Page 53 of Pray for Scars
But because I need someone. Right now, I really, really need someone, and here he is.
“Why you crying, Angel?” he asks me quietly, leaning into me. My face burns as I realize my eyes are filling up with tears I’m trying my damndest to hold back. “You know Lucifer only wants you.”
I laugh again, turn away from his touch, but he grips my chin, forces my gaze to him, his expression unreadable.
“His dick inside another girl right now makes me think otherwise,” I make myself say, looking down.
His hand trails down to my throat. “I had my fingers in you the other night.” I stiffen. “We all have our vices.”
My eyes meet his, and he steps closer, until his chest brushes against my shoulder. His hand tightens around my throat, but it’s a gentle touch. He reaches his other hand out to me, the one with the joint, and wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me toward him.
Despite myself, despite knowing what this is—a bad fucking idea—I lift my chin, tilt my head. Am I as terrible as my brother? Ria is right downstairs.
But Ria just fucked me over.
And when Mayhem leans closer, his lips hovering over mine, my breath catches.
I smell the tang of marijuana, that leather scent that he seems to be made of. Leather and bad decisions, probably not too different from my own scent.
His breath is warm on my face as he says, “Sorry, Angel. I didn’t mean to fuck you up.”
And before I can pull out of his grasp, I feel arms close around my waist, a hard chest against my back, and Mayhem backs up, shaking his head.
I try to turn, to see who is behind me, my throat dry, but whoever it is, their grip is too tight, one hand going to my hair, running their fingers through it and pulling it painfully back, so my neck is arched.
Mayhem looks to who I know must be Lucifer. “Deal with it.” And then he turns and walks to the stairs.
“Let go of me!” I growl, still twisting in Lucifer’s grasp.
Someone turns up the music.wonderful lifeby Bring Me the Horizon.
And a raspy voice says against my ear, “I already made that mistake too many fucking times. I’m not doing it again,” and Lucifer picks me up, hauling me effortlessly over his shoulder.
This time, I don’t bother fighting back.
Chapter Fourteen
Our street is edgedby nothing but thick trees.
I don’t carry a weapon because no one knows I left save for the guards and Mav and they’re certainly not going to fuck with me. The thing about the 6 and the Unsaints is people like to talk. They spread rumors like wildfire. And people generally like to the believe the rumors are the worst of the worst. The embellished versions of the mundane. But the reality is, rumors are never as scary or fucked up as the truth.
I walk down the cul-de-sac, head down against the cold and the rain, adjusting Sid over my shoulder. I take deep breaths, in through my mouth, out through my nose, trying tothink.
Why the fuck did she come back here, pissed off or not? Just when I bought her time away from my fucking father.
I wonder what Mom would think of all this.
I don’t know much about her. I have photos: me in her lap, always smiling. She never was. She had shoulder-length, soft brown hair, light eyes, and a perpetual frown on her face, as if she knew what was coming. As if she knew she’d be gone too soon, and I’d have no one to look out for me, not until I got old enough to look out for myself.
Now I have my brothers. Atlas, Maverick, Cain, Ezra. Once, I had Jeremiah, but I never trusted that fucker. And now I know why, why none of us could really let him in, even after what he’d went through at the hands of one of the 6.
Because he’s a traitorous fuck.
Because he hurt my girl.
I smell her as I carry her. Lavender.
But I smell him too.
