Had no clue what I was supposed to do. Where I should stand. The lines of my loyalty that should be solid and underscored in black had become grayed.
Right and wrong no longer clear.
Rhys actually accelerated instead of slowed as he took a hard right, tires squealing as we went. I held onto the door handle, leaning with the turn.
Unease shivered beneath my skin when I glanced around.
I was right.
Town wasn’t going to be a whole lot safer than facing down my mother.
Every eye on the street shifted our direction as Rhys blazed like a demon down Main Street, speculation and judgement hot on our tail.
Let’s just say Rhys and I didn’t have the best reputations around here. The bad boys who’d slayed their daughters’ hearts and rained havoc on the quaint, quiet streets. Country boys who’d gone rogue, selling our souls for bigger and better things, that dotted line signed in our blood, success and fame and riches at the cost of condemnation.
Sounded about right.
Rhys rammed on the gas, whipping around an old truck that rambled down the road. Dude fucking laughed as he blew by.
I pitched him a glare. “You couldn’t possibly buy anything less flashy, could you?”
“Absolutely not,” he said, tossing me a grin as he gunned it around a corner.
Asshole was nothing but a bull on a rampage, tearing shit up and being as loud as possible while doing it.
“You compensating for something?” I let the razz out into the air.
He laughed maniacally. “Oh, dear brother. You only wish. Believe me, I don’t have a thing to make up for.”
He waggled his brows, dude still looking at me when he made a sharp right and skidded into the parking lot of the grocery store.
If the rest of this bullshit wasn’t my end, Rhys’ driving was bound to do me in.
He rumbled through the lot and pulled into an angled spot at the front. “Hell yes. She is everything I knew she’d be.”
He lovingly stroked the steering wheel.
“You’re a freak, you know that?” I asked as I unlatched my seat belt and cracked open the door. “And a terrible driver.”
“What’s the matter? Have your balls gone missin’? You need to borrow some of mine? Mine are big enough to go around.”
“Eww and no and what the fuck?” I leaned over the console and punched his shoulder.
“Oww.” He rubbed at the spot, throwing me an overexaggerated pout. “Uncalled for, man. Uncalled for. Why you gotta be so violent? I was barely going over the speed limit. It was under control. Calm your tits.”
I slipped out, my brow shooting toward the sky as he got out and looked at me from over the top of the car.
“Barely?”
Laughing, he sauntered toward the entrance. “Speed is relative. Fast to one person is another’s eternity.” He waved his hand for me to follow. “Let’s do this. I’m starvin’.”
Dude was always starving.
I followed him inside, and he grabbed a cart. Didn’t even have it in me to be surprised that he rode it around like he was twelve. He rolled halfway down the cereal aisle, only hopping off to chat with Mrs. Lancaster, a high-school friend’s mom, who couldn’t help but reach out and touch his tatted arms.
Okay. So, we might have come with reputations but that didn’t mean women weren’t still all too happy to reach out and brush up on that fame.
Drawn to danger.
Problem was that people didn’t get what that really meant. How dark and depraved our worlds got. The sordid, sick corruption that ran rampant.
The greed and the shame and the gluttony.
“Let’s go,” I told Rhys, not willing to stand around and watch that bullshit going down.
“What’s the rush?”
What was the rush?
“Don’t want to be here,” I told him, point-blank. “And you were the one who just told me you were starving.”
This town bled too many memories.
Made me crave and thirst and long.
Her face flashed through my mind.
Violets and dreams and the girl.
Seeing her made me contemplate things I couldn’t.
Made me think…maybe.
Maybe and what if.
And having thoughts like that would be my ruin.
Utter destruction.
I’d known coming here for Emily and Royce’s wedding was going to be an issue. Staying for so long. Unable to slink in to visit my parents and slink right back out without anyone noticing. Knew it was going to leave me riddled with so much regret and loss that it was going to be hard to stand.
What I hadn’t known was it would become dangerous in a way that I couldn’t have anticipated. Thoughts of who I might be dragging into this town were crushing.
Feeling like I was gonna lose it, I strode the rest of the way down the aisle.
“Sheesh. Come on, man. Can’t you feel it? People miss us. They need the life breathed back into them,” he shouted at my back. “This town has been on standstill since we left.”
I shook my head. “Only thing we would do is suck it out of them,” I muttered under my breath.
I couldn’t afford it. Couldn’t afford wrecking one more life.
I itched, nerves crackling like the threat of a summer storm.
A surge of energy.
Electricity.
Fuck.
I rubbed at the back of my neck.
I was this close to going apeshit.
Awesome. Just what the town needed to witness. A meltdown, too. Needed to get out of there and go back to passing time, playin’ the fool, until the trial came to pass.
I moved for the butcher at the back, asked him for the largest, freshest chicken they had, and I had it in the cart by the time Rhys finally weaved his slow ass up to me.
It thudded on the metal like finality.
“Let’s go.”
I stormed up the side aisle that opened to the bakery to the far side. The smell of sugar and spices and dough wafted through the air.
Leon, who’d baked there for what had to be a million years, still held vigil behind the counter.
But it wasn’t the old man who used to sneak me cookies who stopped me in my tracks. What sent dread and need and guilt crashing through my body. So intense I nearly buckled in two.
It was the woman standing at the counter chatting with him. The girl wearing a messy braid that hung over one shoulder, a tank, and short jean shorts, a pair of high-top Chucks on her feet.
Soft and seductive.
A moonflower.
A black-haired angel swayed at her side.
Daisy.
The air punched from my lungs, so hard it left me on a rasping gasp.
Sight of her left me staggered.
Shattered.
A million cracked, splintered pieces on the floor.
My mind shouted to look the fuck away. To turn my back. To run and not return.
But I was edging forward, unable to stop, unable to think.
Only able to go for what I’d been running from for the last six years.
Knew the second Violet felt me, the way her spine went rigid and chills skated across her skin.
Goosebumps rippling.
I wanted to press my hands to it and chase the thrill. Let my tongue follow suit. Get lost in the sea of it.
Collide with destruction.
Since we were ruined, anyway, what more could it hurt than it already did?
That little angel at her side turned like she sensed me, too. Dark eyes the same color as Violet’s grew wide, her adorable face breaking out in a curious smile.