My Immortal Playlist (The Siren Collection #1) by Julius St. Clair Page A

You heard about me, right?”
    “I know it’s a gang, and you’re one of the founding members.” I said.
    “Yeah, that’s true,” he said, shifting in his seat. His head was down and he was blinking rapidly. Was he trying not to cry? No. There was no way. “I was young then,” he said, lifting his head. His eyes and cheeks were heavy as his gaze met mine. “I mean, I’m still young…but I didn’t know what I was doing then. Didn’t have much money and me and Reign saw what getting into selling weed could get you. I –“
    “- Reign?”
    “Yeah,” he laughed, shaking his head. “ His real name is Way, but he likes Reign better. Sounds more like royalty.”
    “So you two are brothers? Best friends?”
    “Both,” he replied. “But neither by blood. Just circumstance. We were angry a lot back then, but money can soothe you if you let it. Reign didn’t. I was content with the few members we had. Just selling at a discounted price for more customers, but it brought a lot of heat and attention. Reign got paranoid, and instead of protection, he chose to strike the other businesses first. Lots of people got killed, even those that weren’t coming after us. That’s why my mom took me out of there and had us move in with my aunt here in town. Mom died a couple years ago from cancer…my aunt thinks I’m a grown man now. She could care less if I even went back to that old life, but I don’t want to.”
    This story was not at all what I was expecting.
    “Um,” I said, as the waitress silently put down our drinks. “I don’t understand. You’re not part of the gang anymore, but I still don’t get where I fit in this.”
    “I’m still part of that Blood Snow unofficially. Reign and I will always be friends and he calls me every couple of days to talk. I tell him I want no part in it, but we have a bond. I’ll admit, I don’t want him completely out my life either, but it might take that to get rid of the past. It wasn’t until I moved here to Casper, and I…I saw how things could be different. I didn’t even know people lived like this to be honest.”
    “Like this? What?” I laughed. “Boring? Eat, sleep and work?”
    “Exact ly,” he said. “Yeah, there’s drama sometimes. But it’s not like what I’ve seen. Here in Casper there’s little violence. No murder. If there is drugs, it’s only used in privacy. It’s not in your face. There’s still some attempt at decency. Even if people aren’t right, they’re at least not trying to bring the world down with them.”
    “I would love an ordinary life,” I muttered. He laughed.
    “You do have an ordinary life,” he said. “But you got just enough spice to help me change.”
    Change. There was that word again.
    “My mom,” he said, leaning forward. “She told me several times that people don’t change on their own. Don’t have the will power or the strength. Best way to change is to live for someone else. That’s what my dad did before he passed away, back when I was too young to remember. She said he was reckless and going nowhere, but she saw the good in him, and that was enough for him to turn his life around. He lived for her, and she lived for him. And in the end, they were better people for it.”
    He paused to take a gulp of water.
    “All I know is Blood Snow. It’s all I’ve ever put my time and energy into, and I know it’s not right for me. So…that’s why I’m seeing if this will work.”
    “What?”
    “You,” he said, looking up at me with wounded eyes. “Me. Us. I want to try living for someone else for once.”
    “I’m a nobody,” I said, shaking my head.
    “No, you’re everything – that they aren’t. Those airheads you talked about? They’re all the same. From the way they talk to how they dress. There is nothing exciting about them at all. The moment I take them out or to my bedroom, I know exactly what’s going to happen. I want ordinary, not dead.”
    He took another drink of water , and the