Page 230 of Like Grim Death: Part One
When I drop the scissors, blood streaking down my thigh, toward my flaccid cock, I’m shaking all over. I bury my head in my hands, letting the blood sully me, and I can only hope Adam Medici meant what he promised me.
My sister.
I flick the lighter,inhaling as I pinch the cigarette between my index finger and thumb. The nicotine fills my lungs and I push my lighter into the pocket of my sweats, leaning against my locked car in the night.
Liber is silent and I can’t see a single light coming from inside the fortress as my guards prowl around, rifles slung over their chests, forests surrounding us.
It was my idea to drag everyone out here after the fight last night and spending the day avoiding one another, but now I’m not even so sure what the fuck there is to say.
Cain is silent, like Ezra.
And Atlas… he’s currently holding a staring contest with Maverick.
I think of how Atlas held my gaze the night we found Samson’s body. I think about how no one has mentioned him again. No one seems to have answers on what happened to him. But last night, Elijah had a guess.
I asked Atlas when I saw him with Ella in the corridor. Of course he didn’t answer. But now, I glance at Atlas as he leans against his Range—Sevryn inside it, who looked so hungover when we walked out here I thought he might puke—and I think about bringing that little corpse up again.
Cain is leaning against his Camaro across from me, and Ezra is next to him, arms folded over his chest. Something with a heavy bass is thumping from inside the ZL1.
“Tell me where you were last night, Atlas.”
Atlas adjusts the backward hat on his head as he looks at Maverick. “You mean after we were fucking Ella?”
I freeze, my breath caught in my lungs.What the fuck?I think of seeing Atlas and Ella and realize I don’t need to confess that to Maverick after all. What the fuck was he thinking?
Cain is the first one to react, with a laugh, and he pushes his hands into the pockets of his wool coat as he shakes his head, grinning. “You need to stop sharing her before she forgets who she really belongs to,” he says coolly.
Maverick dips his chin as he darts his eyes to Cain. “Yeah? Andyouneed to stop putting your nose where it doesn’t fucking belong before I pay Alivia a visit.” We all have our skeleton bandanas on, and he pulls at his now, twisting his fingers in it. I’m surprised he’s wearing it because he’s stopped since his parents were killed. Still, he doesn’t have a joint between his fingers, so I assume him playing with his bandana is a preoccupation for his hands. Or maybe he’s just trying not to swing at Cain.
“Chill,” Ezra says from beside Cain, who only smiles wickedly at Mav. “He’s right. Stop treating her like a toy if you want her to be respected by everyone outside of us. Get your head on straight.”
Maverick whips his head to Ezra, pushing away from the G-wagon we own and keep at Liber. “Says the alcoholic, fucking my goddamn sister—”
“Don’t talk about Brooklin,” Ezra says, a growl in his words. It surprises me because I assumed they were just fucking. But he’s suddenly sounding overprotective.
Maverick steps closer and he’s got his back muscles coiled into knots, the way he’s all tense now.“Don’t talk about Brooklin?”he repeats the words, his voice low.
Ezra snorts. I can’t see him right now, because Maverick is blocking my view and it’s dark out, only the dull orange lamplight above us giving anything to see by, but I hear the disdain in Ezra’s words when he says, “You heard what the fuck I said.”
“Say it for me one more time.”
Cain laughs. “Don’t make a fool out of yourself,” he says, his dark eyes on Mav.
I glance at Atlas and see he’s watching everything go down. I could let it go, but that was a pretty bold question he asked Mav, even if it did go down. There are some things we just shouldn’t fucking speak about. Not all our dirty little habits need to be aired out in the open like this.
But again, I think of him and Ella walking down the hallway. Was it Atlas dragging her into the shadows on that video? Why were he and Cain walking to her house on a separate night?
I assumed this all was part of whatI’vebeen asked to do with Ella, or else Ella was fucking Mav over and that’s my answer on her loyalty, but now I’m not so sure.
I inhale again from my cigarette, and on the exhale, smoke clouding from my mouth, I say, “You’re awfully fucking quiet over there, now, Atlas.”
Slowly, Maverick turns around, taking the tension down between him and Ezra. There’s a lot of shit to unpack there, but this isn’t a goddamn therapy session. If it was, Mav and I might actually talk about the giant fight we got into last night. As it is, we’re deciding to pretend it didn’t happen. Besides, Ella’s little knife wound went through the J on Sid’s hip, so that solves one of my problems.
Maverick’s eyes go to Atlas.
Atlas just shrugs. “Just listening to where this was gonna go.”
Maverick regards him carefully, that inverted cross on his face pulling down. “How often you text my girl, huh?”
