can only see his back now, broad-shouldered and relaxed, as if he’s got this shit under control.
He probably does.
Unfortunately for me and everyone in his vicinity, he nearly always does.
He corrals them in front of him, walking a step behind, the gun no doubt pointed at their backs, and they start to walk toward the car. I wonder when they’ll notice I’m in here. I wonder why I want to sink down into the seat. I shouldn’t care what they think of me. Of him.
But I fucking do.
Ria’s eyes find mine through the windshield and her brows raise in surprise, half a second before there’s a deep scowl on her face.
So much for ever being friends with this one. Thanks, Brother.
Jeremiah opens up the car door, waits for both of them to slide in, one after the other.
