I take a slice before anyone else tries to interrogate me because I don’t think I’ll be able to keep this lie going, let alone a straight face.
“You don’t happen to know anything about a murderer being on the loose, do you, Xav?” Aspen muses as she grabs a slice too, and she winks at me as she sits down on the chair.
“No,” I reply with a monotone voice, and I sit down beside her.
“Really?”
I kick her in the shin, and she nearly chokes on her pizza.
“Stop it,” I whisper sideways.
“You need to come clean. Before it’s too late,” she whispers back.
“What are you guys talking about?” Melody asks, breaking my train of thought.
“Homework. Aspen wants me to do hers.”
She audibly gasps. “I did not.”
“I know I’m the smarter twin,” I reply, putting up a petty face.
She pulls a piece of ham off her pizza and sticks it onto my cheek. “Earth to fucking Xav, like hell you are.”
The doorbell rings, and my entire body springs into action. “I’ll go.”
I drop my pizza on my plate and bolt toward the door before anyone can beat me to it, but the moment I open it, I’m at a loss for words.
Sunny clutches her belly, but her black jacket is stained in blood. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
She’s hurt.
I choke up. “Oh my God.”
“I can’t go back,” she murmurs.
Her bike is parked against the tree outside my parents’ house in a way I’ve never seen her park before. She must be in so much pain.
“Back where?” I ask, but she doesn’t answer.
I glance over my shoulder before I walk outside and put my shoulder underneath hers. “C’mon.”
While the others are chatting among each other, I swiftly take Sunny upstairs and into one of the bathrooms all the way in the back of the house, where barely anybody ever comes. Except maybe Melody when she’s covered herself in baby oil again to clean off all the paint stains on her skin.
I put Sunny down on the edge of the tub and close the door before I grab a seat and sit down in front of her. She’s bent over, clutching her sides, breathing out soft puffs of air as a curtain of black-and-green hair covers her eyes. I lean forward to peek underneath until I find the darkness in her eyes reflected in mine.
They narrow. Fiercely.
Terror grips my heart, but I keep my body steady as I grab her arm, which she keeps locked in place.
“Let me see, please.”
After a few seconds, she finally lets me win, and I gently pull it away.
There’s a bloody mark on her jacket, so I slip it off her shoulders and let it drop to the marble floor. The black tank top underneath sticks to her skin from both blood and sweat, and I swallow away the lump in my throat as I look at her voluptuous body.
Focus, Xavier, focus goddammit.
There’s a cut on her arm, which is clearly from a fight, but the wound in her belly is obviously more dire.
