Okay, I mean I wasn’t going to lie and say that I didn’t love hearing that.
“Thanks.” I shifted uncomfortably. I kind of liked thinking Gage had left all his money at Shade Tower. Rich Gage was a little intimidating for some reason.
“Shall we?” Dash opened the door to the emergency exit and we stepped inside of a dark stairwell.
Please don’t be another eccentric Aunt Vera, I told myself.The world could only handle one of those.
We traversed the hallway, taking the stairs up one floor. Dash was quiet and stiff as we passed a lady and her pit bull. Once we reached apartment number sixty-one, Dash stopped, turning to face it. We all waited as he stared at the door and then reached up and knocked.
There was rustling inside the apartment and then the door wrenched open to reveal a big dude with a shaved head and beard. My eyes went to his arm, where there was a tattoo of a snake wearing headphones inked across the entire thing. He looked about twenty-one or twenty-two. His gaze went to Dash’s covered face and then our ragtag group, and he flicked his chin up.
“Can I help you?”
Dash pushed back his hood and pulled his neck gaiter down and the guy stiffened.
“You’re alive?” he hissed, and then reached out, yanking Dash by the shoulders and pulling him into the apartment.
Gage rushed in next, probably unsure whether the guy was going to hurt Dash or not, and Indigo and I followed in last.
We’d stepped in an entryway to a nice apartment with modern furnishings and watched as snake tattoo guy stared at Dash in shock.
“What the hell, man! You don’t call?” He gripped Dash’s shoulders and shook him a little.
Shame burned Dash’s cheeks and he pulled the hood back up. “It was safer for you that way.”
The guy looked angry now, dropping Dash’s shoulders and glaring at him with a venom I didn’t like. “I had a damned little private funeral for you,” he snapped. “I thought you were dead, bro.”
This guy looked nothing like Dash, so I was guessing it was the friendly bro term, not the related one. Maybe an old best friend?
Dash winced. “I’m sorry. When I told my parents I was going to choose Lumen… they didn’t take it well.”
The dude scoffed and shot Dash a look that saidSo what?“You could have said goodbye to me.”
“They tried to kill me,” Dash clarified. “I was in a hurry to leave.”
The guy clenched his jaw, not looking the least bit won over by the vulnerability Dash was sharing, but his gaze did drift to the scar on the side of Dash’s face before he looked over at the rest of us with a scowl. “Why would you go to the prissy do-gooders anyway?” he asked.
Prissy do-gooders! Hold me back.
Dash cleared his throat. “I have my reasons. Snake, these are my Lumen friends, Gage, Indigo, and Tatum.”
Okay, so we were telling the truth and using real names with this guy. Cool. Cool. Cool.
“You trust him?” Gage asked, parroting my thoughts.
Snake glared at Gage. “We took a blood oath never to betray each other when we were ten. It was spelled. I couldn’t rat him out if I wanted to.”
Dash grinned. “I think I’m getting the better end of that deal.”
Snake moved quickly, pulling Dash into a bro hug, thumping him on the back hard twice. Dash stiffened but hugged him back.
“I missed you, ya asshole,” Snake muttered, and then let go, his eyes shiny with unshed tears, but he blinked them back.
Dash shared a small smile. “Are you still staying up all night playingCall of Duty?”
Snake chuckled. “Only half the night.”
We stood there awkwardly while they reminisced, then Dash flicked a glance at me. “Hey, have you heard of a girl named Harley? She probably grew up on the south side of—”
