For about half a heartbeat I once wondered what the three of us could be together—me, Cort, Remi. But that pulse passed and now I see her differently. Someone to protect but love from a distance.
Besides, I’m fucking selfish and I love Cortland to death, but whoever I find, I’ll possess.
That will never change.
Cortland yawns again, proving my point.
Amazingly, I sleep right through Lyle’s cries in the night. My problem is falling asleep, not staying asleep. Lately it feels impossible to get there. But Remi doesn’t have such a luxury, and neither does my best friend.
“Yeah,” Cortland says, the word sluggish with exhaustion. “For once, you’re right.” He gets to his feet and stretches his arms up overhead, his shirt riding up.
For once.With him, I’ve been more right than wrong, but despite his sarcasm, he’s aware. I don’t feel the need to point it out.
“‘Night,” he says as he passes by me to head to the staircase. “And maybe consider walking through a forest with a heavy deer population in daylight hours next time, huh?” He doesn’t even look at me as he says it, but I tense, narrowing my eyes on his retreating back, his hand on the staircase railing.
“No one hunts in our woods.” I try to keep my tone even, despite the way my heart races. But he must be mistaken. Even the property adjacent to ours is usually quiet. From hunters, anyway.
“No one, huh?” He’s a third of the way up the stairs and he turns to look at me, his head cocked. “This morning, you didn’t hear that round go off?”
I grip the remote in my hand tighter. I think of the texts on my phone. “No.” I was dead asleep then, a rarity. “What time?”
His brows furrow. “I don’t know? Sun wasn’t up yet.”
What the fuck? I don’t want to get him all worked up about why I’m asking so many questions so I pretend I’m uninterested. “Nah, I didn’t hear it.”
“Hope they got something,” he says bitterly, shaking his head as he starts up the steps again. “Too many shots popped off and woke Lyle.” Grumbling under his breath about babies and bad ideas, he disappears from view.
Someone shooting rounds off in the woods.I need to ask Dad if he’s done something to piss anyone off lately. It’s not implausible I become a target when that happens. In the past, my parents have always settled their shit before it could reach me—usually with a bullet in the enemy’s brain—but it doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way, especially now I’m doing my own thing. We run in different circles—I didn’t want any part of what they do; I found that out last year—but the underground is the underground and you’re bound to bump into someone you know every now and then, no matter what crime you choose.
A scream tears through the living room and I flinch, dropping the remote and pulling my gun from my waistband, where I’d hid it from Cortland when I sat down. When it’s not onme,it’s stowed in a locked gun safe in my room in the back of the closet. But when I’m on my feet and I glance at the TV, my pulse hammering hard in my chest, I see a man’s hand wrapped around a woman’s mouth, the butcher knife held to her throat, and I realize maybe I shouldn’t be trusted with a gun at all.
Fuck.
I take a breath in through my nose. Out through my mouth.
Close my eyes.
But in my head, I’m in a hotel room. Vomit coming through my nose.
I run my fingers through my hair, gun caught between my thumb and my skull and I feel unsteady on my feet.
I’m okay.
I’m definitely okay.
It’s just a movie and it was just a hotel room and whoever is fucking with me doesn’t want to hurt Sloane. They want to unnerve me. It’s rare, the person who shoots first and asks questions later. Especially if they know I’m a Leary. My family name is a line most sane people won’t cross.
How did they know I was texting Sloane, though? But it’s possible they didn’t. If they know anything about me, and it seems they do, they know she’s one of the few girls aside from Remi I even talk to.
There are possibilities. Women I could fuck or even marry. But after the last girl… I can’t.
I sink down to the couch and set the gun on the coffee table, then pull my phone from my pocket.
I open up my messages to Sloane. I know it’s probably nothing, but the adrenaline in my chest is rapid and unsettling.
Are you still up?
I stare at my screen, hoping she’s awake. It’s not really late, but it’s not like she owes me a reply.
