"No, Hawk. I needed you and you weren't there. We had a chance and the chance pa.s.sed. This was all you're going to get."

"I'm not going to abandon you again."

"Again," I say, bitterly. "Don't follow me."

"What happens if I do?"

I've already started to leave, but I round on him.

"What do you think you can do, Hawk? Fight the whole town? Your dad's going to be the mayor of this s.h.i.thole. The cops already do everything he says. He owns half the town. I don't care how big you are, you can't do anything about him. If you pull some bulls.h.i.t, you have no idea what'll happen."

"Yes, I do. I left because he threatened you."

I freeze. "What?"

"He-"

"He threatened me and your answer was to leave me here?"

"I thought you'd be gone, the scholarship-"

"He married my mother a month after you left. I lasted until fall break and then they..." I trail off, unable to finish.

No, no, no, no, never talk about that never ever.

"They what?"

"It doesn't matter," I spit at him. "I don't need you anymore. When I needed you, you weren't there."

"Alex, let me explain. You don't know what happened-"

"I don't care what happened, Hawk. It was nice when we were younger. I wish it was more than it was, but it's not. It's over and it needs to be over. Go back where you came from before you make my life worse."

I turn and storm out of the alley, blinking away tears in the hot sun. Every atom of my body is screaming at me to turn around and rush back to him and just run and run until we both drop, until there's half a planet between us and this h.e.l.l. He came back, he came back.

The other part of me clings to the truth: It's too late, and I have work to do.

There's only one person who's going to stop Tom Richardson.

Me.

Hawk Now So here I am standing in the alley between an empty pharmacy and an empty furniture store, shirtless, smelling vaguely of mustard, Alexis' juices on my fingers. I'm not completely sure what just happened. One moment she was clenched up around me, her body pulsing with pleasure as she clamped down my fingers, the words f.u.c.k me wordlessly on her lips, and then she shoves me away and storms off, and tells me to go back where I came from.

Let me think.

No.

I scrub my hands clean in my fouled t-shirt and toss it into an old trash can someone abandoned in the alley and stride back out into the open. I get more stares now; the tats are on full display. The screaming hawk on my chest, chains and vines on my arms, and the biggest one on my back, a lovely angel wielding a reaper's scythe. She spreads her wings across my back and stares defiantly and, to be honest, looks a lot like Alex. I'm not the only person walking around shirtless, it's f.u.c.king hot, but every eye in the place is on me anyway.

Alexis is sitting on an upturned bucket, chugging a bottle of water and wiping at her forehead with a napkin as I stride up the sidewalk towards the hot dog carts. She looks up and scrubs her hand over her face, shakes the sweat off, and strides back to the cart.

"Go away, Hawk."

"Nope. We need to talk."

"We can't," she says calmly, looking away from me. She settles in place behind the cart.

Her legs are still shaking. She's trying to look calm.

A guy in a Hawaiian shirt and straw hat walks up to the hot dog stand and I shoulder in front of him.

"We're closed," I say, curtly.

"I'm open," May sighs. "Here, sir."

May slathers mustard on the guy's hot dog while I stare down Alexis, arms folded over my chest.

"We can't do this here," she says, softly.

That's a step up over we can't, I guess.

"Hawk, I can't be seen with you," she says, lowering her voice further. "Please. You don't understand what you're doing."

"I'll deal with my father."

She looks up. "Will you?"

That one cuts me. I even flinch a little. There's a quiet venom in her voice I've never heard before. G.o.d she looks just the same, like I stepped into a dream and stepped back out with no time in between. It's not like she's never been mad at me before but she was never truly angry with me. We used to fight as often as not, and there was once a week when she didn't talk to me and left me with a deep emptiness that at the time I didn't recognize for what it was.

"What do you want?"

"I want to talk."

"We can't talk here. We shouldn't talk at all. It's best for both of us if you leave me alone. Go. Please."

"Alex-"

"Hawk, please." Her voice cracks a little. "If you don't leave your father is going to... show... up..." she trails off.

Alexis freezes like a deer in the headlights and looks over my shoulder. I turn, and there he is.

Tall, an inch taller than me, he's wearing a polo shirt, slacks and boat shoes, and sweating. My father could pa.s.s for my brother, age-wise, even if he's a little older than you'd expect for a man with an eldest son my age. The only sign of his years is a flaring wing of gray in his hair on either side of his head, and faint lines around his eyes that only show when he grimaces. He's smiling now, but if you covered the bottom half of his face it would show his smile false, as it doesn't touch his eyes. It never does and never did.

There isn't even a moment of confusion. He recognizes me immediately.

He pretends he doesn't.

"Alexis, is this man bothering you?"

"No, dad, he just-"

Dad. She called him dad. What the f.u.c.k?"

"This man?" I say, smirking. "Dad. Really."

"Hawk?" he says, feigning confusion, then surprise.

Sometimes I think I might be crazy. It's like I'm the only one who sees it. His expressions look natural unless you pay a little too much attention. His eyes are dead, lifeless, like a shark's eyes. Two green b.u.t.tons without an ounce of empathy or feeling, seeing through you.

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Because it's ninety-five f.u.c.king degrees outside."

No reaction. He just stares at me with that same fraudulent smile, but his head c.o.c.ks to the side a little, like he's studying a prey animal.

"What are you doing here?"

My smile broadens, but there's no joy in it. I'm baring my teeth at him. "I live here."

"Not anymore."

"Well, that's the thing about joining the military, Dad. Eventually they let you out. Maybe if you'd tried it sometime you'd know that."

Nothing. He just stares. I make a broad gesture behind me.

"Mayor, huh? Moving up in the world, I see."

"You should leave," he says, finally.

"Why? Is there a dress code?"

He glances over to his side and nods.

"Yes," a new voice says, "As a matter of fact there is."

I snap around quickly and find myself staring down a Paradise Falls cop. It takes me a second, because of the uniform and the mirrored aviator shades, and then it hits me.

"Lance?"

"'Officer' he corrects."

I read his name tag. Yeah, it's him. He doesn't look all that different than when I left- he's still lanky and skinny like he was when he was sixteen, except now somebody went and made a cop out of my younger brother. He rests his hands on his duty belt, hooking his thumbs under the leather, and one is a little close to the Glock on his hip. He probably does that a lot.

I give him a smile that says, in nonverbal form, if he pulls that piece I'm going to have it up his a.s.s before he can get his finger on the trigger.

"Been a long time, brother."

"Go get a shirt," he says, his voice trembling just a touch.

I smirk, and he frowns. I noticed and he knows I noticed.

"So you're a cop."

"Yeah."

"Makes me wonder what a.s.shole would trust you with a gun."

HIs hand jerks to his sidearm and closes around the grip.

"Lance," my father says, in a warning tone. "Escort Hawk off the street. He's not to come back."

I look up at the signs over my head. "Are you mayor already? Who the f.u.c.k died and put you in charge?"

Alex lets out a little squeak.

The area around the hot dog carts has cleared. It's just us, now. Alexis takes May by the arm and leads her off, looking at me the whole time, worry etched on her features. May looks a little sh.e.l.l-shocked.

"Go," my father says, "Now."

"All right," I say.

Honestly I'd rather not jam a gun up my brother's a.s.s right now. It could turn ugly.

Or I could just turn around and snap the f.u.c.ker's neck before they stop me. Lance would still be standing there with his head up his a.s.s while my father flops around on the ground. I could just do it now.

For what he did, he deserves worse than that. More than that.

Then there's Alexis.

Not in front of her. Not in front of May. I won't burden them with that.

I turn and walk and, of course, Lance follows. He's not holding his piece anymore but he's got his hand right there, awkwardly stiff as he walks behind me swinging the other arm.

"Tattoos," he says.

"Yeah."

"They must have hurt."

"Yeah."

"Where you been, anyway?"

"Navy."

I have to remind myself that Lance doesn't know. I don't like him, I never did, but he doesn't know what my father did. I imagine if I told him now he'd laugh it off or call me nuts.

"You picked a h.e.l.l of a time to come back. Dad's going to be mayor."