love each other. They just have a funky way of showing it. Or acknowledging it.”
I flick the lighter, about to light my damn cigarette, and just as the flame ignites, so does the proverbial light bulb in my head. My heart drops.
“Shit, Jay, check Addie’s parents’ house,” I clip, finally singeing the tip and
inhaling deeply.
He pauses. “You don’t think Claire would try something with them, do you?”
“Who else would she go after? I have no family, but Addie does, and it wouldn’t be hard to find out that her mother has been visiting frequently.”
I hear bed sheets rustling and then the whir of his computer turning on. That
dread now has me in a chokehold, and I feel with every fiber of my being that
something will be amiss.
Where’s my fucking laptop?
Not anywhere close to me.
“Jay,” I prompt, growing impatient as I take another drag, my knee bouncing
restlessly.
“I’m looking,” he mumbles. A few seconds later, he curses, “Shit, they have a
Nest camera. Someone busted in about thirty minutes ago.”
Fuck. I fly off the stool, nearly sending it toppling to the checkered floor.
“Her parents don’t have cameras inside the house, so I can’t see what’s
happening,” he says, voice tight.
I’ve already stubbed out my cigarette in the sink, and am rushing toward the
stairs, mouthing a few choice words on the way.
“Send a drone out to keep an eye on the outside. I’m on my way there,” I direct, swinging around the railing and taking the steps two at a time.
“Sending one now.”
“Thank you,” I say, clicking off the call as I fly down the hallway and through
Addie’s bedroom door. She’s facing away, curled in a ball, and sleeping soundly.
The balcony doors are cracked open, allowing in a cool breeze. She tends to get
overheated from her nightmares, so those doors are always open.
I rush to her, not bothering to stay silent.
“Addie,” I call, nudging her softly. I hate to wake her when she seems to be
getting a moment’s peace while sleeping—but she’d murder me if she
discovered something was wrong with her parents, and I left to handle it without
telling her.
Her eyes crack open, brows knitting as she comes to.
“What?” she croaks, gearing up to throw the sheets over her head. I grab her
wrist, squeezing tightly so she understands the severity.
She freezes, her eyes now flying open to stare up at me.
“What happened?” she asks, panicked as she sits up.
Fuck. She’s completely naked, and the fact that it hardly distracts me is how
strongly my inner alarm bells are blaring.
“Get dressed. We’re going to your parents’,” I order, stepping away from her
and heading toward her dresser.
“What? Why? What’s going on?”
I shake my head. “I had a bad feeling Claire was up to something, so I had Jay check their house. Someone broke in about a half-hour ago.”
She’s scrambling from the bed and beside me in seconds, slapping away my
hands and grabbing the clothes she needs.
“Why would she go after my parents?” she asks, frantically pulling on
clothes.
“Because outside of myself and Daya, it’s the only other way to get to you.
There’s been no communication, which means they might not have done
anything drastic yet.”
She shakes her head, panic pulling her brows into a tight knot. “I don’t get it.
I don’t understand why she’s after me like this.”
I grab one of my guns from her dresser, check the clip, and tuck it into the back of my jeans. The knife I gave her for her birthday is downstairs, but I'll be grabbing extra guns for her.
“At this point, it’s just personal, baby. I’m the biggest threat to her
organization, and you’re the biggest payday she’ll ever see in her lifetime. You
will simultaneously make her richer than any human has a right to be and bring
me to my knees.”
“Xavier already paid for me, and now he’s dead. So she’s trying to make double the money on me,” she snipes.
She rushes over to her sneakers lying haphazardly at the foot of her bed. “She
can’t possibly think this will work. Does she think I’m that fucking stupid to run
into the same situation twice?”
“It’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how desperate you are. And if she gets ahold of your parents and uses them as collateral, you will be desperate enough to do anything.”
Addie huffs, stomping her foot to get the shoe past her heel.
“I’ll be damned if I become like Rio,” she mutters under her breath.
I’ll sooner make it into heaven before that happens.
“What the hell is she going to do anyway?” she asks aloud, though it sounds
rhetorical. She turns to me, her light brown eyes sharp. “The stupid bitch is going to try to get me to trade my life for theirs, am I right?”
“Most likely,” I concede, following her out of her bedroom door. The moment
we step out, it feels as if the walls open their eyes, watching us rush through the
dark hallway. Addie cuts through the shadow figures creeping across the floor, paying them no mind.
“Should we wake Sibby?”
I open my mouth, but then as if conjured straight out of a Rob Zombie film,
she steps out of her bedroom door near the staircase, covering her mouth as she
yawns. Her pigtails are skewed, and her purple nightgown hangs off one
shoulder.
She squints her eyes, staring at us with confusion. Addie stops short, gives Sibby one look, and then clips, “Get dressed quickly. You may get to have some fun tonight.”
Whatever fatigue was clinging onto her wisps away in a matter of seconds.
Her eyes widen with excitement.
“Can my henchmen come, too?”
I sigh. “Only two can fit, and only if they don’t get in the way.” They’re imaginary, yet the assholes somehow still cause problems. She takes off back into the room, squealing.
“Give us two seconds!” she shouts from the depths, but Addie is already
tapping her little feet down the stairs like a roadrunner on crack.
“Don’t forget your knives and guns, mouse,” I call after her. “And, Sibby…
limit your knives and guns.”
I hear a dramatic sigh from the room, but I ignore her, sticking my Bluetooth
in my ear.