“Good.” I have to stand up on my tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. He flinches, like he always does whenever I touch him, but at least he allows me to. With almost anyone else, he freaks out. The only exception to this being Fiona, and sometimes Lila. “You need to do more fun things in your life, shy boy.”

“No, I don’t,” he says in all seriousness. “I’m just going to keep an eye on you.”

I ruffle his hair. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Yeah, you kind of do, and I have an endless list of reasons why. You think too much with your heart, Lyric, and not with your head.”

“All right, I’ll give you that.” Shooting him one last conniving grin, I open the door and strut out of his room, calling over my shoulder, “See you tonight, babysitter.”

I halt as I step over the threshold, realizing I still have the papers in my hand. “Oh, wait. There was actually a real reason why I came over here.”

“You mean other than make another declaration of love,” he jokes as I spin around.

“Yes, my friend.” Sucking in a huge breath, I hand the papers over. “I found something out about you on the internet.”

“About me?” The papers crinkle as he unrolls them.

“Yeah.” I release a deafening breath, worried how this is going to go, but there was no way I could keep something like this from him. “It’s about your tattoo.”

He glances up from the papers, his grey eyes filled with terror. “I don’t understand.”

I move around to stand beside to him. “Well, I was typing in random things that I thought might help us figure out stuff about your brother and sister. Then I started typing in homemade tattoos just to see what came up. After scrolling through an assload of images, I found this.” I tap my finger against the paper. “I guess it’s a pretty common thing to do—put tattoos on yourself. But the one you have belongs to some crazy group of people who believe the tattoo represents some kind of soul cleansing thing. I don’t know. It sounds weird to me, but that’s what all the articles say. And I guess they’ve done a lot of bad stuff, too.”

He stares at the ink staining the paper in his hand. “Like what?”

“Like … kidnappings and things. You said a couple of months ago that you were taken by people with strange beliefs …” I trail off, hoping he’ll explain more to me. I don’t want to push him.

His fingers strangle the paper, the edges ruffling. “I wasn’t necessarily taken … I was given away.”

“By who?”

“My mother.” His tone is sharp, his eyes cold, lost. He looks like a scared little boy.

My breath catches in my throat. “She gave you to those people?”

“Left us with them,” is all he says. He folds up the papers and chucks them on the desk. “I have a bunch of stuff to do before I head to practice.”

I instantly regret showing him the paper, but there’s not a whole lot that I can do about it now.

“All right, I’ll see you later maybe.”

He doesn’t respond, so I leave the room, praying that I didn’t break him.

Chapter 8

Lyric

I have about an hour until date time and should be getting ready, but instead I end up getting distracted with my notebook. A lot of the stuff coming out of me today is strange and mainly centered on my worry for Ayden, but since I still don’t completely understand him or everything he went through, I feel as though my words are lacking. My lyrics usually do.

Honestly, I’m nowhere near where I want to be in any music area. I’ve yet to decide which instrument I want to focus on, haven’t performed at all, and the idea of performing in front of anyone makes me want to hurl. It gets frustrating. Ayden, who barely talks to anyone, is perfectly fine standing up on stage and playing the guitar, while me, Miss Chatterbox, suffers from stage fright.

Go. Fucking. Figure.

About fifteen minutes before date time, I start the process of getting ready, moving slower than usual as I keep glancing out the window toward Ayden’s bedroom. His curtain is shut, so I have no clue what he’s doing.

Finally, after going through all of my clothes, I end up stealing a thin-strapped black dress from my mother’s closet, and then slip a leather jacket on since it’s fall and sometimes the nights can sometimes get a little breezy. I dab on some kohl eyeliner and pink lip gloss, then top off the look with my favorite pair of boots before I go downstairs to wait for my date.

I find my dad lounging on the living room sofa, jotting down lyrics in his own notebook. He glances up when I enter.

“Where are you headed to all dressed up?” he asks, setting the pen and notebook down on the sofa cushion beside him.

“To a party.” I drop down in the chair across from him and kick my feet up on an antique trunk that acts as a coffee table.

He puts on his interrogation face. “And where is this party?”

“At Maggie’s house.” I check my watch. “Mom already went over this with me, Dad.”

“And who are you going with?” he continues, ignoring my last statement.

“With a guy from school.”

“Which one?”

“Someone you haven’t met yet.” I lower my feet to the floor. “His name’s William Stephington.”

“And what does this William do?” he asks, reaching for his soda that’s on the trunk.