Read Scars (Marked #2.5) for Free Online

holding on to the slightly ajar door and the other on the frame, I held firm in my non-friendly stance. He would never be welcomed in my home again. “Say what you need to say and leave.”
    “Move,” Lance spat from between clenched teeth, while one hand pushed on the door I tried and failed to keep closed.
    Defiantly, I raised my chin and cocked a brow. “No.”
    The flash of pure red anger that flashed through Lance’s eyes scared me for the most minuscule of moments. I’d seen this fucker mad. Witnessed him lose it and break a few faces in our day while in the middle of a fight. He might be the oldest of the crew, but by no means was he a saint.
    Many of those same fights had been over me. Defending his friend when someone at a bar got a little too grabby or didn’t understand the word no. Always the gentleman when it came to the women in his life, yet a crazy asshole when pushed. This, to him, was a push.
    I took a step back, and he advanced. His hand against the door pushed it open wide, and I stumbled back. That was all the room he needed to follow me in.
    “Get out.” My demand was ignored. Instead, he closed the door. The click of the lock was loud inside my tiny apartment, and my anxiety spiked.
    “Janice, cut the crap and sit down.” Lance strode past me, only stopping once in front of my makeshift bed for the night. The now-empty bottle of liquor lay on the floor. The smell of alcohol permeated the area.
    For a moment, I was embarrassed of my actions last night. There was no way for him to know how low I’d sunk for the sake of revenge, but the look of disgust on his face was enough to tell me he knew. As if he could see what I was capable of in the name of taking back what was mine.
    Instead of being insulted, Lance gave me a contemplative look. One I hated with every fiber of my being. It screamed of pity. “What happened to you, doll? You weren’t like this when we met, or were you? Fooled everyone around you…hid those demons inside well enough to function in society without tipping everyone off to the fact that you were a ticking time bomb.”
    “Shut the fuck up!” I snarled and marched over to the door. My breathing was choppy; my hands shook with the spike of renewed ire that burned through my veins.
    “We were too blind to see it.” Shaking his head, he took a look around the mostly empty room and ignored me. Those judging eyes scanned every nook and cranny, taking in the empty pill bottles that sat atop my side table. The pristine photo frame that sat beside those empty bottles—it held inside a picture of Talan and me from more than two years ago at a Halloween party. We were both smiling into the camera.
    A fist-sized dent and the broken glass from the night he banned me from the shop.
    Lance saw it all, and I’d never felt so exposed in my life.

6

     
     
    “You need help, Jan. All this…” he waved his hand around the room “…isn’t normal. You’re obsessed with the impossible.”
    “If you are not out of my home within the next thirty seconds, I’m calling the cops. Save your sanctimonious ramblings for someone who gives a shit. Leave.” With sweaty hands and a rapidly beating heart, I paced the entryway. I needed to keep my cool, remain calm when all I wanted to do was to throw something at the idiot’s head.
    There was no way in hell that I could let him see how fucked up I truly was.
    Lance let out a humorless chuckle and patted the seat next to him. “No, you won’t.” His sure and cocky tone made me twitch; my palm itched to smack it out of him. “And, do you know why?”
    “Enlighten me.”
    Patting the chair once more, he stated, “Because you don’t want that secret you’ve kept guarded for so long to get out. You don’t want Talan to know what’s really going on. What happened with Sarah and your fam—”
    “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The sinister smile that over took his face then let me know how dangerous the situation I was