Page 6 of While She Sleeps (The Hunter and The Thief #1)

CHAPTER FIVE

EMBER

M y appointment runs over by forty-five minutes, but I don’t bother texting Lucas to let him know. I don’t want him to know anything more about this than he needs to.

If he finds out just how much my brother’s death has fucked me up, he might decide I’m too much of a liability to keep around, and I’ve seen firsthand what Lucas does to those he no longer needs.

I press my eyes closed to blink back the memory, but it hits me so hard it takes my breath away.

The parking lot is deserted and cold.

It’s the middle of the night, a rare time that the City of Angels isn’t warm, and I’m standing beside my brother, trembling from something other than the cold.

Fear.

At sixteen, I should be out with friends, or studying, or doing something fun and innocent.

What I should absolutely not be doing is preparing to kill a man.

Travis said it was necessary. That we couldn’t be initiated if we didn’t do it. I’ve tried reasoning with him over the last few weeks, but he keeps telling me we owe Lucas. For what, I’m not sure, but he never elaborates.

It’s been three years since we ran from our last group home, and my brother has protected me every day. He says he failed me once when he allowed our foster father to sneak in one night when Lucas was fast asleep down the hall.

When he found out what happened, he packed us both a backpack, and we ran. And we’ve never stopped running.

We’ve lived on the street, in halfway houses, and we even squatted for a few months in a derelict house ready for demolition, but he’s never let anyone touch me.

I owe Travis everything.

Which is why I’m here.

I can’t let him down, not when it’s my fault we ever had to start living this life.

An old, beat-up sedan drives into the parking lot. Travis takes my hand and grips it tightly, silently giving me the support I need to go through with this.

Trembles rack through my body, but I force myself to stand still as the car parks a few yards away from us, and two men clamber out.

The stench of alcohol and weed is thick the moment the door swings open, and I swallow the bile that rises up my throat.

So maybe these two aren’t the most upstanding citizens, but I don’t think they deserve to die. Or maybe they do, but I don’t know that I should be the one who ends either of them. I just don’t have a choice.

One of Lucas’s men steps up behind the guys and kicks the backs of their knees, forcing them to the ground with a crunch that makes my stomach roll.

Travis drops my hand when Lucas turns to face us.

It’s time.

He looks between us, his eyes moving over our faces before his hand reaches toward me, and I drop my gaze to see what he’s holding out to me.

A gun.

I open my mouth to insist that Travis go first, that I’ve never held a gun, let alone shot one, but I snap it shut again. Will watching my brother kill someone really make it easier for me to do the same?

Or will the sight of a dead body turn my stomach before I can go through with my own initiation?

I wrap my fingers around the handle and test the weight. It’s heavier than I thought it would be, but it settles in my hand with an unsettling amount of ease.

“What the fuck?” The guy on the left demands, his frantic eyes suddenly holding more lucidity than when they climbed out of the car.

“Did you think you could steal from me?” Lucas asks, his face devoid of emotion. “Did you think I wouldn’t find out that you were pulling jobs behind my back? Stealing money from our operation?”

My eyes flick between the two men kneeling and Lucas. Surely they weren’t dumb enough to think they could pull the wool over the eyes of a man who deceives for a living?

“We didn’t,” the one on the left insists. His long, dark hair flicks over his scared eyes as he shakes his head. “We would never do that.”

“And yet you did.” Lucas chuckles, but there’s no humor in the sound as he turns to me. “Do it.”

I stare at him for a beat longer than I should before I drop my gaze to the man in front of me.

He stares up at me, his head shaking violently from side to side.

There’s a flash of something in his eyes that makes me think he doesn’t believe I’ll pull this trigger, and I’m beginning to doubt myself as much as he is.

“You can do it, Em,” Travis whispers. “Once you do this, we’re in. We can pay off our debt. We can have the life I’ve always wanted for us.”

Tears drip down my cheeks, but I don’t respond. I just stare down at the man I’m about to kill, my finger poised on the trigger, preparing myself to go through with something I know I’ll never be able to take back.

Once I pull this trigger, I’ll be changed irrevocably. There’s no going back once I cross this line.

I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth and release a steadying breath.

It’s now or never.

I shake the memory off as a violent shiver racks through my body.

This is the last place I want to fall apart, the last place I want to show how broken I truly am.

But PTSD is a bitch.

It’s slowly peeling pieces of me away, and soon I’m afraid there’ll be nothing left of me. Just a broken girl who has no one left to love her. No one left to protect her. No one left to give a fuck if she lives or dies.

It’s busier than I expect when I step through the front door of the club, my gym bag thrown over my shoulder, and I swallow the sigh that threatens to escape.

This is the last place I feel like being after my appointment with my psychiatrist. I feel too vulnerable, too wounded, too naked to be gawked at by all these assholes.

Some I recognize, others I’ve never seen in my life, but they all have one thing in common. They see women as entertainment. Hell, I’d wager that at least seventy percent of these assholes believe a woman’s role is in the kitchen.

Hurrying over the sticky carpet that should have been replaced long before I met Lucas, I head for the changing room.

The last time I was in here, I was tasked to find which one of his girls was skimming tips from the club.

It turned out it was actually the manager, and that he had been doing it for years, not just the months that Lucas thought.

“Hey, Ember!” Jules, a brunette with big brown eyes, beams at me when I step through the door and shut it behind me. “What are you doing here?”

“Working…apparently.” I scoff as I take in her jeweled booty shorts and sheer crop top that hides exactly nothing.

Her confidence has always made me jealous, and how she doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about her career choice.

She told me once about how her parents cut her off when they found out how she makes money, but she’s also put herself through college with this job without a single cent from them or any student loans.

She’s a fucking queen, if you ask me.

Her brows tug together. “Here?”

I nod and drop my bag at a free mirror, but try to avoid my own reflection.

Not for the first time, I’m relieved I decided to cut my hair to shoulder length after the accident, because at the very least, I’ll be able to style it quickly.

But there’s nothing I can do about the dejection tugging at every muscle, giving me a permanently sad look. “Yep.”

“Just when I thought Lucas couldn’t be more of an asshole,” she mutters, checking her reflection one last time before she pushes to her feet.

She doesn’t so much as wobble on the six-inch platform heels that I would almost definitely fall on my face if I even thought about wearing.

“Let me know if anyone gives you any trouble.”

“I will.” I smile at her kindness. “Thank you.”

The door snicks shut behind her, and I release a breath. This is too much after tearing my heart out for an hour and telling a perfect stranger how much I’m struggling.

Before I can reach for my bag, the door swings open again, and I meet Lucas’s eyes through the mirror. As a rule, he’s not supposed to be in here, or at least that’s what the girls told me the first time I stepped foot in this room, but he doesn’t seem to care.

He steps inside, and the door clicks shut behind him ominously. If there’s one thing I’ve always tried to do, it’s to not be alone in a room with this man.

There’s something about him that has always made me uncomfortable, and the way he’s staring at me right now makes my stomach churn.

“Why aren’t you getting ready?”

“I just got here,” I tell him. “My appointment ran over.”

“That’s not my problem. You have a job to do.”

I turn in my seat and glare at him. “Not my job,” I remind him. “I don’t work at the club. I’m a thief, not a dancer. I don’t know what the fuck good you think me working here tonight is going to do.” I’ve never spoken to him like this, but it seems my sense of self-preservation is waning nowadays.

Anger fills his dark orbs, and I swallow heavily when he steps toward me. I slip out of the chair and put it between us, hoping it will do something to protect me from his advance, but I should know it won’t help from how red his face has turned.

Lucas shoves the chair out of the way, and I’m so startled by the sound it makes when it hits the ground that I forget to dodge him. His fingers wrap around my forearm a moment before he tugs me into his body. The scent of whiskey and cigars lingers on his breath, and I force myself not to wretch.

I try and fail to tug myself free, but his grip on me is so tight I’m sure it’ll leave marks.

His free hand grasps my chin and forces my eyes up to meet his.

“Listen here, Ember. You work for me. You do as I tell you, when I tell you, and you don’t fucking argue.

You don’t have big brother around to protect you anymore, and you’d do well to remember who was there when you needed them. ”

I swallow heavily, holding his eyes. I should bow to him.

I owe him for saving us, and for allowing me time to heal and grieve after the accident.

But I also can’t allow him to think he can walk all over me.

It’s a dangerous precedent to set. “You’re hurting me,” I force out.

“Wouldn’t want me bruised up for your clients on the floor. ”

He stares down at me for another beat before releasing me so quickly that I stumble backward.

“You owe me a debt, and I’ll request it be paid any fucking way I please.

If I want you working here every night, you’ll do it.

If I tell you to get down on your knees and open your pretty mouth for my clients, that’s exactly what you’re going to do.

And if I tell you to bend over my desk and hold on, you’re going to do that too.

Don’t think just because you’re a good thief that you’re not dispensable.

Everyone in this life is, including a pretty little thing like you. ”

Lucas doesn’t give me another glance before he storms out and slams the door behind him. It’s not until I’m certain he’s halfway to his office that I allow my knees to collapse beneath me and sobs to tear through my body.

How much longer can I do this?

How much longer can I pretend living is a better option than succumbing to the darkness in my own mind?