The message, delivered and received.
Evening had settled into full darkness by the time the cleaning crew finished their initial assessment and boarded up the windows and sealed the door. They were loading their equipment to the truck when my phone rang. It was a blocked number. I knew it was Seven before I heard his voice.
"Where are you?" His voice was controlled, but I could hear the edge underneath it—sharp and dangerous.
"My sister's house. Her place was vandalized sometime last night. She is out of state so I had to come talk to the police and help her document the damage for the insurance report. The cleaning crew just finished."
"Didn't I tell you not to leave the safe house?"
"Yeah, well, there's no one else to handle this right now."
"Her boyfriend."
It sounded like a question. I wasn't sure if Seven actually had ran background checks on all my family members and knew about Jazz or if he was throwing spaghetti at the wall because in his mind every woman needed to have a man to take care of her. "He's on his way," I snapped through the growing headache.
In fact, Jazz should have landed in LAX thirty or so minutes ago. But it'd probably take him another hour and a half to get to Katrina's. At best.
"It's dangerous."
"And stupid?" I added.
"I can't protect you if I don't know where you are."
Silence stretched across the line. I could hear him breathing—measured, deliberate, like he was trying to control something beneath the surface that wasn't just the physical function of his body.
"I didn't have time to leave a note," I admitted.
"And you didn't take the burner."
"In my defense, I was panicking."
"Your defense is terrible."
"So is your attendance record."
"Are we back to school now?"
"I'm just saying. You left without a word, and now you're mad I did the same thing."
"That's different," he retorted, voice uncharacteristically uneven.
"I don't see how."
"That's not the point. The point is that you're reckless."
My chest tightened. The anger in his voice wasn't directed at me—not entirely. It was directed at the situation. At the fact that I'd been vulnerable and unreachable. And that compromised him and his entire operation. "Seven?—"
"I'm coming to get you. Just stay where you are."
"Where do I text you the address?"
"I know the address."
But of course he did.
39 seven
When I pulled up to the location, Kimmy sat on the porch of the battered brick-clad cottage, staring at her phone. Scrolling. Probably looking at pictures of puppies or something equally pointless.
