“Yeah,” I say, my voice dropping. “I know.” This one’s blood-deep. “But fuck,” I add, gripping the wheel harder, “it’s going to be worth it—seeing a bullet hole between that bastard’s eyes.”
Bridger lets out a low whistle. “Goddamn right.”
I glance down at the GPS on my phone.
Three minutes out.
My stomach knots tighter, coiling like a live wire under my ribs. I scan the road ahead, a long stretch of cracked highway, broken fences, and overgrown fields swallowing whatever used to be here.
“It should be around here somewhere,” I mutter, slowing just a little.
Bridger leans forward, squinting through the windshield. “There,” he says, pointing. “That’s got to be it.”
And yeah—about a football field away, rising out of the weeds like a corpse clawing its way up through the earth, is the rusted metal roof of a long-abandoned building. The old Scullville school. Half the windows are busted out. The bricks are stained black. The front doors are barely hanging on their hinges.
“Looks straight out of a horror movie,” Bridger mutters.
I let out a dry, dark laugh. “Just like us.”
We turn off the road, the SUV crunching over an overgrown gravel path that used to be a driveway. Grass scrapes the sides of the car, tall enough to block the lower half of the building.
“That’s Reese’s car,” I say, pointing. It’s parked crooked, the driver’s side door flung open like he bailed out fast—or wasrippedout.
And Reese? He’s on the ground beside it.
I slam the gearshift into park before the SUV even stops rolling. The second it jerks still, we’re out. Boots slamming the ground, grass whipping at our legs as we tear toward Reese’s car.
“Reese!” Bridger shouts, even though we both already know. You can feel it in the air—something still and final. Death.
I drop to my knees beside him. He’s crumpled just outside the open door, one arm bent beneath him, the other limp across the gravel.
There’s a hole in his head. Small and clean. Right between the eyes. The blood beneath him is still pooling.
I reach out, touch Reese’s throat. I know there will be no pulse, but I check anyway.
“Fuck me,” Bridger breathes, air sucked clean from his lungs. “Looks like Dad hasn’t changed a bit.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
MARLOWE
The door slams behind them, and something inside me snaps. A thread pulled too tight for too long finally gives way, and the sound it makes is silent—but I feel it everywhere. In my chest. In my gut. In my goddamn bones. Everything in meknows—some part of this, this moment right here, is the start of something I won’t be able to undo. My legs feel unsteady, like they’re trying to fold beneath me. I clutch the edge of the kitchen counter to keep from sinking. The air is too thin. Or maybe too thick. It’s choking me either way.
Neve’s pacing, chewing the corner of her nail, eyes darting toward the front door. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she whispers, over and over like it’s a prayer. “This feels wrong.”
“It is wrong,” I whisper back, my throat dry. “I should have stopped him.”
“You couldn’t have stopped him,” she says, but she doesn’t sound convinced. Not even close.
A deep, dizzy wave of nausea curls through my stomach, and suddenly the room tilts sideways. I grab the counter harder, knuckles white.
“Whoa.” Neve’s at my side in a flash. “Lo—sit down. You’re white as a ghost.”
“I can’t sit down,” I snap, shaking her off. “I can’t fucking breathe, Neve.”
She stares at me, eyes wide, panic matching mine in real time.
“I need to go,” I say, already moving toward the door. “I’m not just going to sit here and wait to find out he’s dead.”
