Cam grins, her blue eyes twinkling. She looks happy when she says, “There’s a show and shit.”
Chase shrugs, then rubs the palms of his hands together. “What kinda show?”
Cameryn bites her lip, reaching out beside her and roughing up Chase’s hair. “One I’m almost fucking certain you will enjoy,” she says with an air of undeniable confidence.
I pinch the blunt Chase extends across the table and burn a charred line down my own throat. “Sounds promising, count me in.” My words are breathy, drifting on a cloud of smoke.
Fate.
Or chance.
Or maybe it was plain luck that had me standing frozen at the top of two flights of concrete stairs. Each landing was lined with piped crimson fluorescent flowering lights; however, it wasn’t the expertly woven rows that had me paralyzed,it was what glowed above.
Two rich-toned cherries hung from the stems of barbed wire, knotting at the top. They looked slightly battered, their insides filled with what looked like callous grit. The vivid, haunted, yet vibrant sign beamed with the words,THE BARBED CHERRY.
The warm breeze had turned slightly crisp, but I knew it wasn’t from mother nature, it was from the messageshewas sending with the incandescent imagery. It was her, the girl full of open wounds, standing bright among the sharp incisors that had tried their damndest to tear her apart.
Wind slapped across the back of my neck as my heart hammered its heavy fists off kilter in my chest.
The gang–aside from Chase, who’s standing right beside me–are already at the bottom landing when Cameryn turnsaround and jerks her slim chin toward us, her natural blonde hair dancing with the movement.
“You guys coming?” she asks, her voice full of deep tonal waves.
I raise my cigarette, using it as an excuse because the rush of adrenaline that has leached into my veins almost has me jittery, and it’s not from nerves. It’s pure excitement, an emotion I had convinced myself I wouldn’t experience again in this lifetime.
I take the last drag of my cigarette before squashing it beneath my boot and jerking my chin toward Cam. I whistle and all four heads whip around with the sharp sound. It reverberates off the concrete walls, sending deep clangs twirling the mouth of the steep stairs.
“Who did you say your friend's name was?” I ask, licking my lips.
“Blaine,” Cameryn says, stepping off the final stair.“But she goes byCherry.”
Of course she fucking does.
I pinch my bottom lip to hide my smile, my thoughts carouseling back to the conversation I had with Chase outside of Wes’s bar the night Cherry turned her back on me,for a second time.
“That girl was Blaine.” He pauses and waits for some kind of reaction, but I don’t know who the fuck Blaine is. “Tyler and Cameryn’s best friend,” he finishes.
Oh, that Blaine. I start to shake my head. “Nah, dude. I asked her if she knew Tyler this morning when I gave her a ride back here, she told me she didn’t.”
They’ve all spun back around, almost at the entrance, and I’m staring at a sea of leather and fishnet tights when I feel a nudge to my ribs. Snapping my head to the side, I catch Chase’s smug gaze zeroed in on me. He shoves a piece of long brown hair behind his ear.
“I fucking knew it.” Chase’s voice is low. A smile extends across his cheeks as he takes the last pull from his almost burned-out cigarette.
Yes. Yes, you did.
My eyes divert back to the glowing cherry above our heads, my pulse fluttering lightly in my neck, and I shove my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. “So, she was the one Tyler left, huh?”
“Yup,” Chase replies, drawing out the word on a breath of nicotine.
I drop my chin toward my feet, tap the tips of both of my Chucks one after the other against the ground, then I’m cracking my knuckles and dragging my clammy palms back through my hair.
I keep my chin lowered, but flick my eyes up to the sign again.
It’s chilling.
Yet so goddamn beautiful,just like her.
I run my thumb over my bottom lip. “Maybe that means he will not kill me when he finds out what I did…” I pause, inspecting the gritty insides of each cherry more closely, knowing that his very actions distorted her peace long before mine did. I swallow hard, the movement rough among the walls of my throat. “Because the motherfucker left her first.”
