Moments pass in silence. Juliet’s head leans against my chest, her hand tangled with mine. I bite down on my lower lip, a fresh surge of old anger rising to the surface. My muscles tense.
“I love her,” I say. “I do, but… sometimes, I fucking hate her too.” Those words burn in my throat. They feel so fucking wrong. I wasn’t raised to hate her. She sacrificed for me. Sleep. Food. Comfort. She gave me as much as she could. The only thing she couldn’t do was the one thing I ever wanted to beg for. She wouldn’t leave him and it feels like a betrayal to resent her for that.
Outside of the building, the sounds of buses pulling away fade into the background. The two of us are quiet for a long stretch, nothing but the near-absent sound of our breaths and beating hearts taking up space. My phone buzzes a second time and I close my eyes, knowing we’re about to be interrupted.
I close both of my arms around her once more, wishing I could keep her to myself for a little longer. Lex and Nolan get her all the time. I want my own space for just the two of us. Juliet sucks in a breath and blows it out across my collarbone as she sighs.
“I was called to the principal’s office,” she admits. “I texted you guys, but…”
When had she sent the message? I could pull out my phone and check now, but I’d rather hear it from her lips. “What did Principal Long say?”
“Morpheus is trying to gain guardianship of me.”
The words punch through my chest and bite into my heart, nearly ripping it from my rib cage. Anger swells, expands, releases toxins into my bloodstream that make me tense all over as if the asshole is about to burst through the storage room door right then and there. I tighten my hold on her.
“Ms. Beck apparently wrote a report after I walked out on our last session and I haven’t gone back.” Juliet’s voice is even, as if she’s distanced herself from what she’s saying just so she can get it out. “Her fiancé killed himself because of my dad.”
“Hey.” I stop her right there, pulling away and gripping her by the shoulders. “We’re pretty sure your dad didn’t embezzle that money,” I remind her. “So no, whatever her fiancé did or didn’t do, it had nothing to do with your dad. Even if he is guilty, though, you are not him. You are not your fucking parents.”
She doesn’t look at me. Her face is pale, her cheeks dotted with the lightest dusting of freckles that normally wouldn’t even be visible, but I’m so close that I can pick out each and every one of them. I want to kiss them. Instead, I shake her lightly until she’s forced to return my gaze.
Sharp blue eyes like crystal skies land on mine. “Do you understand?” It takes a bit for her to nod her ascent, and only then do I relax and drag her back into my chest and let her continue her story.
“I thought because I’m eighteen he couldn’t force me to be with him,” she says, her voice quieter than ever. “But apparently, if a court deems me mentally or physically unfit to take care of myself, they can award him guardianship. He was here.”
I’ve never had the self-control that both Lex and Nolan exude. I’m the reckless one. The dipshit that fucks up because it’s hilarious or because I can. It takes all of my nonexistent discipline not to jump to my feet and stalk after the motherfucker that sent kidnappers to steal Juliet away then changed his fucking mind and told them to get rid of her.
If he gets his hands on her the way he’s trying to, she’ll disappear, and we can’t—we won’t—let that happen.
“We’ll kill him.”
I don’t even realize I’ve spoken the words aloud until Juliet pushes against my chest and sits back, gaping at me. Once I become aware of them, though, I don’t take them back. I mean it.
“I’m serious,” I inform her. “You will never be forced to do anything you don’t want to. He won’t fucking take you from us again.”
She blinks and finally, twin spots of color dot her cheeks. The paleness recedes and she shoves a hand through her hair, fingers tangling in the locks.
“You’re an idiot.” There’s no heat in the insult and it makes me grin.
“Maybe,” I agree. “But I’ve already killed for you once, so you know I’ll do it again.”
Her gaze finds mine and the tension bleeds out of her shoulders. The sight is a goddamn blessing. I don’t even care that I’m going to be late to practice. Coach is going to either strangle me or kill me with suicides and I’ll run those drills with a smile on my face. All because of her.
With the fading light at her back casting her in an outline of white and yellow, she appears ethereal. A fallen angel dipped in darkness. She’s running with demons now and her secrets are ours. Her war is ours.Sheis ours.
9
JULIET
Greed is going to be my downfall. Perhaps it already is. But as I sit on the cold bleachers several hours later, watching as all three Scorpion Kings run drills as sweat stains their shirts and faces, slides over the sides of their jaws until droplets fall to the deadened grass beneath their feet, I think I might be okay with it.
I want them.
I can admit it to myself now. I want the Scorpion Kings more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. To those that live in the million-dollar mansions on the north side of town, they’re little more than street kids. Poor kids that have very few avenues in life. They’ll either end up working dead-end jobs or they’ll become criminals and another prison statistic.
I don’t know if their teammates can even see the true potential they possess. Lex learned how to build his own computer because I moved schools and he couldn’t see me anymore. He became a hacker just to be able to watch me. Though we haven’t spoken about it, I’m pretty sure the rumors that Nolan killed his piece-of-shit father are more than simple conjecture. He’d held out that gun too easily for someone who’d never used one before.
And Gio—I find him on the field, body bent, grunting as he pushes a weighted training sled down the line. He’s more than the son of a criminal. He’s also his mother’s son. Torn between parents and maybe closer to understanding my own resentment for mine than anyone else.
