“Sloane?” Tillie Jean calls. “Are you in here?”
“My grandmother’s trying to kidnap me with Nigel’s help and I just called off my wedding because fuck the whole fucking world,” Sloane calls back.
Her breath catches.
“You arenotarresting me,” Granny Gaslighter says. “I’m old.”
I stride through the goats, grab her purse, and toss it to the other deputy now standing in the bedroom doorway. “The goats want whatever’s in here.”
Sure enough, they turn and charge him.
He dashes down the hall, and they follow.
Probably chasing candies.
I look at Chester and jerk a hand at Granny Gaslighter, who’s gripping her chest like she’s thinking of faking a heart attack.
As if any of us will fall for that.
Have to have a heart for it to have an attack.
“She’s Dixon’s accomplice,” I tell Chester. “I’d bet my biological weapon on it.”
Sloane chokes.
Not sure if that’s a laugh or a sob.
Maybe both.
I step around her grandmother and Nigel and head to her on the bed.
Take one dildo from her.
Then another that she must’ve grabbed after throwing the second one.
Pull her off the bed.
Into my arms.
“How did you get here so fast?” she says on a gasp.
“Right outside. All night.”
I know this sound.
This one’s definitely a sob.
“If I’d gotten here before Chester, there’d be bodies on the floor,” Tillie Jean says as she wraps her arms around both of us, which isn’t as odd and uncomfortable as it should be to have someone outside my circle hugging me too. “You’re not staying here alone for the next month. My family’s taking turns.”
I’ll stay with her.
It’s all I have to say.
I’ve got her. I’ll keep her safe.
Sloane squeezes me tighter like she wants me to say it too.
But the words are stuck in my chest.
