Perversion (Perversion Trilogy #1)

Grim sits down in the blue stadium chair next to me, and for a moment, we both quietly look over the bay. It’s Grim who finally breaks the silence.

“What did you mean when you said you loved the boy in the picture?” He asks, throwing me off balance.

Confusion and panic set in. I give up my quest for the truth and revert to what I’m good at. Lies. ALL THE LIES. “I really didn’t mean that,” I back pedal.

“Yes, you did,” Grim replies. “If you can’t tell me where you’ve been or why you said that, at least, answer me this: why are you here?”

“You carried me here,” I say sarcastically.

His forehead wrinkles. “Don’t push me. Why are you here in Lacking?”

Because I was recruited by a gang I never wanted to be a part of and threatened with my life and the life of my best friend. Did I mention the man who took me prisoner is also your mortal enemy? Yeah, I’ve been working for him for five years. Great, right? Wanna grab coffee and catch up?

I sigh heavily, giving myself time to come up with a semi-truth that might appease Grim. “I got sent to a new home just outside the city. I’m just waiting to age out so I can figure out what to do with my life,” I fib. “They had a foster kid they took in a while back. He was…not well. Mentally. He was sent away and they moved, but he still blamed them. He sent threatening letters. So, when they took me in, they’d just moved again. They had CPS seal their address and my records. You know. Safety precaution. They don’t want me talking about it, and they don’t want me associating with anyone in Lacking because they don’t want me caught up in the life.” I try changing the subject. “Did that family adopt you?”

“Yeah, but it was more like recruited,” he replies.

“Ah, I know the feeling,” I mutter, instantly regretting my words.

“How so?”

“The couple that took me in? They did it because of my record. Because they wanted an accomplice to run tricks for them.” I shrug. “It’s not so bad. A little petty theft here and there. A few well-timed lies. Besides, I’ll be eighteen in a few months, so it’s not like I’ve got to stay long. They’re strict about where I work and when I have to be back, but it could be worse.”

“Could be worse?” Grim asks, and for the first time, I see the corner of his lip tug up in a half smile that I swear stops my fucking heart from beating. “Like you could end up sneaking into a member of Bedlam’s window and have a gun aimed your head?”

I roll my eyes. “Well, when you put it that way,” I repeat my words from the other night. “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

Grim shakes his head. “It is. This could have ended very differently. If you were anyone else. If you were with The Immortals or worse, Los Muertos…” He shakes his head like he doesn’t want to think about it. “You’d be dead right now.”

His words are a twisted dagger in my chest and fuel to keep up the lies.

“Well, good for me that I’m just good ole Emma Jean, up to her same old tricks,” I say clasping my hands together on my lap and looking out onto the water.

“I take it that you and Gabby are behind the casino cons.”

“Uh…no?” I don’t even try to sound convincing. I have to give him something so he feels like he got one over on me. Manipulation is a give and take. This is my give.

He laughs, and it pains me that I can’t laugh right along with him. He’s beautiful when he laughs. He pulls the locket out of his jacket and hands it to me. “Here.”

“No, I told you I would give it back someday, and I finally got a chance.”

“It isn’t that someday yet,” he says.

I take it and rub my thumb over the cold metal and instantly feel comfort. I lift it to my neck and close the clasp, sighing in relief.

“You know, I never asked you about your mother. What happened to her?” I ask. “She was so beautiful. You have her eyes.”

Grim flexes his fingers. “We lived a few towns over, but she drove to Lacking every day for work. She was killed. Got caught in a drive by shooting on her way through town, heading home from her shift at the casino.”

“I’m sorry,” I offer. I don’t want to ask the next question that comes out of my mouth, but I have to know. “Did you ever find out who was responsible?”

His jaw tightens as he grinds out the words I know are coming but don’t want to hear. “Los Muertos.”

Silence passes between us and so does that magnetic current raising every hair on my arms. I’m trapped between a life I can’t live and a death I don’t want.

“I looked for you, you know,” he says, breaking the silence. “I even went to your Aunt Ruby’s house. She was as useless as you made her out to be and more.”

His words pierce straight through my heart. I feel sick. Guilty. And surprised. He knew my records were sealed, but that could be figured out with one phone call.

“You looked for me?” I ask with genuine surprise. I turn toward him. “For how long?”

Grim’s gaze meets mine. “After my last letter came back to me?” He pauses. “Every single fucking day.”

“Every day?” I practically yell. “Every day for how long, Grim?” I don’t know why I’ve raised my voice. I’m half-surprised and a whole lot angry, but I know it’s not at him.

“Five years,” he admits. “Right up until you stumbled into my window the other night and I found out it was you. The hair threw me off at first. That and the fact that you’ve…grown up.” His Adam’s apple bobs in his neck behind his tattoos. “I like your hair now. But I loved your crazy curls, too.”

“I think you and Gabby might be the only people who’ve ever said that to me.” I smooth down the hair falling over my shoulder. “I straighten it to blend in better when I run scams. The curls kind of stand out.”

I also straighten it to blend in better around Los Muertos so I won’t be bothered. I would dye my entire body the color of a brick wall covered in graffiti if I could.

“Yeah, that’s what I liked about it. But you can straighten it all you want. You, Emma Jean Parish, will always stand out.”

My throat tightens. I’m cringing on the inside with every word that comes out of my mouth. “I mean, I guess I’ve thought about you a couple of times over the years.”

“Bullshit.” He points to the locket in my hand. “You wearing that around your neck five years later tells me otherwise.” He drags his gaze from the locket to my lips, then to my eyes. “The look on your fucking face tells me otherwise. You’re a good liar, but now that I know it’s you, I see it all over your face. I feel it. Your words say one thing and the rest of you says another.”

Yeah, I’m starting to get that.

“The look on my face?” I ask, feeling myself heating from the inside out. I’m suddenly angry at him for making me feel this way, at myself for too much to fucking list, and at the fucking world because why after all this time does Grim come back into my life now? When we’re these people. “What kind of look is it that you think you see?”

His eyes travel back to my mouth. His tongue darts out, wetting his bottom lip. “Like you felt this thing between us as much as I did when we met. Like you can feel it now. Although, now, it’s stronger. Different.” His voice turns low. Rough. “Like you want to know what it feels like for me to kiss you. What my bare skin would feel like pressed against yours. How if it feels like this just sitting next to you, how would it feel if I was inside you. How hard I could make you come.”

My nipples stiffen. My mind is awash with the picture he’s just painted of something I desperately want to moan yes to. I shake my head adamantly and pretend my lower stomach isn’t clenching at his words. That everything in me hasn’t tightened and contracted and answered him without the lie I tell him.

“That’s not what I’m thinking. That’s not the look on my face. You’re wrong.”

But my entire body comes alive at the thought of Grim’s lips on mine. He’s not wrong. He’s right. So right it’s like he’s peering inside my mind. My skin feels tight around my muscles. My entire being tingles in anticipation of something that’s NOT going to happen.