But it’s hard to know whether or not they still see me an outsider, there on the purely nepotistic whims of the Valentinos, and my connection to the sheriff of this town. If I start to think too hard about it, I won’t be doing myself any good.
I’m here now. And everyone may as well learn to live with it.
Windy and Ace’s girl return to where we’re standing just as Ace cups his hand to light a joint against the wind. Waves crash against the sand in front of us, threatening to drag us in as we look on like nothing can stop us. Above nature, above this city, above all of it. If I think I’m untouchable hard enough, I’ll start to believe it.
Windy gives me a somber look as she hands me a beer, obviously still out of her element. She’s not used to gatherings like these. She’s used to the one-on-one time like she had with Jessa, the two of them on an island of weird inside jokes and pixie girl dust. Whatever it had been that made them click had seemed like magic. I may have known a lot of people before I was sent away, but the so-called popularity never came with a friend half as close as Jessa and Windy had been.
But a lot of good that had done my sister in the end.
I clink my beer bottle against Windy’s, the tap of the glass ringing out over the acoustics of the boardwalk we’re standing below. It reminds me of the dueling clink of two weapons.
I may feel things for Windy, things that aren’t always hate and bitterness and the need to destroy, but it’s only because she’s familiar. It’s possible she’s the only familiar thing that’s left in my life anymore, and as fucked up as that is, I can’t let it develop into something resembling any mercy.
Ace hands me the joint, simultaneously taking out another one from the chest pocket of his jacket and lighting it up. “You two keep that one,” he says.
I take a drag, keeping the smoke inside my chest and letting some trail languidly above my grinning lips. I let it out in a slow exhale, at the same time handing Windy the joint. She takes it from me tepidly.
“Don’t tell me that’s your first time, too,” I murmur.
Her wide brown eyes narrow up at me, and I love the look of contempt that fills her face sometimes. She never looked at me like that before, and having something new within the familiarity of being around her again is fucking exciting.
I watch with interest as she takes a shallow drag, her pouty pink lips puffing away at the end of the joint like she’s trying to light a fireplace. She’s wasting most of the smoke, but it’s too cute for me to stop.
She turns away from me and gives an echoing cough towards the water, pushing the joint back towards me like the whole thing is on fire and not just the end.
Ace shoots an amused look in my direction. “Hey, you know what they say. If you don’t cough, you’re not doing it right.”
A small smile creeps onto Windy’s face as she comes back upright, the top of her tits jiggling into view as her jacket flies open from the wind. “What do you think?” I ask her. “Did you do it right?”
“I don’t know,” she murmurs. “Maybe.” She takes a swig from her beer bottle before she can say anymore. There’s something weird about seeing her let loose, and the realization that it might just be me is almost too much to bear. It’s the feeling of protectiveness that washes over me.
I want to protect her.
Only that’s the exact antithesis of everything I told myself I wanted for her. I want to make her pay. I want to make her suffer. I want all those things I never let myself forget the whole time I was locked away.
“Drink up,” I tell her, taking a hit of the joint again before I continue. “Smoke up. You’re going to wish you had.”
She gazes up at me defiantly, something in the air, or in her, making her bolder than usual. “And why’s that?” she asks, her voice nearly husky.
I remember all the ways she’s let me touch her in the past twenty-four hours. She may like to act like she’s some prim and proper girl who’s never been touched, but she sure as hell’s been obviously dreaming about getting touched the entire time and now she’s primed and ready. The way her body responds to pleasure is almost maddening.
I know I want to feed her my dick again in more ways than one.
“Because,” I tell her in a tauntingly slow voice. “I’m going to give you something tonight.”
I pass the joint to her, watching as she takes another tiny puffing series of hits, holding the smoke better this time but still blowing it away in an instant. “What do you mean?” she asks me.
“You’ll see,” I tell her. “But it’s going to hurt. So you’re going to want to be a little fucked up.”
I’ve managed to make her nervous now, and her lips twist and fold in on themselves, her two front teeth scraping against her plump bottom lip in a way that makes me want my turn. It’s hard to believe she’s not doing this on purpose, but I know the way she drives me crazy is entirely my own doing.
She’s dressed like a fucking nun compared to some of the girls out here tonight, but the way the dress clings to her body in just the right ways is doing it for me. Looking at it flair over her full hips is bad enough, but those suckable tits of hers ensure that I’m not going to be able to get through tonight without my cock pulsing and twitching towards her constantly.
Fucking Windy.
“You’re full of shit,” she tells me suddenly, and I forget two puffs of weed and a sip of beer for someone like her are enough to make her already a little fucked up.
I grin, willing to play along with her game. After all, she can call my bluff all she wants, because at the end of the day, it’s not words that matter. It’s actions.
And I intend to carry out my plans. Each and every one of them.
16
“I guess you’ll find out,” Damien says, his voice taking on an ominous quality meant to exploit my weaknesses.
I know what he’s trying to do, and I’m onto his sick little game. That should mean I won’t fall for it, but the anxious part of my brain has already begun to weave a whole different web for me to get trapped in.
My fingers wrap instinctively around the cuffs of the jacket I’m wearing. It’s a gesture I know doesn’t mean much. If Damien wants the jacket off, he’ll get it off. Clutching onto the fabric with my fingertips isn’t going to do a damn thing.
But if he thinks he’s going to get that tattoo he’s been threatening me with somewhere onto my body tonight, he’s got another thing coming. I won’t go down without a fight, even if we are at a Snake Eyes party under the boardwalk. The setting has essentially left me with nowhere to run, or at least nowhere fast, the dampened sand sucking at the bottoms of my shoes like quicksand.
Plus, with people like Ace Zacarias around, I’m pretty sure I’m not outsprinting one of the football team’s star players anyway.
Like Damien would ever outsource the job of dragging me down to anyone else. I know he’s strong enough and fast enough to do it himself, and get five times as much pleasure out of the whole thing.
And then what?
Would they hold me down? Force me at gunpoint? Threaten to tie me to one of the concrete beams and leave me there until high tide?
A part of me doesn’t want to believe Damien would do anything to hurt me. Then again, the entire reason I’m here is because he’s forced his way into my life under the guise that he wants to destroy me.
Sometimes I just wish he would already, because the longer he takes, the more he stays around, the more intense the way he toys with me becomes, the more I get confused inside. I want to be able to write him off as just some asshole drunk on power, but lately that’s been getting harder and harder to do.
I don’t know why. It’s not like he’s done anything for me but drag me to some party. Big whoop. Everything else he does behind closed doors, toying with me in private. But sometimes when he kisses me, or looks at me at just the right time, things feel real.
Our small group edges back from the water’s edge towar
ds the rest of the group. I recognize the harem girls from the quad, the ones who had no qualms about laughing at me, and I wonder if they recognize me too. I see their eyes sliding over me from top to bottom with curious, appraising stares, and I feel my cheeks heat with an annoying frustration.
Who the hell do they think they are to judge me.
But the anger I feel is nothing compared to when their collective gaze shifts over to Damien. I recognize the look they give him. To them, he’s the new leader, and a complete prize to be sought to elevate their status within their own fucked up group.
The stupid thing is, I bet they don’t know shit about Damien. Not really, not the way I do. I know I shouldn’t be jealous when they look at him, but I’ll be damned if I’m not. There’s something primitive inside me that says I saw him first, and I want to hang onto him as long as possible. Knowing he’s been locked away at military school obviously means he’s got some sort of pent up rage and aggression, and that primitive part of me wants every last bit of the reckoning.
But I only think I can keep up with him in some ways. In social settings, I’m still miles behind, and I stand there silently, the crash from the waves hitting the beach in front of us interspliced with the hacking coughs from the guys smoking weed.
The few hits I did take have been enough for me. I still feel clear-headed enough, but the undercurrent of anxiety that usually flows through me feels like a river flowing in a completely different direction.
I turn on the group with curious eyes. I may be an alien in their world, but if I take the view of an alien, donning a scientist’s observant gaze and an explorer’s mind, the components that make up the Snake Eyes Crew get a lot more interesting.
You’ve got, of course, the harem girls. If what Damien says is true, they aren’t actually a part of the gang, but their importance in the group is apparent. Girls are everywhere, providing distraction, entertainment, shallow means of affection. Despite being perched on the ends of the earth at the beach, the atmosphere is thick with a fog that feels like it could be composed entirely of hormones.
But out of everything, testosterone reigns supreme.
Everyone here looks like they could kick each other’s asses, rough around the edges in an understated way. It doesn’t help that their golden boys are two amber-haired Adonises in Ace and Fabian, and Damien, the fallen god sent to lead them all. Dark hair, dark eyes, darker fucking backstory.
Just like mine.
A part of me wants to protect him, but I’m going to just have to watch him lead. There’s never been talking him out of anything he sets his mind on.
“So you ready to explain what happened to that handsome mug of yours?” Ace says to Damien. Despite his red-tinged eyes and bleach blond hair, something about him reminds me of an old timey gangster as he puffs away on the last part of the joint burning at his fingertips like a cigar.
“Let’s just say it’s time to exact some revenge,” Damien responds with a similar mood. Wind from the beach has swept locks of dark hair over his forehead, and he runs languid fingers through it, eyes locking with mine for a split second before he continues. “Things have been a little too quiet between the Daggers and the Snake Eyes lately.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Fabian agrees enthusiastically. “I’m ready to bust some heads.”
I gaze back at Damien skeptically. The weed and booze have messed with my confidence, boosting it a little, and now I hardly give a shit, not even about calling him out in front of his gang. Maybe if I stir enough shit, he’ll let me go home.
“So the Daggers attacked you?” I ask. “At the cemetery?”
He raises an eyebrow at me, more amused than annoyed. Just my luck. “And what if they did?” he counters.
“You didn’t mention the Daggers earlier.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t mention much, now did I?” he replies.
I stay quiet, bringing my beer up to my lips as I mill over the information. If Damien had gotten jumped by the Daggers at the cemetery, he would have showed up to the house with ten times more aggression than he actually did. He wouldn’t have waited until he could convene with the Snake Eyes at a beachside party, he would have summoned them immediately.
That can only mean he’s exaggerating now. Using whatever he has to as a means to an end. It would almost be impressive if it weren’t so fucking dangerous.
Retaliate against one of the strongest gangs in Diablo Beach without there actually being a reason to retaliate? Wait until that blows up in the Snake Eyes’ face.
I don’t know why I care. It’s not like I’m a part of this gang, of any of the gangs. Maybe it just comes from being a bystander for so long. If only any of them could actually realize the sick way they’ve all been tempting fate over a city none of us even own. The entire thing is a façade, the biggest sham there is.
The worst part is they’re all willing to die for it. As cliché as it sounds, my own brush with death has left me anything but cynical. Life is fucking precious.
Okay, maybe I am a little more buzzed than I thought.
But all this talk of wars and retaliation is making me nervous. I know there’s nothing I can do about it now, but I really don’t want to be dragged further into the fight than I already have. Betraying Samaire had been hard enough, a stain on my consciousness that still won’t wash away even with the deepest scrub. She may have forgiven me, but letting myself be so susceptible to Damien’s manipulation still irritates me.
For all the ways I’ve been working on myself since Jessa passed away, I wanted to believe I was stronger than that. If I’m not, what has any of that time even meant?
“The Lobo Loco is the perfect place to bash some heads,” Ace notes, referring to the run-down nightclub set down by the train tracks where the gangs like to congregate, specifically the Club of Daggers. “They’ll never see it coming.”
“Until they do,” Damien says, raising his beer bottle to his lips to take a swig. His face darkens with thought.
“That place is full of Dagger sympathizers,” Fabian says, the obvious general in the group. “We need something more strategic.”
Ace shakes his head, obviously used to disagreeing with his twin brother. The two of them stand on either side of Damien like an angel and devil, the difference of which is imperceptible. “The obvious is strategic. People let their guards down in places where they feel safe.”
“Not the Daggers,” Fabian says.
“Then what are we going to do, lure them somewhere?”
“It worked the first fucking time, didn’t it?”
I meet eyes with Damien, questioning him with my eyes. “I hope all this is worth it,” I say.
His brow lowers over a dark-eyed stare as he focuses his attention on me. “It’s all I have anymore,” he tells me, in a voice meant just for me. “Besides, every time I get to watch you squirm is always worth it.”
I frown, but my insides twirl with a quiet excitement.
“Fuck,” Ace notes. “The tide is getting higher. We’re gonna be pushed up against the rocks soon if we don’t move.”
Above our heads, a bright white full moon beckons the coastline from a dark sky. We move further underneath the boardwalk.
I gasp as a hand reaches out and clutches into my arm. Damien stares down at me in the darkness, his eyes hitting the light in just the right way to level me with an evil stare. “We better do your tattoo now while there’s still time.”
“You’ve been drinking and smoking,” I counter. “I’m not letting you get anywhere near me with a needle.”
Damien smirks. “I’m not going to do it. Ace is.”
“Do what now?” Ace asks, drawn into our conversation.
I look at him. He’s worse off than Damien by miles.
“Windy’s tattoo.”
“Oh yeah, for sure.” Ace grins, his good looks and boyish charm attempting to disarm me. “I’m gonna hook you up, baby girl.”
Or toss me into the snake pit. Whatever. Either way, it’s not happening.
“If girls aren’t even allowed into the gang,” I say, subtly petitioning the backup of the harem girls standing by in any way I can. “Why do I have to get a tattoo?”
“To show your allegiance,” Fabian replies from behind Ace’s grinning face. “Just because you’re not one of us, doesn’t mean you’re not one of us.”
I’m unable to keep a grimace from sliding onto my face. They cannot be serious.
“Show Windy your tattoo, babe,” Ace tells one of the girls, and she offers her arm willingly.
“I had them done as two little diamonds, because I shine bright like a die-mund,” she says drunkenly, much to the adulation of the guys around her. “Isn’t that cute? You could have the same thing, I bet.”
I shake my head. “I don’t want the same tattoo as you,” I declare. “In fact, I don’t want any tattoo.”
“You’ll like it once it’s on,” Damien tells me, corralling me with his body towards the rocks. The group begins to move as one, but I’m the only one dragging my feet.
“Stop,” I tell him. “I’m not getting a tattoo under the boardwalk.”
His arms wrap around my waist, picking me up to drag me towards where he wants me to go. As much as I thrash, my toes barely skim the sand at our feet, kicking up spraying tufts of sea-drenched dirt. I know I’m making a scene, and part of me is mortified, but at the same time, tattoos are fucking permanent.
“Don’t fight it,” Damien says into my ear, and behind his words is so much more. He’s been imposing his will on me ever since he got back, and I’ve been letting him, because maybe I always knew there would be hell to pay for what I did.
But this just might be my final stand.
The tattoo gun is brought out, buzzing to life with an ominous hum.
I know if I don’t do what Damien says this time, he’s going to be mad. Despite the mischievous smiles on their faces, what I’m doing is unheard of in this circle. Saying no to one of them, let alone the leader.
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