Page 47 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

“No.” The answer is immediate. I only hung around the police as long as I did last week because of the blond with kissable lips who barely reaches my shoulder. “I don’t think I can. My head…”

I don’t have to fake the weakness in my arm when I gesture vaguely at my forehead, and the stabbing lights have my eyelids slamming shut on their own.

“Of course.” Jameson’s back to being one man again, and that man is frowning. “One of us will drive you to the hospital.” He snaps his fingers at Betty-Katherine-Maria and says, “Annabelle.”

Annabelle. Right.

“No.” I shake my head and have to swallow down another wave of nausea as everything in front of me jumps and wiggles and the lights try to melt my eyeballs.

Annabelle’s worried gaze is back on me. “Dr. Mohr, your pupils⁠—”

“You’re pretty,” I tell her, surprising myself with this accurate observation. I smile up at her loopily. “I’m Hugo. I’m fine.”

Shoving my broken glasses in my pocket, I finally pull myself upright, swaying once I’m on my feet.

“Police later,” I tell the group because I can’t give a statement right now, not with my scrambled brain fixed on finding Ray Overton. Finding him, severing his hand at the wrist, forcing it down his throat until he chokes to death on his own fat fingers. The roses along the east side of the duplex need more fertilizer.

When Jameson reaches for my keys, my body moves before my brain catches up, and a moment later he’s stepping back with both palms raised, looking at me like he’s never met me before. I have no idea what he saw; all I know is, I’ve still got my keys, and the rest of the board is giving me a wide berth.

Good. Let them be afraid. It keeps them out of my way as I fling myself into my car and pull out of the lot. I turn onto the main road as the first squad car races past, and I only have to pull over twice to vomit on the drive. When I get home, either ten minutes or six hours later, I make it as far as the couch before I collapse.

They’re undoubtedly right about the concussion, but like hell am I putting myself in a position where anyone could extract information from me in this state. About me, Quinn. About Morticia and Rue.

Wait, no. Rue doesn’t have any secrets.

I wish I could call her. I wish she would come.

Instead, I text Quinn, tapping out… I’m not sure what. I don’t even know if I’ve hit send before I’m gone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Rue

“Checklist,” Felicity says as we idle on a quiet street four blocks from Marcus Navarro’s neighborhood.

I ran through it at home, but in deference to my nervous sister, I go through the short version.

“Knife, check. Fully stocked murder kit, check. Pell’s magical drunkalizing compliance spray, check.”

Fi plucks the pink bottle out of my backpack. “Seriously, what’s in this?”

“Witchcraft.”

I hold out my hand, and she sets it carefully in my palm.

“And you remembered to account for his larger mass?”

“Yes,” I say once I’ve wrestled my far-less-patient response under control. This is how Felicity shows she cares: by reminding me about safety protocols I’ve obsessively reviewed a dozen times already. “All I need to do is blow a fuse in Navarro’s house, hit him with the spray, get the names of the assholes helping lead his little cabal of woman haters, and push him down the basement stairs so it looks like he took a fall while he was headed to the fuse box. Easy peasy.”

“Right,” Fi says flatly. “Are you sure you don’t want me there as backup?”

Great. This again.

“It’ll be fine.” I hope there’s only a hint of irritation in my voice. “I’ve done harder things.”

“On smaller, weaker men.” My sister’s lips press in a tight line. “This guy is big and has no problem doing terrible things to women. Maybe that’s one variable too many.”

“If you’re with me, I’d be distracted worrying about you.”