Page 85 of The Lies We Steal

“She’ll be here.” I tell Thatcher as I throw the butt of my cigarette out onto the ground, stomping on it, crushing the ember beneath my weight.

And if she didn’t show up, then whatever happened to her after she did to herself.

Rook and Silas were busy shutting down security cameras, which left Thatcher and I to escort Briar and Lyra into the pretentious Halloween ball. It was basically a way for students and teachers to openly judge each other. On their outfits, their dates, anything their self-righteous eyes could see they would tear apart.

It’s always the people in glasshouses that throw the most stones.

My phone hummed in my pocket, I pulled it out checking the illuminated screen. There’s a message from Shade making me furrow my eyebrows as I click on the green messenger app.

I sent in my recommendation, you should think about applying.

Attached was a link to a shop in New York that was hiring new tattoo artists. They were looking for someone who specialized in black and gray. I thought about what my life would be like if I could accept this offer.

I was a few months away from getting my licenses and I could work anywhere I wanted. Had Rose not been killed, I would have already been on the east coast. Probably in New York, already working at a shop, living in a one-bedroom apartment walking to work where there wasn’t a single person who knew my name.

I’d be all alone.

Would I even like my life without the boys? I mean I had no doubt Thatcher was already going to move east and so was Rook, but Silas had planned on staying here with Rose. Could we all head out together? Start new lives where the trail of blood would stop following us and we could just, live?

I wanted to say yes, but that was being optimistic.

“What’s that about?” Thatcher asks, sticking his nose towards my phone.

“Have you always been this fucking nosey?” I jerk the screen away, shoving it back into my pocket away from his eyes.

“I’ve never had to be. You’ve never been this secretive before.” He looks down at me like I stole something from him. This deranged need for him to know everything about us gets old, fast.

“Listen… I don’t ask you what you’ve been up to when you come home with blood on your hands, okay? We all have things we keep to ourselves, even you.”

I don’t think he’s killing people. I mean, he might be, but I doubt it. I just think he has his own ways of releasing steam like the rest of us. Thatcher’s is just a little more…gruesome.

This makes him drop it, because even he’s not ready to own up to his own secrets.

“Here, I picked the most basic one I could find.” He tosses me a mask, solid black with swirls of sliver across the front.

“I’m not wearing this.”

I look over to see him attaching the dark red and black one to his face, tying it behind his head. The mask covers the upper half of his face, matching his corresponding-colored suit.

“Don’t be such a wimp, just put the mask on.”

Grunting in irritation as I fumble with the string, pressing the plastic onto my face and tying it tightly behind my head. Mine shields most of my left side, some of my nose uncovered, along with my right cheek bone and lips.

I just knew I looked fucking laughable in this thing.

The click of heels in step makes me turn my head, hoping it’s not another girl wearing a variation of the same dress clinging to her date because she can’t walk in her shoes.

Lyra’s dress is tulle on tulle, the crimson lace stretches around her waist exposing a full figure she hides beneath her normal wardrobe. She reminded me of a girl who’d grown up listening to fairytales. Just not the ones of kissing frogs and happily ever afters.

The Brothers Grimm fairytales.

Ones that told stories of brutality and death. Not of gold and stolen kisses, but blood and the power of dark magic.

The fabric fades into a rich black color at the bottom as the ball gown style dress grazes the ground as she walks towards us. Even I can admit that the way her blunt bangs drape above her black glittered mask, exposing the pale skin of her face, matched with red lipstick is hot.

“Looks like someone is stealing your signature color, Thatch.” I mutter, leaning back into him covertly.

“Evidently.” He breathes, like it took all his oxygen just to say that simple word.