The words taste bitter. Upstairs with her. Didn’t even shut the door good.
“Busy,” Becki repeats flatly. “Or strategic?”
I don’t want to think about that.
Holler speaks, and it’s final. “Go home, but the club will be watching out.”
“Not Oaks,” I say, asking for a favor.
“Not Oaks,” Holler agrees.
That night I scrub my hands until my skin stings, like I can wash off being counted. I double-lock every door, check every window twice, leave the porch light on even though Daddy hates the electric bill creeping up.
I sit on the edge of my bed staring at my phone.
I don’t call him. I don’t have his number.
If he wanted to know I was safe, he’d find me. He’d ask. If he cared, he’d just show up like he has before.
Men like him don’t save girls like me. They ruin them, apparently.
And maybe that’s better than disappearing.
I lie down eventually, staring at the ceiling. When I finally fall asleep, it ain’t Bethany in my dreams. It ain’t the blood. It ain’t Pearly Gates.
It’s Oaks.
Not touching me. Just watching like he’s already decided something.
And I don’t know yet if I’m about to be protected.
Or taken.
Chapter 11
Brittany
I don’t plan to see Elijah again.
That’s the lie I tell myself while I stand in the frozen foods aisle at Hollar Dollar, staring at discount pizzas with curled corners and frostbitten plastic like I’m doing serious math. Pepperoni or the store-brand supreme with the mystery meat and the sad little green pepper cubes. Like the decision matters. Like my hands ain’t shaking because I’ve spent the past week pretending the blood-written warning on my car was just a prank and not a message somebody meant.
Not shaking from the cold. From Hell.
From the way you can feel eyes on you even when nobody’s looking. From the note Oaks wrote that I’ve folded so many times it’s gone soft as cloth, tucked into the back pocket of my jeans like proof I didn’t imagine him. From the way this town has a memory like a hound dog and once it’s got your scent, it doesn’t let go. It drags you through mud and gravel and calls it fate.
I tell myself I’m fine. I tell myself I’m just tired. I tell myself I’m only here because the pawn shop felt too quiet today and my house felt even quieter, and I don’t like how it feels to be alone anymore.
Hell doesn’t care what I tell myself.
“Brittany?”
My name snaps through me like a wire pulled too tight. I turn before I can stop it.
Elijah Notes stands at the end of the aisle with a shopping basket hooked over one arm and a Bible tucked under the other like it grew from his ribs. Clean jeans. Plain boots. Soft brown hair cut neat around his ears. He looks like the kind of boy mamas point at in church and say, now that one’s a good man, baby, that one won’t break your heart.
For a second, relief hits so hard it makes my vision tilt.
I hate that.
