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strong to you? My dad died a hero and all I do is wait tables,” I challenged, raking my fingers through my hair in frustration.
     
    “Aimee, you’re the strongest person I know, whether you see it or not. You have more of your dad in you than you give yourself credit for,” Jake said softly, his hand on my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
     
    It was more than a comforting gesture—it was intimate. The heat of his hand on my face was burning me, burning through me, and all I was damned sure that I didn’t want him to stop touching me.
     
    “Jake, how you getting on with that Dodge?” Bill’s voice came almost out of nowhere and Jake and I sprang apart as if we’d been caught doing something illegal.
     
    I could feel myself blushing down to the roots of my hair as Jake began casually talking to his dad about the car he’d been working on, while I wondered how he’d managed to keep his cool. But I didn’t have to wonder for long— He doesn’t feel that way about you , the cruel little voice in my head reminded me, He was just being a good friend . I found the idea faintly depressing, but I couldn’t quite pin-point why.
     
    “I should get going,” I said hurriedly, wanting to get out of such close proximity to Jake as quickly as possible.
     
    “Aimee, hold up.” I had heard Jake start to hurry after me, but I couldn’t take looking at him again right now, not when he’d managed to turn my world upside down with what should just have been a simple touch between friends.
     
    “Talk later, Summers,” I’d said jovially, throwing the words over my shoulder, pretending that nothing had changed. But in my world I felt like everything had.
     
    ***
     
    I keep going over the events at the body shop as I walk home, trying to convince myself that I’m just reading too much into it, that I was just suffering from a lack of human contact. I hadn’t really ever had a proper boyfriend.
     
    There had been a couple of boys in high school that I’d dated casually, but they had never kept me interested enough to find out what all the fuss was about over having sex. I wasn’t a social leper, but I just didn’t see the point in going down that road with a guy before I knew if I really liked him.
     
    It didn’t make any sense to me and it was something that my dad had always drilled into me. “Just make sure he’s worth it, honey,” he’d said to me, and I didn’t have any intention of letting him down.
     
    So that brought me here: a nineteen-year-old virgin, working in a diner, desperate to get out of a town that was rapidly going to hell in a hand-basket, care of the Bleeding Angels MC.
     
    How did we get to the point where a group of thieves and thugs were more powerful than the cops? I mull over this question as I reach the slightly-dilapidated wooden house on the outskirts of town. The place could do with a good paint job, but we didn’t have the money for that; dad’s pension wouldn’t remotely cover all the work we’d need to do on the house while also giving us enough to live on.
     
    Trying to push the thoughts of my dad, of whatever’s going on between Jake and me, and of the Bleeding Angels, to the back of my mind, I unlock the door to my home, take a deep breath and, preparing myself for whatever might await me this afternoon, I walk inside.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    The first thing that most people notice when they enter this house—that is, of course, when people used to come here—is the darkness.
     
    All the blinds and curtains are drawn. Despite the sunny day outside, inside our home it feels like the middle of the night. The only room where the curtains are always open is mine. I suppose it’s my own little form of rebellion.
     
    It’s a way of saying that we didn’t all die that night six years ago. There’s a musty smell that comes from the windows not having been opened and that just contributes to the feeling that