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As if knowing where my thoughts have gone, he growls, placing the tray on the bed before he walks around and leans over me. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Lil.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him innocently.

She shakes his head, his lips twitching in response to my blatant lie. Both of us want each other—neither of us has done a very good job of hiding that—but we respect each other too much to jeopardize our respective positions here. When he’s a patched brother, though…I rub my legs together. He shakes his head before reaching down and tugging his T-shirt over his head, revealing a six-pack worthy of an underwear model. I try to remember how to swallow without choking on my tongue.

His smirk tells me he knows exactly what he’s doing. Well, two can play that game. I squirm a little, and the hem of the T-shirt I’m wearing rides up my legs.

His eyes drop to the newly exposed skin before he licks his lips. “Fuck. I’m going to take a shower. Cue up a movie.” His voice comes out gruffer than usual. I nod, eyes on his hand as it moves to his fly. He pops the buttons open, showing the outline of his rock-hard cock encased in a pair of black boxers.

I manage to bite back a whimper, my eyes moving up his body to safer territory. They land on the dog tags around his neck. I reach for them without thought as he bends down to unlace his boots. He stops when I close my fist around them, tipping his head up to look at me, my mouth hovering an inch from his.

“Why do you still wear these?” I ask softly as Lucy lifts her head and groans before jumping down and climbing into her own bed, clearly sick of our shenanigans.

“Habit mostly. There is something comforting about knowing that if something happens to me, I’ll never be lost. These will ensure that people will know my name and that I’ll make it back home, come what may.”

The lump in my throat makes it difficult to swallow, but I somehow manage. I need to get a grip on myself before I start crying. To distract us both, I reach up and kiss the tip of his nose, making him laugh. “Go get showered and hurry up before I eat all the snacks.”

“I buy them for you anyway. What’s mine is yours.” He winks before disappearing into the bathroom.

I flop back down and gaze up at the ceiling, wondering what it must be like to have the comfort of always being able to find your way back. I wish I had that. But I’m afraid not even my death would unravel all the lies I told to get me here. I spent years trying to get lost. I just never realized how lonely that would be.

With a sigh, I pick up the remote and start scrolling again, forgetting all about those dog tags.

I had no idea at the time that they’d be my lifeline or that they would indeed lead me home, even if home were now a place I wasn’t sure I was welcome anymore.

Chapter One

Now

LIL

I can taste pennies.

Something sparks my memories from another time and place—flashing lights, pain, and the taste of pennies—only it wasn’t pennies. It was blood.

I try to open my eyes, and I do eventually, but it takes far longer than it should. I groan, my body aching as if I have the flu. Wait, do I have the flu?

When I can focus, I realize I’m in a hospital bed. I shut my eyes again, wondering if I’m dreaming. But when I open them, nothing has changed. Shit, I can’t be here. I move to lift my arm, but feel something heavy on it. I glance down and sob when I see a familiar head of hair.

He must hear me. Powers’s head snaps up, his eyes clashing with mine.

“Powers,” I whimper, unable to believe this is happening. “No, no, you can’t be here. Oh god, he’ll kill you.”

His face hardens as he reaches for me, but panic claws at my insides with poison-tipped needles. “Hey, hey, calm down.” He cups my face, moving so that his nose is touching mine. “Nobody is going to touch me.”

“No, you don’t understand⁠—”

“I do, Lil. We know all about James fucking Taylor. We know exactly who he is. What we don’t know is who you are.”

My shoulders heave under the weight of all my lies. I feel like everything I’ve built has come tumbling down on top of me. The room starts to spin, and my vision turns hazy. Somewhere in the back of my head, I know I’m not getting enough oxygen, but I can’t seem to remember how to breathe.

Flashes of a life gone by play in my head—snippets in rotation like an old-fashioned zoetrope spinning wildly out of control. Love, hate, anger, pain, guilt, despair, all weave themselves into a cord that wraps itself around my neck and pulls tight.

I hear shouting in the distance, but I can’t make out the words, only the urgency. A sharp prick almost pulls me from the dizzying horrors dragging me back down memory lane. Before the monsters can open their mouths and clamp their jaws into me, everything stops, and I slowly float away.

When I next wake up, my head is clearer, and the panic has receded. Judging from the woozy feeling, it’s not because I’ve processed shit on my own. I open my eyes and find more familiar faces. Havoc and Powers are sitting in the back of the room talking to each other. In the chair next to the bed, Neaveh sits with a book in her hand. She looks up as I stir and quickly closes her book, laying it on the table. She stands and takes my hand before sitting on the edge of the bed.

“There you are,” she whispers, her eyes filled with tears. I feel my own tears running down my cheeks as I try to say something, anything, but it’s as if the words get stuck in my throat. Of course, she sees that. Instead of expecting answers, she leans over and wraps her arms around me and lets me cry my god damned eyes out.