"I think I know what you need…" Seven murmurs, and before I can stop him, he yanks me into the pool. I manage to get out a short scream before the warm water swallows us beneath its surface.
When I come back up, I splash his face. "Oh, you're going to pay for that."
"Yeah?" he coaxes, shaking the water and hair from his eyes. "Come get me, Ro. I dare you."
His eyes flash with danger before he dives beneath the surface, coming straight for me like a shark after its prey.
I laugh, and back away, right into Elijah, who wraps his arms around me, caging me in for the attack.
Seven grips my waist with both hands under the water and I squirm against Elijah as Seven kisses and bites a path up my belly and between my breasts before breaking the surface and throwing his dark hair away from his face.
Ellie barks, and we turn to see her prancing onto the pool deck with muddied paws, a bone proudly clenched in her teeth.
It's big, and it doesn't look like the bone Atticus brought home for her the other day. "What do you got, girl?"
Elijah releases me so I can swim to the edge of the pool as she comes to bring me her prize.
The first thing I notice is the smell. Not the meaty rawhide scent of a bone purchased from the pet shop in town. This is more rank. Putrid with a sickly-sweet undertone.
"Hey," I say in my stern voice, trying to temper the wild excitement in her mismatched eyes. "Ellie, drop that."
She pulls away from me, and I give her a look as Seven and Elijah swim over.
"Give it here, Eleven," Seven tells her, and even though his tone isn't even half as stern as mine, Ellie brings him the bone and sets it down on the pool's edge, rushing back with her tail wagging like she's waiting for him to throw it.
"Whatisthat?"
I don't want to touch it, but I give it a nudge to better see what looks like a metal screw in the rounded top part of the bone. "Ugh." I shudder.
Seven makes a face, giving me a plaintive look, and I know all at once what I'm looking at.
Oh god.
"Is that…?"
Seven purses his lips.
"What is it?" Elijah asks, wiping the water from his face to get a better look.
"I'm pretty sure that's Jesse's."
Elijah's eyes widen at Seven just as the shadow of Atticus grows over us.
"Really?" Elijah asks.
"Yeah, he had a bad shoulder injury before I met him. Told me there were screws in the bone."
Seven nudges me beneath the water, trying to get me to shut up, but it's too late.
"You buried him on the property?"
Atticus's voice is a growl above us.
Oops.
I mouthsorryto Seven as I push backward from the wall of the pool, away from the bomb I accidentally dropped.
"Nah, man," Seven says, lifting the bone from the pool deck to look it over, unbothered by how nasty it is. "It's only been a few weeks. No way it's his."
