“Now!” Lucas shouts when no one moves.
What the hell is he doing?
One of Farrow’s friends steps into view. “Who the fuck are you, man?”
But Lucas doesn’t hesitate. Whipping his T-shirt off over his head, he spins around. “Out!” he yells.
And I see it. The same thing everyone sees. The tattoo down his right shoulder, curving around the shoulder blade, and fading as it descends to the ribs and waist.
“Oh, shit!” someone exclaims.
The room silences, and I grab the banister, craning my neck to study the design, but he moves too fast.
“Move!” Lucas whips his arm, gesturing to the door.
And just like that, everyone floods out of the house.
Not walking.
Running.
“Let’s go!” I hear someone say.
“You heard him,” Mace calls out. “Everyone out now!”
Confusion freezes me. Why are they listening to him?
Bodies collide, pushing each other as they try to fit out the door.
“Oh my God,” one of Aro’s Weston friends bursts out. “Did you see that?”
“That was a real fucking tat,” someone else says.
My eyes zone in on Lucas, burning so hard they hurt.
I jerk my head to Noah, telling him to follow everyone and get out. I don’t want him in Lucas’s path.
He holds back, but I stand aside, silently urging him as I tip my head to the door. As the place empties, Lucas glares up at me and I hold his eyes without blinking.
That tattoo. I’d forgotten about it. He had it that day at the camp lodge when I was a kid.
The door slams shut behind the last of the guests, and I barrel down the stairs, charging up to him.
“What the hell was that?” I bark.
I jet around him, trying to get a look at the ink on his back, but he turns, keeping us face to face.
His blue eyes spit fire as he gazes down at me. Heat pours off his body, and he breathes like he’s dying to hurt me, and I’m not sure that scares me at all.
“Why…” I swallow, wetting my parched throat. “Why did it seem like they knew you?”
They obeyed him as soon as they saw the ink.
But he ignores my question. “You’re not old enough to live on your own.” He digs in his eyebrows. “Did you think any of this was going to fly?”
“You’re not my father!”
He rakes a hand through his hair, fucking losing his mind. “A condemned house in a decrepit neighborhood,” he rambles, “living right next door to a career criminal with any one of a dozen little shits coming and going from his house who would love to slip something in your drink!” He gets in my face. “You failed to mention that! Or was it deliberate?”
