I carefully made my way toward the bathroom down the hall, moving slowly.
Each step tugged slightly at my shoulder, but it was manageable.
I flicked on the bathroom light and stared at my reflection in the mirror.
Same messy blonde hair.Same freckles across my nose.Same face.
If someone looked at me right now, they’d have no idea that a week ago I’d been shot.From the outside, I looked exactly the same.
But under the oversized T-shirt I was wearing?There was a neat row of stitches in my shoulder.A small hole where a bullet had gone in.A matching one where it had come out.
Six more days and the stitches would come out.
Then each day after that I was supposed to start feeling better.
Stronger.More normal.
I turned on the faucet and washed my hands slowly.For a second, I considered changing my clothes, but the idea of wrestling with a shirt right now felt like a bad decision.
I dried my hands and looked at myself one more time.
Same Britta, just with a bullet hole.
Chapter Two
Swift
Coffee didn’t fix much.
It didn’t stop the ache in my jaw from clenching it all night.It didn’t erase the images that came like a flicker behind my eyes every time the house went quiet: Britta on the floor, blood blooming fast, Tempi screaming, the smell of smoke and liquor, and panic.
Coffee didn’t make Madison feel like home, either.
But it gave my hands something to do.
I leaned against the kitchen counter with a mug cupped in both palms, letting the heat sink into my skin.The kitchen was small in that lived-in way.Real wood cabinets, a worn table that had probably hosted a thousand dinners and a million arguments, a little rooster-shaped salt shaker on the windowsill that made me want to laugh for no reason at all.
Britta’s mom’s house didn’t feel like a place for violence.It felt like cinnamon and laundry detergent and old TV shows you put on for background noise.
Which was exactly why I’d been on her porch for eight days, because someone had dragged violence to Britta anyway.
Twister stood next to me, also holding coffee, also leaning like the weight on his shoulders was something he’d learned to carry with his spine instead of his hands.He looked calmer than he’d been the night of the shooting.
That didn’t mean he was.
Twister was the kind of man who could smile while planning your funeral.
Britta and Tempi sat at the kitchen table, close together like they were trying to stitch normal back into place with conversation.Tempi had her hair up in a messy bun, wearing a hoodie that looked like it had lived through a hundred late-night closes at the Badger’s Den.Britta was in an oversized tee, one shoulder sitting slightly different because of the bandages underneath, her hair still sleep-tousled.
They were talking quietly, their voices low and familiar.
Tempi was trying to make Britta laugh.
Britta was trying not to show how tired she still was.
I watched without making it obvious.I’d learned a long time ago that women noticed more than men gave them credit for.Britta especially.She had a sharpness to her that didn’t dull just because she was healing.
Twister shifted slightly, angling his body toward me so the girls wouldn’t hear.“You seen anything?”he asked quietly.
