Inked in Lies: The Fallen Men #5 Read online

  “You are,” Dane agreed, his voice too loud in the hushed, confessional space the kitchen had become. He was standing too tall, his chest puffed out. “And I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Now that Lila has a safe place to be, I can do what I’ve always wanted to do, and I can do it making money for the family so we aren’t a burden––”

  “You are not a burden,” Molly interjected.

  Dane ignored her.

  “I’m enlisting,” he continued. I was old enough to know what that meant, to feel each word like an assault rifle pounding rounds into my chest. “I’m enlisting in the navy.”

  “Hey now, don’t do something so drastic because of this,” Diogo demanded, stepping forward. “We want you here, we’ll make it work.”

  But my brother was already shaking his head, so firm, so calm. As assured in this as he was everything else.

  I felt my heart sink like a stone into the soft pit of my belly.

  “Always wanted to do something worthwhile. Jonathon’s an idiot, but he did something worthwhile for me and Lila by quitting school. I want to do something worthwhile by making money for this family while serving my country.”

  “You just want to be a hero instead of someone evil like Papá,” I spat at him, backing away from Jonathon, Molly, and Diogo, inching toward the front door to be as far from my brother as I could possibly be so that maybe it would lessen the assault on my heart. “You just want to prove you’re better than him.”

  Dane stared at me for a moment with sad, wet, velvet blue eyes. “Maybe, Li, maybe you’re right. But I’m going to do it anyway, and I’m going to do it for more than just that.”

  “You’re going to leave!” I screeched so loudly the words ripped through my throat and exploded in the air.

  Milo and Oliver flinched. Hudson started toward me then turned away, running to his parents.

  “Lila,” Dane started, coming for me with his big, gentle hands extended. “Come on, now.”

  “NO!” I screamed as loud as I could, trying to expel the poison that was pooling in my belly, swirling around my sunken heart and spilling through my veins. “NO! You just promised me. You just promised me you wouldn’t leave. What are you doing? What are you doing? You’re leaving me!”

  “I’m not leaving right now,” he tried to soothe, palms open to the sky as he crept closer. “I have to join up, complete training…I might not even have to go overseas right away.”

  “Dane, we’re at war in Afghanistan,” Diogo rumbled.

  Molly swatted at Diogo to silence him, but it was too late.

  My eyes bugged out of my head so far I thought they would fall out.

  “We’re at war? Why do you want to keep fighting? We just found it. We just found it!” I yelled at him, scrambling backward down the hall to the front door faster because Dane was gaining on me, and if he touched me I’d detonate, and there would be so many pieces I’d never fit back together again right.

  “Found what, Li?” he asked calmly, trying to smile, trying to comfort me when he was the one ripping me apart. “You aren’t losing anything. Stop backing up. Let’s talk about this, okay?”

  “We just found peace,” I hiccoughed, the bubble of air bursting in my throat, breaking the dam on my tears. They flooded forth, pouring like fire down my cheeks as I blindly reached for the door handle and yanked it open. “We just found peace, and you want more war.”

  “Lila,” he said sharply as I turned on my heel and ran into the cool autumn morning. “Lila, get back here!”

  But I didn’t go back.

  I did what I’d wanted to do every day in that yellow house across the street. I did what I hadn’t wanted to do any of the days since I’d moved in with the Booths until now.

  I ran away.

  * * *

  * * *

  The skate park was nearly abandoned so early on a Sunday morning. I sat in one of the sloping bowls of graffitied concrete, letting the sun warm my face, eyes unseeing as they stared up at the clotted clouds blowing like overwhipped cream across the blue sky.

  My tears had dried, leaving tight, salty tracks down to my ears, but at least I felt emptied. Purged. Thoughts filtered in and out of my heads thin as gauze. There was a lingering ache in my chest, but it had dulled and deepened. I knew it would be there forever, a crater carved beneath my breastbone where fear and abandonment had nearly sundered me in two.

  It was only a matter of time before someone found me.

  I thought maybe it would be Milo and Oliver because they always knew how to make me smile, but in the end, it was Jonathon.

  It irritated me to see his face in my line of sight, his features in shadow, the sun an aura behind his head. He’d been busy since we moved in, working, and I’d thought, doing school work. In that time, he’d also changed in some indecipherable way. His smiles felt like secrets pressed between his lips. I wanted to part the pages and read what was written there, but I was too young to understand how to ask the right questions to unlock his mysteries. We hadn’t spent much time together, and as a result, I was annoyed with him for being the one to find me. It felt insincere somehow.

  He stared down at me without saying anything for a long moment, then shifted out of view so he could lie with his head beside mine, facing the other way.

  It was irrational, but I was angry with him too.

  He was Dane’s best friend. He should have said something, protested more or better. Stopped him from hatching such a stupid, selfish idea.

  My heart burned in my chest, and fire boiled up my throat, so I aimed it at the only person I could.

  “You’re an asshole,” I told him. “You and Dane.”

  “Hey, now, what the hell did I do? And you shouldn’t be swearin’, Li, it’s not right for little girls.”

  “I’m not a little girl,” I said stubbornly even though I was acutely aware of that reality.

  If I was an adult I could work, and Dane wouldn’t have to work for the both of us. Jonathon wouldn’t have had to drop out of school, and Dane wouldn’t have to leave.

  My age felt like an albatross around my neck, and I was furious over my helplessness to remove it.

  “Okay,” Jonathon agreed easily, shifting his head so soft strands of his hair brushed my cheek. “Okay, Li, you’re not a little girl, but neither is Dane. He’s a man now. You don’t get this, maybe ’cause you’re a woman, but probably ’cause you’re young and you’re his little sister, but a man’s gotta do somethin’ to prove he’s a man.” I opened my mouth to protest, but he continued. “He’s got nothin’ to prove to you, to me, or the rest of the family. It’s about provin’ somethin’ to himself, you get me? He’s a man, and he needs to test himself against his dreams. Against the real world.”

  “But we’re finally happy,” I argued then felt sudden, crushing doubt.

  Was Dane happy?

  Had I ever really asked him?

  Before, with Ignacio, it was a given that we were just surviving. There’d been no room for personal growth or desires or happy dreams.

  But now, with the Booths, there was so much room, a veritable field to frolic through and cultivate every beautiful dream we might have ever entertained.

  Had Dane discovered his own dreams in that field?

  It hadn’t occurred to me that he could, that we were two separate people. We had always shared the same vision: survive our childhood and get away.

  Together.

  But we had, survived that is, and now what?

  For Dane, that obviously meant it was time for him to abandon me.

  “I can hear you thinkin’, the whirr of that mind is drownin’ out the bird song,” Jonathon joked with me. “Listen to me, okay?”

  I scowled at the sky because I didn’t want to listen to him. I wanted to be left alone to stew in my self-righteous self-pity.

  Instead, drawn by the intensity of his eyes on the side of my head like a magnetic force, I turned my head so that I could face him. Up close like we were, his
eyes weren’t merely brown. They shone like sunlight through maple syrup, rimmed by black and streaked through with spikes of onyx. I blinked as I looked in those eyes and felt instant contrition for being angry with him when all he had ever offered me was a safe place to be.

  Like Dane.

  “Okay,” I agreed softly.

  “I told you to find a dream, yeah? Well, I said the same thing to our boy, Dane. You know him better than anyone, right? So what do you think he would dream about?”

  I cracked my knuckles as I thought, because for some reason, I was nervous.

  What if Dane’s dreams didn’t match my own?

  I wanted to live with the Booths and my brother forever. For us all to be happy and whole.

  But Dane?

  Of course, I knew what he wanted. He was the best person I knew, and all he had ever wanted to do was help people. As a girl, heroism was defined by my brother, not by knights in silly storybooks Papá didn’t buy, or in Disney movies we couldn’t watch because Mamá didn’t like TV.

  It was Dane who had always and forever ridden to my rescue, and I guess I’d always imagined that he would remain the same.

  “He wants to save people,” I muttered petulantly. “Like he saved me.”

  “Yeah,” Nova agreed, his red, almost purplish mouth curling on the left in that way it did when he was teasing. “Dane’s a white knight in old denim, and he’s always wanted to do more. You don’t think enlistin’ would give him that? A real way to change lives?”

  “It would change mine,” I blurted, a flush behind my tanned skin even though I knew it wouldn’t show. My anger burned and boiled under the surface like something ugly and toxic. I just kept thinking it’s not fair, it’s not fair. And it wasn’t, not really, for a six-year-old to be faced with losing a brother after she’d lost the rest of her family. But it wasn’t fair, too, that I should chain Dane to me just because I was too traumatized for a teddy bear replacement.

  I knew there were real monsters in the world. I’d been born of one.

  And I needed a real knight to face them for me.

  “Flower Child,” Nova called, flicking the end of my nose just to irritate me. “You with me?”

  “Yeah, I guess. You think he meant it? That he won’t have to leave right away?” I ventured, taking solace in the prettiness of the dark stubble sweeping over his jaw.

  Without thinking, my fingers reached out to test the texture, finding it sharp and thick where Dane’s was softer, tufted in places.

  Nova grinned and snapped at my fingers so I jerked them away. “Yeah, he’ll be around for a while. In fact, I gotta feelin’ he’ll never stay away too long, and even if he does, he’s always gonna write or text or email. He’s always gonna be thinkin’ of his little sister with the flowers in her hair.”

  I blushed, this one warm and electric, as he plucked a daisy from my hair and twirled it between his big fingers. My stomach fluttered like a jar of butterflies had toppled over and opened inside my gut.

  “You want Dane to have a dream just like you do. It’s important that you let him know that, okay? You keep any animal leashed for too long, they start to resent the hand that keeps them there, Li, and I know you don’t wanna be that restraint. Not when you love him like you do.”

  “No one deserves a dream more than my big brother,” I said, because it was true.

  He was the best person I knew, and even his potential abandonment couldn’t change that.

  “And you gotta know,” Jonathon continued, the sparkle back in his thickly lashed eyes. “If Dane goes away, he’s leavin’ you with us, and there’ll never be a time you aren’t wanted in our house, yeah?”

  “What if you move out, too?” I asked, suddenly rocked by the idea of losing them both.

  Why hadn’t I thought of that inevitability?

  They were eighteen. They could go out into the world by themselves.

  And what were the los tres Caballeros without two of its members?

  “Hey,” Jonathon said sharply, drawing me back to his sombre face. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. I’ve found my home, just gotta find my place in it. And I’ll tell you a secret, if you promise not to breath a word’a it to anyone.”

  “Not even Dane?” I breathed, because we’d never had a secret, just us two.

  “Not even,” he repeated with faux sobriety. “I found’a place that feels like home. With even more family––brothers, uncles, and friends––that could be yours as well as mine.”

  “You mean,” I sucked in a deep breath, hope alive like fire in my throat, “You’d share with me?”

  His lips twitched, but he didn’t laugh. “Yeah, Li, I’m happy to share with you. The way I see it, the more family the better, yeah?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed instantly, rolling to my knees with my hands braced on the hot pavement. “Can I meet them?”

  “What?” he asked laughingly. “Right now?”

  I nodded enthusiastically, and a flower, an iris, fell out of my hair. Jonathon grinned at me as he picked it up from the pavement and tucked it behind my ear before getting to his feet.

  “Alright, Flower Child, let’s call Dane and my folks to let them know we’re okay and then we’ll go meet some new friends.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The Fallen Men compound sprawled like an insolent giant from the Faversham Inlet to the Sea to Sky Highway in the industrial neighborhood of Entrance. When we pulled up to the chain link fence at the huge gates that separated the world from the club, I was already awed by the sprawl of buildings behind the metal. There was a low-slung brick building to the right down by the water, a big garage and parking lot labelled Hephaestus Auto in ragged, cut-out sheet metal hung over the multi-garage bays. Surprisingly, there was also a pretty garden and a hangout area with picnic tables and some children’s playground things tucked away amid it all.

  “What is this?” I asked Jonathon from the passenger seat of Molly’s blue minivan

  Jonathon should have looked ridiculous driving such a sedated ‘mom’ vehicle, but he was cool enough to pull it off. The way he rested his left forearm on the window, his right wrist leaning casually over the steering wheel, dark eyes obscured by pitch black Ray Bans I wasn’t sure where he’d gotten the money to buy. He was the epitome of a nonchalant bad boy from tip to toe.

  “This is the home of The Fallen MC, Li, and it’s gonna be my home soon as they let me fully patch-in. And what’d I say before?”

  “Mi casa es tu casa,” I replied hesitantly.

  “Better believe it,” he agreed before the gates slid open and we started to roll onto the property.

  We pulled into a spot beside the garage, and when I opened the door, the scent of hot asphalt and motor oil hit my nose, undercut by the briny tang from the ocean flowing beyond the lot. I could feel the heat of the concrete beneath my purple flipflops as they slapped back to my heels, and the air was waxy against my skin as I moved through it.

  It was hot for autumn, the lingering summer unwilling to yield to the impending winter winds and frozen rains. But I loved the feel of the sun on my skin, so I tipped my head to the sky and didn’t complain even when Jonathon tugged my hand to lead me toward the playground area.

  There was a girl there, hidden among the greenery, sitting on a green slide with a monster painted on it, tongue extended the length of the plastic. She had bright, streaky blond hair tangled and matted by the breeze. It was so shiny, so blonde, I wanted to touch it and see if it was real.

  “Who’s that?” I whispered to Jonathon.

  He followed my gaze to the girl and grinned. “Hey, Harleigh Rose, you wanna come meet my girl, Lila?”

  The girl stirred from her half-lounge on the slide and popped a headphone out of her ear. She studied me for a long moment, eyes squinted but obviously a true blue even from a distance.

  “She cool?” she yelled back. “’Cause I don’t got time for nonsense. You know?”

  Jonathon chuckled under his br
eath, leading me to the edge of the garden. “I think she’s pretty fuckin’ cool, but why don’t I let you be the judge’a that while I go find your Dad.”

  She nodded somberly, eyes scraping over my jean shorts and lavender peasant blouse. Molly let me pick out my own clothes, and I found I liked vintage stuff best, so we’d go just us girls to find cool treasures at the second-hand shops in town.

  I worried that compared to Harleigh Rose’s Guns N Roses tee, leather boots, and black, torn jean shorts, I looked like a prissy little girl in comparison, but she only pursed her lips and nodded.

  “Yeah, I’m good at judgin’,” she agreed, waving Jonathon off. “I’ll suss her out while you do your thing with Dad.”

  “Much obliged,” Jonathon said with mock seriousness. But he squeezed my hand and dropped to his haunches before leaving me. “You gonna be okay, Flower Child? H.R.’s a good kid. It’ll probably be good for you to have a friend who’s a girl, yeah?”

  “Girls are stupid,” I said, echoing what Miles, Oliver, and Hudson had said for years.

  His magenta mouth twitched. “Lotsa stupid people in the world, but they aren’t defined by their gender, I can tell you that much. I’ll only be a minute, but you need me, you holler, okay?”

  I nodded, nervously cracking my knuckles as I shot a look at the girl who was still studying us.

  Jonathon cupped my fidgeting hands in one of his and plucked a spring of lavender from the flower box beside us to place behind me ear.

  “There you go, all set,” he determined with a wink, then he got to his feet, saluted Harleigh Rose who inclined her chin regally in response, and then took off for the brick building.

  I stood two yards away from Harleigh Rose and blinked at her.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi,” she replied.

  We both stared at each other for another moment, engaged in some kind of stand-off with rules I wasn’t aware of.

  Finally, she smiled slightly. “You don’t have many friends, do you?”

  I shrugged, my stomach cramping with anxiety. “Not really. Just my family.”