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A calling I couldn’t answer.

And her goddamn friend is to blame.

Marina. I remember the brown-haired rich bitch. She dropped Shiloh over once when her dad’s drivers—the three of them—were down with the flu. Right after I moved in and before the end of the school year.

That day, I looked out the window, hating that I couldn’t drive. That I couldn’t take her. The staff in the house we lived in locked the garage when they’d caught me driving one of the many cars Shiloh’s dad had owned out to the driveway. Without a driver’s license.

It was nice of Marina. Resentment seared through my body, regardless.

I had to watch Shiloh climb out of someone else’s Bentley. Someone else had taken care of what was mine.

I can drive just fine now. It’d taken me years to convince Dr. Reynolds to sign off on driving classes and a driver’s license. In exchange, I offered him ten minutes of talking about my abusive, dead father.

“Take me home.” Shiloh does her best to sound brave. Calm.

The syringe practically vibrates in my palm.

The syringe I landed for her. For our games.

After I eliminate the threat.

The girls’ chatter fades as I walk in the opposite direction, moving through the streets and then alleyways to where I parked Elron’s car.

The ride to her home is uneventful. To avoid being detected, I drive through back alleys. The traffic is lighter that way, too, so no wonder I get there before them. Shiloh’s apartment is bathed in darkness.

She’s out there.

My woman and the bitch who doesn’t want me anywhere near her.

Won’t be the first time someone tells her to stay away from me.

“Shiloh, what the hell did I tell you?” her dad bellowed, his voice sharp through the thick walls.

My mother wasn’t there to tell him to shut up. She’d never been there to stick up for her stepdaughter. She’d hide somewhere around the house, pretending to be asleep.

I was there. As soon as the bastard started raising his voice, I tore the door of my bedroom open. I’d been sleeping that night when he came to her room. Only had my sweats and my T-shirt on. No mask. No time to pull it over my head.

Fighting sleep, I moved slower than I would’ve liked.

But I moved.

I’d always haul ass for her.

I’m coming, Shiloh.

“What now?” She sounded strong for an eleven-year-old. Fierce. “What do you want?”

My feet thumped on the carpet.

“Wasting your goddamn time with that freak and his goddamn mask.” When he shouted shit like that about me, I figured Mom wasn’t just hiding. He’d probably given her one of her many sleeping pills. Made her his own version of Sleeping Beauty.Guess she liked it better than getting beat up every other day.Not like I gave a fuck about her. “Don’t you dare try to deny it. I saw you on the camera app today.”

The motherfucker had a camera in her room. Should’ve realized it sooner. Controlling psycho.

“He’s not a freak.” At the sound of her tiny roar, I halted in place. It reminded me of Simba from that “Lion King” movie she’d made me sit through a few days ago. “Stop calling him that!”

I was sure I was hearing her wrong.

“But he is!”