“Nellie, go inside,” I call, my voice sharper than intended. Panic claws at my throat as she inches closer, annoyingly fast, slippers scuffing against the pavement. She doesn’t know what she’s walking into—hell, I barely know what I’m standing in.
Jax stiffens as Arnold turns his head slowly toward Nellie. His lips twitch like he’s amused. “Well, would you look at that,” he muses. “Neighborhood watch in the flesh.”
Nellie’s gnarled fingers hover over her phone screen, her expression pinched in determination. “I’m not afraid of punks like you,” she declares, glaring at Arnold with the same authority she’d use to shoo kids off her lawn.
My pulse pounds in my ears. “Nellie, I mean it. Go inside.”
She doesn’t listen. Of course she doesn’t. She isn’t Nosy Nellie for nothing. But this isn’t some petty neighborhood dispute.
“Put the phone down,” Arnold says, his voice a low rasp. He tilts his head, studying her like she’s a bug under a microscope. Unimportant.Disposable.
She holds up her phone, close to her face to see without her glasses. “Or what?” She scoffs. “You think you can scare me? I’ve lived here for fifty-two years.”
Arnold exhales a disappointed sigh, like she’s just inconvenienced him. His hand moves so fast I barely register the gun, the sleek black shape of it barely visible in the dark. There’s no loud bang, no flash of gunpowder—just a muffled pop. It all happens way too quick.
A noise tries to claw its way up my throat, some horrified sound I refuse to let loose. Because if I react—if I scream, if I move—then she’s really been shot.
But her breath hitches as red bleeds into her robe, proving it’s true. She sways slightly, as if her body hasn’t realized what’s happened. The phone slips from her fingers, landing on the pavement with a dull thud.
Then she crumples.
Jax moves, surging toward me as Arnold steps back, tucking the gun away like it’s nothing, like he didn’t just put a bullet in an old woman’s chest.
“Nellie,” I whisper, my legs locked in place. My body won’t move, won’t function, won’t accept what I just saw—what I’m still seeing.
Until Jax is suddenly in front of me, blocking my view.
“Get back in the car,” he orders under his breath.
“No—She—” I babble, reaching out a shaky hand. “We have to call someone.”
“Shit, Jaxy,” Arnold cuts through the buzzing in my ears. “Doesn’t look ‘all clear’ now, does it?” He grins. “Better get to cleaning this up before someone sees.”
Jax grabs my hand and forces it down as I blink at what Arnold just said. Did he—did he shoot her just to annoy Jax? Did he just take a life like it’s a fuckinggame? My mouth hangs open as I shake my head in disbelief. This can’t be real.
I try to push Jax out of my way. I need to check her. Maybe she was just grazed. Someone needs to apply pressure. Someone needs to dosomething.
“She’s dead.” Jax grabs my shoulders, forcing me to look at him. There’s a hardness in his eyes, a certainty in his tone that irks me, because there’s no way.
“Kira,” he grits, speaking just to me as if he can see that I don’t believe him. He leans down so his forehead almost rests on mine. “She’s. Dead.”
I scan his face, my eyes blurry with tears. My shoulders slump at the truth in his words.
“Now get in the car. Right.Fucking. Now.”
Chapter Twenty
Kira
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Nix says.
Flinching, I quickly remove my fingers from the blinds, letting them rattle closed as I spin to face her. She’s pulling a choker over her head, looking more primped than usual.
“No, there’s not.” I shake my head and push past her, trying to put some distance between me and the window.
I know I shouldn’t keep checking, but I can’t help myself. Nosy Nellie’s house has been dark for two days now, and the shoe has to drop at some point. But when? She didn’t have any family that I know of, but surely she had a friend—someone who will be concerned when they don’t hear from her and send a wellness check. But then what happens?
Curling back into the nest I’ve built on the couch, I pull the blanket up to my chin as the sick feeling in my stomach worsens. I have no idea what Jax did with her body. For all I know, she’s rotting away right next door. But he wouldn’t do that, would he? That would mean leaving a bullet to find.
