He stalks forward and cups my cheek, his touch warm and solid and achingly gentle.“Stop blaming yourself.”
I lean into his touch.“Too late.”
My court.My beautiful, doomed attempt at building something powerful.Something that could stand against Vincent and this whole rotting city.
And I’ve destroyed it.Hurt a man who didn’t deserve it.A man who was only trying to protect me.
With a sigh that sounds like surrender, Eddie pulls away.His hand drops, and he turns toward the exit.
“Are you coming by tonight?”I ask, a note of desperation in my voice I’ve never heard before.
He pauses in the middle of the aisle, his back to me, and reaches out to straighten a bag of chips on the endcap.The gesture is so him—finding small order in chaos, fixing little things when the big things are unfixable.
“The last thing I want is for all this to blow back on you, so it might be best if I lie low for a while,” he says without turning back.
Then he disappears around the corner.The bell above the door dings his exit—a cheerful, obscene little jingle that mocks the moment.
Gone.
I stand there reeling, my eyes burning.I’ll be damned if I let that man walk out of my life.I may be damned anyway, though.No, I definitely am.But if I’m going down, I’m taking everyone who hurt me—hurt us—with me.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.At first I think it’s probably a text from James, checking in, but when I pull my phone out, it’s Ben, likely asking me about his shift tomorrow morning.
I don’t read it.Instead, I open a local news app to see if there are any new bodies.New victims.New evidence of Red Hands circling closer, tightening the noose.
The headlines blur.A town council meeting.A church raffle.Roadwork on the highway.
Then, near the bottom, a story catches my eye.
Wichita Woman Hospitalized Following Domestic Incident
I tap it.
The article loads and shows a generic photo of the hospital.The article contains vague, careful language about “injuries consistent with physical assault.”The suspect fled the scene because of course he did.Police are searching.The woman’s name is withheld for privacy and safety.
But the location isn’t.
The 400 block of Maple Street.
Michael Devlin’s street.
The woman from the gas station.The one who whispered his name to me.
She’s in the hospital.
Because we tried to help her?
We planted Farley’s severed hand to frame her abuser.To make him visible and vulnerable.To give her breathing room while the investigation circled him and eventually snatched him away from her life.That was the plan.That was supposed to be how this worked.
And instead—what?He panicked when the police started asking questions?Got violent?Took out his fear and rage on the nearest target?
On her.
Because our plan fucking backfired.
My vision blurs.Something hot and acidic burns behind my eyes.
I failed her.
