"I don't do dates." Or anything, it seemed, but maim people. That was something that Luke could get behind. Could understand. Being friendly had never worked. Well, it sort of did. He got to hang out with a guy that cut open people's heads, played around in their brains, and was super powerful. He'd never really seen him do any of the head cutting but the super powerful? He felt that first hand. And then there was a second guy, who found him at the diner, and he was bad ass too. Like a weird, old punk rocker with the chipping nails and stuff. And he could literally tear the world apart. He didn't, but he could have if they didn't kill him.

The point was, he'd had absolutely no one that really cared for him. He tried to learn from the dangerous guys he'd met but had mostly got stuck with really bad and hard to live by life lessons. Nothing practical at all. So he learned for himself. He'd been on the street now for a year and a half, since leaving Samuel's sideshow act a few days after his nineteenth birthday.

Axel might be the only guy since then that he'd spoken to without trying to steal something from them or kill them. Maybe that was a big deal. Luke didn't think so.

He did, however, fish a phone from his pocket to turn on the flashlight and leaned across the table to have a look at the mark he'd made.

"See, that's fucking romantic, dude. Left you something to remember me by."