She whips out her phone.
“Hey, Maddie. SOS. Girls only. Bring Eden fresh clothes. Old school emergency. And tell Rabbit he’s no longer needed. I’ll ping you my location.” She hangs up.
“Old school emergency?” I repeat, numb. “What does that mean?”
“It means exactly this,” she says darkly. “The men have their codes, and we have ours.”
Ten minutes later, tyres screech at the end of the alley and Maddie, Lucy, Darcie, and Orla appear like a strike team.
I don’t move—I can’t. I’m frozen somewhere between shock and disbelief, but they move around me with practised precision.
Maddie and Lucy peel my bloodied clothes off. Darcie bags everything—the clothes, the broken knife handle, even my shoes. Orla and Maddie drag Liam’s body back into the recessed doorway he jumped out from. He disappears instantly from sight.
They cover him with a filthy blanket.
“Took it from a homeless bloke,” Maddie says with a shrug. “I gave him some cash. Relax.”
Fern helps me into clean clothes. Leggings, a hoodie, and fresh trainers—all soft, loose,untainted.
“Hands,” she orders.
I lift them. She pours bleach straight over my fingers, palms, wrists. The sting hits instantly, and I gasp, but she doesn’t stop. The rest of the bleach splashes across the ground, fizzing through the blood pooled on the concrete. She follows it with bottled water, washing the last red streaks toward a drain.
It’s clinical.
Efficient.
Terrifying.
When she’s finished, she grabs my hand. “Now we drink.”
“Drink?” My voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere far away.
She nods firmly. “Yes. CCTV. Witnesses. We need to be seen alive, well, and very far from here. Come on.”
Behind us, Maddie tosses the evidence bag into her car. “I told Stacks I was nipping out for snacks,” she says. “You never saw me tonight.”
I nod weakly and she speeds off, tyres screeching.
The others fall into step around us, boxing me in like bodyguards, guiding me back to the street and toward the nearest bar. As though we’re just a group of girls on a night out, not accomplices in the aftermath of a killing.
Fern squeezes my hand.
“Deep breaths, Eden,” she murmurs. “We’ve got you.”
KADE
I stare at my watch again. Useless. Time isn’t moving. Or maybe I’m just stuck.
Diesel pauses in my doorway. His gaze drops to the suitcase by my desk, and confusion creases his face. “Going away?”
I shake my head. My throat feels raw. “It’s Eden’s.”
He steps inside and quietly shuts the door behind him. “Eden’s leaving you?”
“We’re over.” The words scrape out of me. “I’m kicking her out.”
Diesel’s eyes widen. “What the fuck, Kade?”
