Chapter 2
“ R ough night?”
The balding man next to me on the city bus leaned in, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Don’t worry, darlin’. We’ve all had them.”
I shot to my feet before he could pat my thighs. The man lifted his hands in a plaintive gesture at my cutting glare, letting out a strained chuff of a laugh.
My teeth ground noisily in my jaw.
I was dead once. For a full two minutes.
This was a walk in the fucking park. It didn’t matter that I had barely two hundred dollars left in my wallet.
Or that I’d had to spend the night in a seedy motel, jamming towels against the base of the door to make sure no one could shove a coat hanger under it and force their way in.
Nope. Didn’t matter at all.
I clutched the top rail as I made my way to the front of the packed bus, grimacing as I squeezed through the other people along for the ride.
My nose wrinkled at the menagerie of foreign scents, leaving me wondering if the mothball and harsh detergent stench clogging the back of my throat was from one of these people or the stiff floral motel comforter.
Dipping my head, I gave my shoulder a covert sniff and gagged. Yep. The motel had fused its decaying essence to my Loro Piana dress.
Taking a centering breath, I reminded myself my sour mood was more than likely due to the acute lack of caffeine in my system. I wasn’t about to touch the oxidized single cup brewer back at the motel.
Checking the map on my phone again, I made sure the bus still headed in the right direction. I missed the first one, even though I was waiting at the stop promptly at 8:52 am like the online schedule said.
My phone buzzed, a message dropping down from the top of the screen, making my fist clench around the device.
Dad: There’s still time to change your mind. The dean of admissions is waiting for my call. There’s an apartment in the city with your name on it. I’ve already put a deposit down. All the amenities, everything you could…
I didn’t bother tapping it to read the rest.
This time, I wouldn’t be bought. Not after all the shit I’d lived through this past year. As if on cue, the scar over my heart throbbed and I hunched against the bone-deep ache until it passed.
It was a miracle I was alive at all after being shot in the chest at close range.
I wasn’t about to waste this second chance at life doing absofuckinglutely anything I didn’t want to do.
And if that meant living the broke girl life, then so be it.
I’d loved art since I was old enough to soak my stubby fingers in plastic paint cups, smearing rainbows over the white-washed walls.
This scholarship to CalArts was the opportunity of a lifetime, and if I didn’t at least try to take it, then I was an idiot.
Oh so cliché, but it was true: money couldn’t buy happiness.
I was living proof. I still went looking for it in all the wrong places…
which was what got me a backstage pass behind the dark curtain of Thorn Valley in the first place.
Once I’d seen it, I couldn’t unsee it, but that wasn’t why I stayed.
She was.
My lethal bestie, Ava Jade. She needed me, and I wasn’t the sort of bitch who left a friend in the dirt. Not anymore.
“Excuse me,” I muttered as the bus rolled to a stop and the other students on board shuffled forward, jostling everyone in their path. I followed in their wake, stumbling from the step down to the sidewalk.
I righted my footing, taking a long breath of fresh air, closing my eyes at the feel of warm sun on my cheeks.
“Watch it,” a growl sounded behind me before a body knocked into my shoulder, shoving me out of the way while the bus drove off.
I lifted my purse back onto my shoulder, a hot coil of rage shooting up my spine, leaving me wishing for one of Ava Jade’s blades as I watched the woman who almost knocked me over storm away.
I shook my head.
Coffee. I really needed a fucking coffee before I attempted murder.
My heeled boots clacked against the smooth sidewalk as I lifted a hand to shield my eyes against the sun, getting my bearings.
I rushed through here yesterday on my way to the administrative office at CalArts, but I was only really seeing it for the first time.
The strip of shops and bars where I stood lay stretched out in the middle of a wide green space.
Far off, over the rooftops of the shops to the left, Kilborn University stood proudly, with its stately columns and reaching spires.
A marvel of red brick and Grecian inspiration that could give Harvard a run for its money.
To my left, in the distance, down a winding path through the gardens rested CalArts. Modern, done up in all white with warm brown wood accents.
The two universities shared this common green and the shops between them.
My stomach growled and I cleared my throat to conceal the sound, an old habit I’d never completely managed to break.
“Sorry,” I sighed, moving out of the way of a group of women linked arm in arm as they strode down the street. The smell of cloying gardenia perfume and… was that coffee?… clung to them as they passed.
I whipped my head around, searching the windows of the shops the way they’d just come, my mouth already watering. A few shops down, a black door burst open and the few students who’d been walking past scattered, hurrying to get out of the way.
Wary, I paused, scanning the street for danger as my pulse pounded in my throat.
A tall man in a leather jacket exited the building, dragging another man with him. I spotted the idling Ford Bronco on the street right outside and noticed that not a soul came anywhere near the two men as one dragged the other to the modded vehicle.
The top was removed and a light bar clung to the underside of the brush bar on the front grill. Wide-eyed spotlights perched above the windshield on the roll bar. It looked like a beach wagon and backcountry hunting truck had a shockingly attractive baby.
The guy in the leather jacket unceremoniously tossed the half-dead one over the side of the Bronco into the back seat, earning himself a slur of curses.
That’s when it hit me, the smell of stale liquor and cherry cigars. My nose wrinkled as the nondescript black door shut with a metallic clatter.
The man in the leather jacket rolled his shoulders back, twisting his neck this way and that as he pushed inky hair back from his face with tattooed fingers.
He snorted loudly before turning to spit into the street, giving me a full view of his face.
He was paler than a man living in SoCal ought to be, but it didn’t take away from his cruel beauty. I swallowed, following the long line of his tatted neck up to a sculpted jawline, black brows, one with a tattoo arching over it in sharp script I couldn’t read from this far away.
Turn around, I chastised myself, every alarm bell in my body ringing. Just turn around. Walk away.
I shuffled a foot back, but before I could spin on my heel, his head whipped around, piercing dark eyes meeting mine.
A muscle in his jaw ticked as he took me in, upper lip curling with something like disdain as he drank up every inch of me.
Those black eyes holding me hostage until he was finished.
The instant he looked away, I felt my body sag, catching myself on the rough wood of a light post. Old staples dug into my palm.
Dark and gloomy gripped the top bar of the Bronco and launched himself over the side like he wasn’t hiding two hundred pounds of pure muscle under the dark jeans and jacket he wore.
Spoiler alert: I was pretty fucking sure he was.
Scorpio, a tiny, scared voice whispered in my mind. Definitely a Scorpio.
He revved the Bronco engine, eyes fixed to me through the windshield, and I stumbled back as he floored it, foolishly afraid he was going to hop the sidewalk and run me down.
My purse rang loudly, and I cursed as he sped past, digging into the abyss to find it. Ava Jade’s ringtone, the live version of one of her duets with Primal Ethos blared into the morning air, slicing through all the angst of a minute before.
As soon as I lifted it from my bag, it slipped from my fingers onto the sidewalk and I yelped as someone walking by stepped on it.
“Shit. Shit, I’m so sorry,” the guy said, bending at the same time as me to pick it up. I snatched it from his fingers with a growl on my lips.
“Watch where you’re walking,” I barked, making him reel back with a snide remark on his lips as he walked away and I answered the call just before it could go to voicemail.
“Aves?”
Something sharp bit into my finger as her voice came through and I suppressed a cry of pain, pulling my phone back from my ear to see the screen was good and smashed.
“Hey, Becks!”
I clenched my teeth.
“Becks?”
I lifted the phone back to my ear more carefully, hating how my eyes instantly watered with frustrated tears. “Hey, girl, how’s the tour?”
“It’s a tour,” she said. “Being stuck in a tiny ass bus with this fucker isn’t exactly the glamourous rock star life you’re picturing.”
“You fucking love it,” I heard Corvus grumble somewhere near her and, I could practically feel the sexual tension coming through the phone line.
“ Mmhmmm ,” I joked, agreeing with Corvus, though I knew she probably missed her other guys. While she was off on tour with Corvus, Rook and Grey were helping Diesel take care of shit back in Thorn Valley. Making sure no other gang would ever so much as lay a toe in their territory again.
“Whatever,” Ava Jade said with a laugh on her lips and I could see her eye roll as though she was right here with me. Fuck if I didn’t wish she was. “Enough about the tour. How’s SoCal? When do you start classes again?”
“Tomorrow.”
“How’s that Airbnb you found?”
I cringed at the lie. Aves knew my dad cut me off, but I made it sound a lot less desperate of a situation than it really was. Just because she inherited a buttload of money from her aunt didn’t mean I was going to let her pay my way, no matter how many times she insisted.