Ari’s eyes darkened and a sick pleasure twisted his mouth, curling the corner of his lips. “Enough said.” He shot a look at Jules. “I can help him clean up, Master. Let me.”
Jules frowned. “No. This wasn’t your mess. I’m here to make sure no one finds the body. We’ll do this together. Come on.”
He didn’t give us a choice. In seconds, he was out of the car and stalking past Eddie, who stared in horrified confusion. Ari and I followed.
“Guess I should’ve mentioned that there might be a cop.” I smirked.
“You think?” Eddie squeaked, then slapped a hand over his mouth.
6
EDDIE
The flashlights Ari and Tyler were carrying made elongated shadows leap around the dark forest, turning the world into a weird funhouse. Snow crunched underfoot. Jules was the strong silent type. He did mutter quietly to Ari here and there, breath puffing white. But he wasn’t saying much as we muscled our tarp-covered package along a path. Essentially, the stiff body beneath my gloved grip was the worst Christmas present ever. It had the ability to give us twenty to life and pull muscles, but not much else. The yellow rope wrapped around it in place of a ribbon stood out against the bright blue plastic.
“You doing okay there?” Tyler asked from behind me.
My cheeks burned despite the cold wind as a replay of that kiss flashed through my head. And what a kiss. God, it was good. What was that all about? And, more importantly, did he want to do it again?
Ari glanced back from his spot as the leader of our macabre parade, and I looked over my shoulder at Tyler, a reassuring smile already slapped on my face. That’s when I set my foot down wrong on the snowy path. My heart lurched, along withthe rest of me, and I yelped as I landed on my ass and it ached, considering how much time I’d spent on it recently. The corpse swatted me like a bug and knocked the air out of my lungs. As I lay there trying to figure out where I went wrong today, the miserable cold seeped through my ruined suit. Seconds later, my wet, cold ass registered. Yep, I’d managed to find the only unfrozen mud puddle in the whole damned woods.
Tyler’s bright chuckle startled me. When I managed to roll what was left of Mike to my side, Jules was already on his feet again, glaring murder in my direction. Shit, I was tall, but he was bigger than me in every way that counted. My stomach transformed into a stone. He was a huge man in a police uniform, and a frisson of terror slid down my spine from having that stern scowl thrown my way. It reminded me too much of being on the receiving end of my dad’s endless rage over the years. Ari watched impassively, for the most part, lips quirking toward a smile as Tyler’s laughter wound down.
“I told you it was a bad idea for you to help carry the body. Here.” Tyler handed me the flashlight, and embarrassment made me hot all over.
“I should be taking care of you.”
“Why?” He gave me the bitch face he’d perfected a lifetime ago. He used to hurl it my way when we had infrequent squabbles over stupid things, such as whose turn it was to put away the dishes. Little peeks of the guy I used to know shone through here and there.
“Because I’m older.” I stuck out my tongue at him.
He snorted. “Two years isn’t really older.”
“We know we can trust you,” Jules said, poking Tyler’s shoulder, which I didn’t enjoy. “Do we really need him?” He swung around to focus on me.
I cringed. All at once, coming out into the woods with a couple of guys who had zero problems disposing of a bodyseemedeven dumberthan it already had. Yeah, I wanted to be on my feet for whatever bullshit was about to happen, so I got up.
“Sorry.” I waved my arms around, sort of encompassing the entire situation and sending more strange shadows reeling through the darkness. “I’m so sorry.”
Ari snorted. He was cute, but the longer we were around him, the more he made me uneasy. I brushed my suit off, for all the good that would do considering the blood stains and my sopping wet ass, as Tyler and Jules hoisted the corpse. Jules gave me one last long cold look before he turned to start walking again, and my stomach shrank to the size of a pea. There wasn’t a real marked-out trail, but he knew where we were going.
I hoped.
Thank fuck it was snowing or Jules could strand us out here. I scuffed my feet to make sure the tracks we made couldn’t vanish in the next hour. Memories of horrible children’s stories about breadcrumbs floated through my brain. Did those kids end up dead? Those old German fairy tales were so gruesome.
“How is it possible to be this embarrassed over a spill when I saw a guy’s head explode today? Just talented, I guess.” I rubbed the back of my neck as I followed everyone. The flashlight made me feel more secure. Why, I had no idea. It wasn’t as if it could protect me from a bullet.
“Because our opinions matter, since we’re alive, and a corpse doesn’t have any?” Tyler gave me an amused glance over his shoulder, and I couldn’t help but noticehedidn’t land on his ass.
“Uh, yeah.”
Ari let out a small hum, as if he was agreeing, but really, who knew? I sure didn’t. Those bizarre shadows slipped between the trees and anxiety began to pinch my brain. This was all starting to freak me out a lot. I was wet, cold, and covered in dried blood—and who knew what else. It had taken us about two hours toget everything we needed to dump the body and clean up the crime scene to Jules’s satisfaction.
As we’d cleared out of the pawnshop, Ari had left the front and back doors cracked to “let the scavengers destroy the place.” The smile he’d given me had been creepier than a clown axe murderer hiding behind a shower curtain. He had it down to a science. Or worse, perhaps he was just that messed up.
Yeah, we definitely shouldn’t be in the forest with these two. I rushed to catch up so that I was just behind Tyler.
“How far are we going?” I asked, rubbing my arm with my free hand.
