Page 43 of Dread’s Beloved

I suck in a breath. My pulse drums in my ears.

“You’re not in here. Or in here.” His voice gets closer and closer.

I’m done waiting or being scared.

“Come get me, motherfucker,” I yell out, then I move fast and make for the closet. Only it isn’t a closet. The door opens back into the living room. Moonlight shines through the front windows.

“Got you,” he says, finding the room I was in empty.

I know this because he mutters a curse and fires a shot that shatters a window, or maybe a mirror. I don’t know which. I’m not about to find out.

I move to the darker side of the and find a body by the front door that thankfully isn’t Dread or Joe. Must be a Raven Fork Reaper club member.

I check for a pulse but can’t find one.

It sounds awful, but better him than one of us. I don’t know what to do. Do I stay put or make a run for it? I’m in only a tee. No undies. No socks or shoes. I glance around, wondering where I left my boots.

I stop looking when someone steps out of the kitchen, cursing with their arm hanging down funny. A shot fires from the bathroom, and whoever they are groans and goes down on their knees.

Another round fires, and they slump forward.

“I see you, bitch,” Donavon yells and runs straight at me.

I curl a finger on the trigger and fire off three shots, having no idea if I’m hitting him because my ears are ringing and I’ve closed my eyes. If this is the end of me, his face isn’t the last thing I want to see.

A few seconds pass, and I’m still breathing. I open my eyes right as Dread tackles him from behind. The two of them go down to the floor. Dread is beating the shit out of him. I skitter back to the wall, away from them and the dead guy.

“What’s the matter? Can’t talk shit when it’s someone your own size coming at you? Huh, motherfucker?”

Dread bangs Donavon’s head against the floor, and the man is either knocked out or dead.

I ease up the wall and feel around until I find a light switch and flick it on. Dread shields his eyes. There’s blood all over his chest and hands. I glance down to the man who has been trying to kill me, and I don’t need to check his pulse to know he’s dead.

“You okay?” Dread asks me breathily.

“I’m fine. You?”

He nods.

“Joe?” I ask.

Dread doesn’t answer me, but then we hear someone groaning.

“Call 911.”

“Okay.”

When I made the call, they said someone had already reported a disturbance, and that someone was on the way.

In the end, Joe had been shot twice, but by some miracle he survived.

Donavon and the Raven Fork Reapers who were with him weren’t as lucky.

“Don’t be offended if I don’t invite you two back over anytime soon,” Joe says on a wheeze as we’re leaving his hospital room.

“Girl, I’ve been worried sick about you.” Sukie flings her arms around me, nearly tackling me to the ground the second Dread and I walk into the clubhouse.

“I’m fine.”