Page 45 of The Lies We Steal

A boost of endorphins through your system. Making your skin tingle and heart race. It's why there are adrenaline junkies in the world. Because they enjoy being scared. The rush of death.

Something we all have a taste for in one form or another.

Silas reloads his mag with a new clip, the clicking and clacking of the gun the only noise from him, even as he watches Rook grin like a cheeky bastard in front of him.

While Silas had gathered quite the collection of weapons over the years I’ve known him. He had a favorite. The one he used most often, the one he’d been given at fifteen.

The barrel of the Desert Eagle .50 catches the sunlight, the two sentences inscribed on each side reading,

Timebo malaon the left.

Vallis tua umbramon the right.

It’s latin for,“Fear no evil. The shadow and valley are yours.”

It had been given as a birthday present from Rosemary. The custom red skull grip, polished chrome barrel had cost nothing less than three grand. It had been the perfect gift for someone like it him, a testament to their relationship and the connection they had shared.

A connection meant to last a lifetime but was ripped viciously from both of them.

With ease he lifts the gun, the massive semi-automatic weapon was not something I was ever a fan of. I preferred to have full control over the destruction I implicated. Guns felt too impersonal. Not to mention, firing that thing felt like smacking a hammer against your hand.

Yet, he made it look easy. Simple. Like it was nothing.

Resting on my elbows, I waited, watching as he raised his right shoulder just below his cheek holding the gun out in front of him expertly. Rook lifted his arms out wide, leaving Silas room to shoot around his body.

There is a pause for dramatic effect before the gun begins to go off. Barely jerking Silas’s hands back as he fires over and over again, adjusting and positioning his aim to whiz past Rook’s solid body.

Once the gun is empty, he points it down at the ground. Cracking his neck as he looks back up at his handy work.

We all watch Rook step away from the target, a perfect line of bullet holes marking his silhouette behind him. I’d thought it was empty, until Silas fires two more bullets plunging two holes into the chips.

“Tried to take a little off the top, didn’t you shithead?” Rook teases, pouting that his snack is now ruined.

A ghost of a smirk finds its way on Silas’s face and I smile a bit. The first real emotion besides rage or anguish evident that I’d seen since Rose died.

Rook was good at that. Making Silas smile, making him forget the pain for solitary moments at a time.

He needed this. Needed his friends. He needed to know that he would be okay and we would be there if he wasn’t.

“Pay up, bitch.” Rook puts a hand out to Thatcher who glides his hands into his slacks, thumbing through crisp hundred dollar bills placing them in his palm.

“Shame he missed. I was hoping for a bit of blood.”

“Course you were, Dracula.” He says folding the money into his back pocket.

I roll my tongue across the top of my teeth, “Not that I don’t love spending time with you three, but any reason I received a 911 text?” I speak for the first time since arriving.

I’d planned on going to Spade One this evening, but I’d got an emergency meeting text from Silas, who rarely even messages in the group, so I knew it had to be important.

Thatcher is the first to acknowledge me, “It’s about your little pet.”

Briar Lowell.

Not a pet. Just a target.

I wasn’t worried she’d opened her pretty mouth, I’d kept a close eye on both her and her friend. A testament to my abilities to stay out of sight because both of them couldn’t stop looking over their shoulders.

Especially Briar.