“Yeah, it is…” Rudy replied.
“You think… You don’t think…” I cleared my throat. “You don’t think he’s down there, do you? I mean, maybe he thought someone was following him and ditched the car?”
Rudy turned around and narrowed his glare at me, his nostrils flaring beneath the glow of the moonlight. “Then how the fuck did the keys get in Nickie’s cabin, under the floorboards, covered in someone’s blood?”
“It’s her grandmother’s cabin.”
“Right, so the old lady did it. Makes fucking sense.”
“Where the fuck are you going?” I shouted after him, jogging through the snow just so I could catch up to his giant-ass strides.
“To figure out what the fuck is going on in that fucking house,” he replied without looking at me, his strides just as giant and annoyed. Fucker wasn’t slowing down.
“The house is that way.” I pointed behind us. “Besides, it’s cold as shit.”
“Then go back. I’m sure you can find yourself a pair of tits that will help warm you up just fine. Obviously nothing is keeping you out here.”
Fucking hell, less broody my ass. More jealous, for sure. That was honestly a nice change though. I enjoyed feeling appreciated.
I grinned, quickly dropping it before the big guy got the wrong impression. “That’s not what I meant and you know it, dumbass. I’m just trying to figure out what the plan is here.”
“The plan is… find the car,check.” He jiggled the keysin the air. “Find Prat and then find out what that little shit is hiding in that locked room of hers.”
I shook my head, watching Rudy stomp away from me before glancing back towards the trail that led to the cabin.
Fuck…
CHAPTER 30
NICKIE
A FEW DAYS PRIOR
“Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one…” I hummed the rhyme to myself over and over again as I remembered the way my big sister’s head had cracked open like a ripe honeydew melon and splattered blood all over our bedroom floor.
My daddy wouldn’t let me play with her after that. He said sissy wouldn’t do much playin’ with anyone any moreafter that.I told him she shouldn’t have taken my favorite dress then.
Noelle was always stealing my things and never givin’ them back. I let her keep my dress, though. I didn’t want it with all the blood on it anymore anyway. What I did want was someone to play with, instead of being cooped up in this room on my lonesome.
I huffed out an annoyed breath. I wasbooooored.
Things were quiet over on this side of the building tonight, which told me things weren’t so quiet on the other side. I dropped the few kiddie books they let me keep in my room onto a pile on the floor and stepped on top to get a little peeky peek out the bulletproof window. The halls were empty, and a few seconds later, I heard the code called out over the PA system. There was a medical emergency in the main building. Which meant all the nosey Nancys were rushing over there to scope it out.
No fair! I wanted to know what was going on too, so I did that thing where I started slamming my head against the wall and making those sounds sissy made when I tried to pull the hatchet out of her skull. It had gotten stuck and I’d gotten blood all over my Mary Janes when I tried to hold her down with a foot on her chest.
Daddy hadn’t liked me doing that very much. He liked it less when the doctors told him there was nothing wrong with me. Wasn’t his fault, though. He didn’t know I liked to play games with the doctors too.
It didn’t take long for the guys at the desk to come rushing towards my room. Picking me up off the floor, dropping me onto a gurney, and wheeling me down the hall to the medical ward. I pretended to be asleep and all the people in the scrubs were too distracted by whatever was happening in one of the bays to pay much mind to me.
I peeked an eye open and then the other, before peering down at the straps on my wrists and ankles. Then I popped my thumb out of its socket and slipped an arm free, quickly unstrapping the other arm and then both my legs.
Everyone was shouting, calling out words like “emergency transport” and “extenuating circumstances.” I didn’tlike big words. People just used 'em when they were trying to make themselves sound smart. Little words were just fine and didn’t have ya looking like a dickweed.
See? I could use big words too!
I slid off the hospital bed, tiptoed from behind the curtain, and rushed out the door before anyone even realized I was missing. The halls over here were just as empty but I could feel the cameras watching me, so I looked up and gave them a little wave. They didn’t wave back, though. They never did.
I continued skipping down the hall until I found the locker room where all the doctors and nurses andmursesliked to clean up and get changed. They didn’t like having blood on them. I didn’t mind it so much. I kinda like the sticky feel when it was almost dried.
