Carter Reed

We were back in the car again. The staff had started to whisper about us so we left. We didn’t want them to call the police, but now we didn’t know where to go again. Then Mallory said, “Ben. We can go to Ben’s.” I looked over. “Are you sure?” My hand was so cold. I barely felt the steering wheel when I turned the car around. She nodded, some tears slipped down again. She had started crying when we left the diner. She said, “Yes. He’ll help us. I know it.” So we went to her co-worker’s house.

The force of what happened hit me full blast after we had been at Ben’s for a few hours. He opened the door, took one look at Mallory, and swept her up in his arms. She’d been sobbing ever since, and now all of us were huddled around his kitchen table. He draped a blanket over both of them at some point, but I couldn’t remember when.

As she told him what happened through her sobs, I slumped in my chair. Jeremy Dunvan. He had been living twenty-four hours ago, breathing. Oh my god. I had killed him—I felt punched in the stomach. No. I felt like someone tied up my hands and legs, threw me in the highway and waited as a bus ran over me, and then ran over me again. And again.

I was going to die. It was a matter of time.

Franco Dunvan worked for the Bartel Family. They killed my brother. It was my turn now. Icy panic seared through me. I couldn’t hear Mallory anymore. It had been in defense. He was going to kill her. He’d already been raping her. I killed him because he would’ve killed me too, but it didn’t matter. As I started struggling to breathe, I tried to remain logical. The police wouldn’t have helped. Why did we take pictures of her bruises then? What did it matter? None of it did. We ran. We should keep running.

“We have to go, Mals,” I choked out.

She looked up from Ben’s chest. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, and if possible, she paled even more. “We can’t.”

“We have to.” They were going to hunt us down and kill us.

“Please, Tomino, please.” My brother had begged for his life, but they shoved him to his knees and took a bat to him. AJ watched me the whole time. As he stared past the alley where they found him, we both knew they couldn’t see me. He made me crawl behind a vent before they saw him in the alley. My hands gripped each other as I kept myself from crawling out and helping him. He shook his head. He knew what I wanted to do.

“Emma!”

I jerked back to the present and saw Ben frowning at me. “What?”

Everything seemed so surreal. It was a dream. All of it was a dream, it had to be.

He snapped at me, “Christ, the least you can do is be there for her.” Then he pushed off from his chair and stormed past me.

What had happened?

“Carter’s going to come for you.”

I went back to that alley. I heard my brother warn them as he gasped for breath. He was choking on the blood, but they laughed at him. They f**king laughed!

“Whatever. You’re a nobody, Martins. You’re a waste of space. Your boy’s going to get the same as you if he comes after us. In fact, we want him to come to us, don’t we, boys?” Tomino had spread his arms out wide and the other three snickered with him. Then he lifted the bat once more.

AJ looked at me. He mouthed the words, “I love you.”

Then the bat came down at full speed.

I fell off my chair and was slammed back to the present again. I was on the floor now.

“Jesus, Emma. What the f**k’s your problem?” Ben grabbed my arm and hauled me up. He pointed to the bedroom. “I finally got her to sleep and now you’re going to wake her up? Do you know the hell she’s been through? I can’t believe you. Have some consideration.”

Have some consideration?

I yanked my arm away from him and glared back. “Are you f**king kidding me?” Was he? He had to have been. I shoved him back and then followed to get in his face. “I killed him, you ass**le. I killed that ra**st for her. I saved her life!”

Now I needed someone to save mine.

CHAPTER TWO

When I woke, everything was groggy. Nothing made sense, and my back was killing me. It protested when I uncurled from the ball I had formed and spasms shot up. I nearly screamed, but threw my hand over my mouth to muffle the sound. I couldn’t make a sound. A sixth sense instantly reared, but then I frowned as different noises came from behind me. A pot clanged against a pan, and there was a sizzling from something being fried, which was quickly covered with a curse before the fire alarm went off.

I rolled over as found myself on half of a mattress, pulled into a corner of a living room. Peering over the two couches in front of me, that boxed me into the corner, I remembered.

We were at Ben’s.

Mallory had been screaming and crying. Mallory had been raped.

I dropped back to the mattress with a thump.

Jeremy Dunvan.

Panic swelled in me, but then the front door burst open. I jumped back and screamed. I kept screaming when it banged shut and people ran to the living room. And, even as I saw it was a friend, I couldn’t stop the scream.

“Jeremy.”

My own voice haunted me. The bang of the gun came back and I felt the kickback in my hand again.

“You have to be quiet. People will hear.”

With an anguished gasp, I closed my mouth and fell over. Bending forward, I buried my head into the pillow. Another scream rushed through me. What had I done with the gun? Oh god. There was evidence. I couldn’t remember where I had put it.