Falling for a thug

The mark

Lily's pov

"You've been weird since Tuesday," Emma said, not looking up from her sketchbook. She was curled at the foot of Lily's bed the way she'd claimed as her spot since they were kids, knees drawn up, pencil moving in short, certain strokes. "I give you until Friday before you tell me why."

"I'm not weird."

"You said 'fine' four times at dinner. That's your tell. Mom didn't catch it. I did."

Lily flopped back against her pillows and stared at the ceiling, weighing how much of this actually made sense to say out loud. Put into words, it sounded like nothing — a dream, a shoulder bump, a tattoo she'd only seen for half a second before it disappeared under a sleeve. But it had been sitting in her chest for three days now, heavier than something that small should be.

"Okay," she said finally. "But you can't say it's stupid."

Emma set the sketchbook down, which was how Lily knew she'd actually gotten her attention. "I make no promises. Go."

"So there's this guy. At school. Nobody talks to him — like, actively avoids him, and I don't know why. I don't even know his name." Lily sat up, pulling her knees to her chest. "And a few nights before I even saw him properly, I had this dream. Really vivid. There was a tattoo — a wolf, like snarling, dark ink, on someone's shoulder. I didn't see a face, just the tattoo. And it felt important, you know? Dream-important. Then I woke up and forgot about it, mostly."

"Okay…"

"Then on Tuesday, I was talking to Nia and Chloe at lunch and I wasn't really paying attention, and one of this guy's — the one nobody talks to — one of his friends bumped into me. Hard. My books fell. He bent down to pick them up and his sleeve rode up and—" Lily paused, hearing how it sounded before she even finished the sentence. "It was the same tattoo. Exact same wolf. From my dream."

Emma didn't say anything for a second. Lily braced for the teasing, the you've been reading too many of those apps before bed comment she fully expected.

Instead, Emma's face had gone still and thoughtful in a way that made Lily feel, oddly, like she'd been taken seriously.

"Same tattoo," Emma repeated slowly. "Exactly the same? Not just, like, a wolf tattoo, but the same pose, same style?"

"I think so. I only saw it for a second, but yeah. It looked identical."

"That's..." Emma chewed her lip. "Okay, that's actually kind of freaky, Lily. Dreams do weird things, sure, coincidences happen, but the exact same tattoo, on someone connected to a guy you'd apparently already clocked without knowing why?" She shook her head. "What happened after? Did the guy say anything?"

"No — that's the other thing. As soon as he covered it up again, he looked over at this other guy. The one nobody talks to. Like checking with him. Like he needed permission to have shown it at all." Lily hugged her knees tighter. "And the other guy — the quiet one — he looked at me. Just for a second. Like he knew I'd seen it and he wasn't happy about it."

"So you think it means something. The tattoo."

"I don't know what it would mean. I don't know any of these people. I just—" Lily exhaled, frustrated at how flimsy it sounded now that it was actually out in the air between them. "I can't stop thinking about it. Both things. The dream and then seeing it for real. It doesn't feel like a coincidence. It feels like I was supposed to notice."

Emma was quiet for a moment, tapping her pencil against the edge of the sketchbook — her thinking gesture, one Lily had watched her do since they were kids solving math homework together at this same kitchen table, in this same house, in a different country.

"Okay," Emma said finally. "Two things. One — I'm not going to pretend that's not strange, because it is, and I'm not going to tell you you're imagining it. Dreams line up with real life sometimes in ways that don't mean anything. But this feels specific." She met Lily's eyes. "Two — whoever this quiet guy is, and whatever that tattoo means to his friends, people don't get that nervous over nothing. You said he looked over like he needed permission. That's not nothing, Lily. That's a group with rules."

"So what do I do?"

"Nothing, for now." Emma said it gently, but firmly, the way she said things when she'd already decided she was right. "Don't go poking around asking people what the tattoo means, don't corner the quiet guy, don't do anything that gets their attention before you understand what you're even looking at. Just... pay attention. Quietly. And tell me if anything else happens. Anything at all."

"You sound like you think this is actually serious."

"I think," Emma said carefully, "that you had a dream about something before it happened, which is either a wild coincidence or it isn't, and I'd rather be cautious than right. Okay?"

Lily managed a small smile. "Since when are you the cautious one?"

"Since you started dreaming about mystery tattoos on boys nobody will talk about." Emma flicked her gently on the knee and reached for her sketchbook again, though she didn't go back to drawing right away. "Just — keep me posted. That's all I'm asking."

"I will."

"I mean it, Lily. Anything."

"I will," Lily said again, and meant it, even as some small, unplaceable part of her wondered if anything was already more than she'd told her sister — the way the quiet guy's eyes had held hers for that one second longer than a stranger's should have, and the way she hadn't been able to stop thinking about it since.

She didn't mention that part. Not yet

in a dark alley, Wayne stood with two of his closest friends.

His expression was unreadable.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

The guy nodded.

“She saw it.”

Wayne's jaw tightened.

“How much?”

“Enough to notice.”

Silence.

Wayne looked down the corridor.

“Did she say anything?”

“No.”

“Did she tell anyone?"

"No."

Wayne's eyes narrowed then he exhaled slowly.

He was worried about Lily.

And now she'd seen something she wasn't supposed to see.

The tattoo wasn't just a mark.

It was a warning.

A symbol that belonged to a world Lily knew nothing about.

A world Wayne had spent years keeping separate from everything else.

“Cover it next time,” Wayne said coldly.

His friend nodded

Later that evening, Lily is alone in her room. She keeps thinking about the man she saw earlier—the one who helped pick up her book and had the wolf tattoo.

Then something small happens.

She notices that one of the pages in her book has been folded.

She doesn't remember folding it.

When she opens the page, there's a tiny handwritten message:

“Some things are better left unseen.”

Now Lily starts wondering: Who put that there?

She immediately thinks about Wayne and his people, but she doesn't know whether she's being paranoid.

Lily sat quietly on the edge of her bed, staring at the note in her hand.

She had read it at least five times, but the words still made no sense.

Some things are better left unseen.

Her fingers tightened around the paper.

Who had written it?

And more importantly, how had it gotten inside her book?

Lily slowly looked around her room.

Everything seemed normal.

Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was trying to warn her.

Or threaten her.

Her thoughts immediately returned to Wayne.

Ever since she had met him, strange things had been happening around her. The dreams. The strange feeling she couldn't explain. The men she had seen around him.

And now this.

Lily walked toward the window.

She pushed the curtain aside and looked outside.

Her eyes narrowed.

A black car was parked across the street.

It wasn't unusual for a car to be there, but something about this one caught her attention. It had been sitting in exactly the same position for several minutes.

Lily leaned closer to the glass.

The windows were dark.

She couldn't see the person inside.

Her heart began beating faster.

“Who are you?”

She didn't realize she had whispered the words aloud.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then—

The headlights suddenly came on.

Lily froze.

Someone was inside.

Just then, her mother's voice echoed from downstairs.

“Lily! Come downstairs!

Lily glanced toward the door.

“Coming!”

She looked back at the window.

The car was still there.

She hesitated.

Maybe she should tell her mother.

Maybe she should—

“Lily!”

“I'm coming!”

She sighed and pulled the curtain closed.

As she turned around, her bedroom door suddenly opened.

“Why are you always hiding in here?”

Lily jumped.

Noah stood in the doorway with a mischievous smile.

“You scared me!”

He laughed. “Good. Maybe now you'll stop disappearing every five minutes.”

“I wasn't disappearing.”

“You were definitely disappearing.”

Lily rolled her eyes.

Noah walked into the room and picked up one of her pillows.

“Come on. Mom is calling everyone. Unless you want her to come upstairs herself.”

“You wouldn't dare.”

“Oh, I absolutely would.”

He raised the pillow as though he were about to throw it at her.

“Don't you dare!”

Noah grinned.

For the first time that evening, Lily laughed.

The strange feeling in her chest slowly disappeared.

She grabbed the pillow from him and pushed him toward the door.

“Go downstairs.”

“You first.”

“Noah!”

“Fine, fine.”

They walked downstairs together, arguing over something completely meaningless.

Lily never looked back at the window.

She never saw the black car still waiting across the street.

Inside the vehicle, someone sat quietly in the darkness.

Their eyes remained fixed on Lily's house.

On the second floor.

On the window she had just left.

A small piece of paper rested between their fingers.

The same kind of paper Lily had found inside her book.

The person slowly folded it and slipped it into their pocket.

They had been watching her for longer than Lily realized.

And tonight, they had finally decided to let her know.

Not who they were.

Not what they wanted.

Just enough to make her afraid.

The car remained there for another few minutes.

Then the engine started.

The black vehicle disappeared into the darkness.

And inside the house, Lily had no idea that someone had been watching her along