Page 6 of The Next Lie

“Get her out of here,” Nash says. His voice has shifted. Not loud. Not panicked. Commanding in a way that makes the air around him obey. “Now.”

“I’m not leaving,” I say.

At least, I think I say it. The words barely make it past my teeth.

Shiloh’s hand slides around my back.

“I know,” he says.

Then he lifts me.

I don’t fight him because my body has gone strange and distant. One arm hooks beneath my knees. The other locks around my back. He gathers me against his chest as if I weigh nothing, as if the entire room can watch him carry me and he does not give a damn.

Maybe he doesn’t.

His heart pounds beneath my cheek. Fast. Hard. Human.

“Put me down,” I say, but there’s no real impetus behind the words.

“No,” Shiloh says.

There is no teasing in it. No silk. No pretty lie.

Ever walks close beside us, one hand hovering near my shoulder without touching. His eyes keep moving. Doorways. Corners. Hands. Faces. He is checking every possible threat while Shiloh carries me like I am something breakable.

I hate that too.

I hate all of it.

I hate needing them.

I hate that I do need them.

Behind us, Nash says something to Deacon. I turn my head, trying to hear, but the room swings and my stomach lurches. I catch only pieces.

“Enough lies.”

“Then ask her⁠—”

“I said not you.”

Then the door opens, and the club spits us out into the New Orleans night.

Heat wraps around me immediately.

Wet, heavy, alive. The sidewalk shines under the streetlights, damp from rain that must have come and gone while we were underground. The air smells like river mud, fried food, cigarette smoke, spilled liquor, and the sweet rot of flowers dying somewhere in the dark.

Normal smells. Real smells. I drag one breath in and choke on it.

Shiloh sets me down, but he doesn’t let go until my feet hold. They barely do. My knees tremble. My chest jerks with short, useless breaths.

Ever steps in front of me, just close enough that his body blocks the sight of the door behind him.

“Reva,” he says.

I shake my head.

I can’t talk. If I open my mouth, something worse than a sob will come out. Something feral and humiliating. Something that belongs to the child in the closet, not the woman who came to New Orleans to kill a killer.