Cruz (Dark and Dirty Sinners' MC #5) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,149

going to college early, it messes with you. You never really get used to not being with your own age group.

"I was in class with kids who could drink and vote when I didn't even have a full beard. Christ, you should have seen me back then. Talk about wet behind the fucking ears."

"Don't be so hard on yourself. We all looked like dweebs when we were sixteen."

"Maybe." I shrugged. “The only people who got me through were a professor and his wife. I’d gotten close to them and I swear, I’d have topped myself if they hadn’t been in my life.” Her shocked gasp said it all, and I peered at her, feeling ashamed for being so fucking weak. “One day, I’d like you to meet them—I’m still friends with them.” ‘If we’re still together’ went unsaid.

She swallowed. “What happened after?”

“Fool me once... I became a Prospect after I told Rex who I was, and why Mom wanted me there. I wasn’t about to get my ass killed for her even if she had saved me from prison.”

"The council has known from the beginning that you were a rat?" She winced. "Supposed to be a rat, I mean."

I grimaced. "Yeah." Sitting up, I held out my hand, gesturing at her to take it. She'd moved away, just like I'd feared she would, but she moved back toward me at my gesture, only frowning when I turned her hand palm up, before directing it at my throat.

The scars were barely there now, faded by time and care on my part. I'd had a full beard for the first few years, but even though they should be lumpy, where the tissue fused back together in a messy way, I was lucky. With the negative tattoo, the artist behind them had worked cleverly to shield the scars from view.

I directed her to where the big ones were, and at first, she frowned, before she finally felt what I was showing her, what I carefully shaved even though I was letting my beard grow out.

"You got hurt?" she asked thickly.

"I did. My throat, my chest, my arms and hands."

"How?"

"I was convinced that we needed the information the government was hiding, and Dean made sure that I was as amped up for the job as he was. But something went wrong."

It was too easy to go back to that night, the night when everything had gone fucking wrong. I could remember how I'd felt drugged, so high on adrenaline I was flying.

"The building we needed to break into was supposed to be empty, with remote security in a kind of watchtower. One bomb was set to go off to open up one of the exits, and then there was another door that had to be rigged to break through to the databanks. The area wasn’t supposed to be manned by guards,” I whispered, misery gracing my tone.

"But it was," she guessed sadly, her gaze softening as she looked at me.

"It was. There were about ten more security guards than we expected, or at least, than I expected. That was indicative of what they were guarding. What we released to the public needed to be exposed, but I never wanted anyone to get hurt. Ever.

"Looking back, I'm not entirely sure if Dean knew or not. He was so sure that what we were doing was right, just, that he didn't care about the collateral damage. Didn't give a damn that he was trying to save lives overseas but was taking them out on our own soil...

"The first bomb went off, and it was then I heard the screams. Two guards were down, and it was just sheer bad luck that they were where they were.

"I heard them, stopped to help them, but Dean didn't give a shit. He took the gear we needed toward the security door, rigged it up, but I heard the chatter on the guards' radios. They knew why we were there, or at least suspected, and were heading that way.

"I knew the layout like the back of my hand, and the guards were dead even though I tried to help them. There was nothing I could do, but I could stop the others from being hurt. So I rushed to the door, started to take the gear down, and only the fact I was wearing a goddamn visor to cover my face, stopped me from getting injured up here." I pointed with my finger, circling around my head. "I'd rigged it