Page 97 of The Lies We Steal

I don’t listen, I grab her belt loops hooking my fingers into them and slowly pulling her into me. My mouth breathing the same air as she is, our noses brushing each other.

“They look at me like that too.” I whisper, my tone grainy.

I’d come from generations of wealth and was still treated the same as the girl with practically nothing. It had nothing to do with money and everything to do with what was inside of us.

“They look at me like I’ll be nothing. I’ve learned over the years, I like it. I love being the person they shove in the shadows.”

Her eyes ignite with passion, as our hips press into one another. My right hand resting at the base of her throat, fingers curling around her neck just a little. I could feel her heartbeat beneath my hand, the fast pasted pitter patter.

My tongue swipes across my bottom lip, catching hers in the process, “I thrive there. We can do whatever we want inside of the shadows. It’s where I belong. Our invisibility doesn’t make us weak, Little Thief.”

The pressure of my hand increases, a small whimper falling from her lips.

“It gives us power.”

The look in her eyes tests my self-control, it’s the look of need. She wants me to kiss her. Kiss her lips, her neck, the sweet place between her shoulder and throat, her ample tits, the curve of her spine. She wants me all over her, inside of her.

We can never be clean of each other again.

I want my words to soak into her skin. Seep into her system so that she understands what damage she can do when she recognizes the dark and twisty pieces of her are not something that need to be hidden away. They need to be what propels her forward.

It’s the only way she’ll make it out of this place alive.

I release my grip, pushing off the wall behind her to put distance between us, my cock hating me for taking it away from her warmth.

Standing there for a moment longer, staring at her, the way her chest rises and falls. How her flushed cheeks make her look even more innocent than she already is. It would be so easy to take her, right here in this hallway.

Instead I turn around, forcing my legs to move me back towards my dorm room where Rook and Thatcher are probably trying to listen through the door with a glass cup.

“Wait—Alistair—wait,” I pause giving her the floor to speak, only for a second though, and she knows that.

“I wanna know,” She breathes, “I wanna know what it is that makes the shadows so great. I want you to show me.”

My fists clench as fire rushes through my veins, excitement pumping through my blood. I bite my tongue, holding in a smile.

I knew who Briar was. I knew the girl she was and who she could be the moment I saw her at that party. I knew the damage she could wreak on this place.

Now it was time for her to see that for herself.

Briar

The roar of engines vibrated the concrete stadium I walked into. The smell of burnt rubber and weed. I’d been amazed when we walked up from the parking lot at the bottom of a small hill to see the towering lights still worked for this place. Assuming it had been someone’s parents’ money that got them powered up again. Underground rap to death metal, the music that clamored into the night.

People who looked no older than fourteen smoked cigarettes by the center of the track, even people who looked close to thirty huddled together placing bets on the lunatics that raced around the cracked and broken track.

The Graveyard was everything I expected it to be.

Chaos. Mayhem. Rebellion.

“How have the police not shut this place down?” I yell over the craziness to Lyra who is leading me to a row of concrete seats that are open. They aren’t too far up, so we can see everything pretty clearly.

Including the makeshift boxing ring that sits in the center of the stadium. A large patch of dirt in the middle of the grass from where the green refused to grow after it had been stepped on too many times.

I cringed as I watched a kid my age crumble to the ground after a knee to the face.

If something like this was in my small town in Texas, the sheriff and half the county cops would be on it like white on rice.

“They know they won’t be able to do anything about it. You can’t arrest all of us that are here, and even if you do, most of the people here have enough money to be out of the handcuffs before they are even booked. It’s pointless.”