house at our backs, and my eyes instantly lock on the friend I had been dreading to see for the past three months.
The breath I had apparently been holding in leaves me the minute I register that Lincoln still looks like Linc.
All three of us leave our spots, walking toward the house. The closer I get to him, the clearer it becomes to me that he is far from looking like someone who’s carrying the biggest fucked-up secret. There’s no frown, nor deep lines under his eyes. No sunken cheeks from lack of eating, nor pale, clammy skin from sleep deprivation due to horror-filled nightmares. He looks like a totally different person than the one I left behind before going on vacation.
As I inspect every inch of him, I can’t pinpoint one single trace of damage on his face. Instead of the frail friend I expected to find, I’m astounded to see he looks even better than before. I see he bulked up over the summer, and if my eyes aren’t deceiving me, he’s also got some mad ink peeking out from under his short sleeve.
He looks good.
Too good.
If most of Asheville didn’t attend his parents’ funeral last May, then they probably wouldn’t suspect the guy in front of me as having gone through such an ordeal and loss.
Hmm.
Loss? Is loss really the right word to be used when all four of us took part in their unexpected demise? I mean, the Hamiltons weren’t exactly like a set of keys that you can just misplace or lose. You just don’t lose two people like that. Nope. Loss is the wrong fucking word in this scenario. They weren’t lost. They were killed. And everyone in Asheville believes it was a robbery gone wrong. If anyone ever discovered the truth, then the only thing that could be lost here is our freedom.
“We’re here, asshole. What the fuck was so important that couldn’t wait? Remy Peterson was pissed as hell when I had to leave her bed this morning,” Colt singsongs, wiggling his eyebrows at his cousin.
“Just come inside the house. We need to talk,” Lincoln says a bit too harshly, and just like that, my hackles rise up again.
Linc’s sunny disposition is long gone. The forlorn mood I expected to find is suddenly imprinted on every feature of his face, and I, for one, hate seeing it there. But that’s not even what alarms me the most. My steps falter when his fabricated grin returns once more, shining away, as if we all didn’t just see that this new and improved Lincoln is nothing but a mask he’s put in place.
The question, though, is why does he believe he needs it in the first place?
“What’s going on, Lincoln?” Easton asks anxiously, never one to use kid gloves when facing a problem.
If I knew what Lincoln’s response would be to his question, then I would have pleaded with Easton not to open his trap, just so I could have a bit more time to prepare myself better for the fuckery ahead. Because the words that pass through Lincoln’s lips are my very worst nightmare coming to fruition.
“Someone knows.”
Chapter 2
Finn
“What do you mean, someone knows?” Easton belts out menacingly as if he were about to murder someone.
That might be a poorly chosen turn of phrase, all things considered, but I think we’ve already established that all four of us are capable of such devious acts. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if one of us found a liking to it. If I were a betting man, my money would be on either Colt or Easton, so no shock there that East is the one to hurl the first angry outburst, thirsty for blood.
Lincoln looks out past the three of us, and being the paranoid asshole that I am, I follow his stare and check if anyone is close enough to eavesdrop on our conversation. But behind us, there isn’t anything but the vast Oakley woods, completely unguarded and vacant of all human life for miles on end. This solitude is one of the reasons we were able to get away with the shit we did that night.
“Not out here. Let’s go inside,” Lincoln orders, feeding further into my paranoia.
We do as he says and follow Lincoln, who thankfully bypasses the main living areas and rushes to the second floor, taking two stairs at a time. I don’t even stop for a minute to see if the rest of the guys are following or not,