Page 39 of The Lies We Steal

Taking a leap forward, I reach my arm forward, hooking it around her waist and yanking her to my body as we surge forward. My body twists instinctively so that my back will take the fall.

We tumble onto the ground, rolling to a stop. She pushes herself out of my arms, crawling on her hands and knees to get away from me. I snatch her ankle, yanking her back to me.

Quickly maneuvering my body to sit on top of her. Pinning her waist down with my own. Both of my knees planted firmly on either side of her body. Her arms and legs kick, she scratches, does everything she can possibly do to throw me off, but it’s pointless.

A scream begins to rip from her chest, just as I slam my hand over her mouth, my palm pressing into her lips. My free hand gathering her hands and holding them over her head.

We are only twenty yards from campus, so that means we have to deal with this delicately. I can’t have her screams waking the entire school up.

“Here I was thinking you were smart,” I breathe, my chest heaving from the chase, a smile creeps up on my face, “You should know what happens when you run. It only makes me want to chase you more.”

Her knee hits my ass, a sad attempt at pushing me off her body. I commended the effort, no matter how sad it was. I can admire someone who puts up a fight instead of begging for help. The kind of person who was their own savior.

She screams behind my palm, all of it muffled. It won’t be long before she comes to terms with the fact, screaming isn’t going to do anything.

I jerk her body up from the ground, pushing her body in front of mine, her hands in my vise grip behind her back, my other still keeping her mouth shut.

Rook appears from the woods, her friend in a similar position in his arms. He’s breathing heavily, his longish hair disheveled and flopping around. She also must have put up a hell of a fight.

“Well, it seems we have a small problem.” Thatcher says sarcastically, adjusting his coat and clearing his throat. Placing his hands on his hips as he takes a deep breath.

“Small? They just watched us kill someone. So, what the fuck are we gonna do with them?” Rook breaths, the slight panic in his voice annoys me.

I’m going to take care of it. I always take care of it.

“I mean we have options.” Thatcher says, looking over at Briar, “It seems you caught the one you wanted, Ali.” His eyes moving to Briar’s friend.

I’d seen her around before, briefly, maybe twice in my entire life but I knew she lived around here. I just wasn’t sure who she was exactly.

Thatcher watches her and she returns that favor. Their eyes stuck on each other, in some weird satanic mating ritual.

“We can’t fucking kill them, Thatch.”

My blonde friend, the one with more issues than hustler, smiled in the dark. The moon reflecting off it, blinding us.

“Says who?” He lifts his eyebrow, still looking at the small dark-haired girl.The flash of his pocketknife appears and Briar stiffens in my arms. Straight as a board. The hair on her arms pebbled.

She was tiny, compared to the lanky thing in my arms. Having her pressed into me showed me she was tall for a girl. I also noticed, through my deep breaths, that she smelt floral.

Soft, exotic, sweet.

Briar jerks in my arms, opposing Thatcher’s statement. I wasn’t sure if she was fighting for herself in this, or if she was fighting for her friend who had become a fascination to my psychopathic partner.

“Calm down, girl.” I murmur into her hair. My voice holds a smirk, but I say it like you’d talk to a spooked horse.

“Says me, Thatcher. We kill them and we are no better than the scum we are after.” Rook argues with me.

“Sweet, Rook. That’s what you will never understand. I’m not any better than them.” Thatcher says.

“Will you two shut the fuck up so I can think.”I grit out.

As easy as it would be to kill them right now, it wasn’t the best idea. They sadly, hadn’t done anything, yet. So killing them would be slaughtering innocent people and that wasn’t what I was into.

However, killing them would insure me and the boys were protected. I would do anything to make sure nothing would happen to them, even if it meant hurting someone innocent.

Goddammit.

“We aren’t going to kill them. Because they are going to stay quiet, isn’t that right, Briar?”