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Jericho.
It was him all right, even though it wasn’t quite finished. What I’d managed to remember surprised me. The exact cut of his jaw. The way his eyes slanted down at the edges, just slightly. The tiny scar at the side of his straight nose. The way his brows arched, in a way that most girls would kill for.
And his lips. Full. Soft.
I shut my eyes against a wave of nausea, evicting the line of thought from my mind, convinced I was the most naive bitch on the fucking planet.
He used me.
Betrayed me.
Manipulated me.
Jericho almost talked me into hurting the Crows. Into hurting Ava Jade. And I almost let him. For what?
My mom was a big girl. She knew what she was getting herself into when she let herself get mixed up with Damien St. Vincent. She knew what could happen and she did it anyway. It didn’t make me hate the guy or the criminal organization he stood for any less, but I could see now what I couldn’t before—my mother wasn’t blameless. She chose to be involved with him, even knowing it could mean my losing her. Growing up without her.
Love did fucked up things to people.
I didn’t evenloveJericho and look how messed up that shit got.
Fuck love. And fuck monogamy. Fuck the whole damn institution of it all. I’d marry when I was forty and found the perfect dick, with a padded bank account to go with it and not a second sooner.
I thought Jericho loved me, or at least that he was headed in that direction. But you didn’t play with people you loved like dolls, only to toss them in the trash once they’d served their purpose.
If what Grey was thinking was true, then Jericho really hadn’t felt anything at all for me. I was a tool. Something to be used to get closer to his true mark. My best friend.
My fist clenched around the thin brush in my hand, and I felt it snap in my palm, that acid-eaten pit of guilt in my stomach growing even more.
“Fuck.”
The alarm on my phone went off, but I ignored the reminder to send a text check-in to Grey. Let Axel do it.
I tossed the broken paint brush to the trash bin in the corner of my room, missing it by a foot.
I snorted at myself. At how useless I was in this whole mess. I would’ve sent my ass home too. What good was I? I couldn’t shoot a gun. Couldn’t throw a knife. I couldn’t even hold my breakfast down. Grey didn’t need to know it, but I’d vomited twice on my way out of the Docks, escorted by Diesel’s men back to Sanctum.
But I needed to know. I needed to see Jericho’s face. I didn’t think there was any way I’d ever feel safe again. Knowing he was dead would be the only way.
Heisdead.
He had to be.
Then why are you painting him?
I lifted my phone, thumbing back to messenger to send off another message to Ava Jade. We knew the guys had her phone, but she could still check messenger without it.
Rebecca Hart: You’ve made your point, babe. PLEASE come back now? They sent Axel McFuckMeEyes here to keep an eye on me. Save me?
Rebecca Hart: I’m worried about you. So are your guys.
Rebecca Hart: Love you, bitch.
I scrolled back up through the fifteen other unanswered messages I’d sent. Re-reading each one only compounded the cold dread in my blood until I needed to pull the covers around myself to stave off the chill.
When she got back, I’d help her disappear if she wanted to. We could both vanish. Get as far away from Thorn Valley as we could. A large cash advance from Daddy’s credit card to get us started and then we’d figure it out from there.
Fuck college. If Daddy couldn’t find me, then he couldn’t make me go to MIT. It would hurt to let the CalArts scholarship go to someone else, but…
