“Yeah, and don’t give Elle any more fucking ideas,” Nero warned her.
Lake ran halfway up the stairs, out of harm’s way before she answered both of them, “No promises!” She giggled up the rest of the stairs to find Adalyn sitting in the bottom of the huge, empty bathtub.
Adalyn looked like she was about to cry. “I am never going to be able to take a bath the same way again.”
*
Vincent watched Lake giggle off upstairs, making him smile.
Nero pointed his finger at him. “That’s the fucking problem right there. You think it’s cute when she does shit like that, and it eggs her on.”
As much as he didn’t like admitting it, “It is pretty cute.” That was one of the many things which had drawn him to her, especially when she wasn’t doing things that could get her potentially killed. Then again, Nero was on the verge of killing her but he couldn’t, so that was just icing on the cake for him.
“It is,” Amo agreed, siding with Vincent.
Nero rolled his eyes. “Let’s go before I decide to be an asshole and stay to make sure Lake doesn’t get them in trouble.”
“I could stay,” Amo was quick to offer his services.
“Fuck no, you’re not.” Vincent pushed his biggest friend out the front door.
Nero shut the door behind him. “No fucking way. We’d come back to find you fucking all of them.”
Amo kept his mouth shut, not confirming or denying Nero’s statement.
And that right there is why Amo will never fucking be allowed to be alone with Lake.
*
They were all having a great time sitting on the floor upstairs, eating pizza and watching TV on the huge screen Elle had made Nero put in the bedroom so she could watch all her favorite movies in bed. Well, all of them minus Maria; she had gotten a stomach bug.
Lake swallowed the huge bite of pizza in her mouth. “So, Chloe, do you like Amo?”
Chloe looked at her, her face turning red. “N-no, he’s just my friend.”
“Vincent was just my friend at first, too.”
“It’s not like that.” She looked at the ground, her face still red.
Lake took another huge bite of her pizza. “Well, what about Lucca? Do you like him?”
Chloe looked back up at her, and her eyes grew big. “No way. He s-scares me.”
Lake looked at her in pity. The poor girl didn’t know what was coming her way, but she had to at least give her a warning.
“Vincent scares me, too.”
A loud gulp escaped Chloe’s throat before she took a nervous bite of her pizza.
Pop.
Lake looked around to see if anyone had heard a noise, but no one seemed to have noticed.
“Shh…” she said quietly, going for the remote to turn down the TV a few notches.
They all went dead silent.
Pop. Pop.
The noise was a quiet gunshot followed by the front door squeaking open.
Faces of horror stared back at her, their heartbeats pounding as one.
Her instincts kicked in, knowing she had to do something other than sit there and die.
“Bathroom,” she mouthed more than whispered, giving them the motion to crawl.
A shocked Chloe wouldn’t budge so Elle crawled over to her, pulling on her shirt to move. Finally, she inched forward, and Lake crawled behind them.
As she passed the bed, she quickly reached up and grabbed Elle’s cell phone off the mattress.
Adalyn was the first to reach the bathroom. Opening the door slowly to avoid any sounds, she crawled in with Chloe going in behind her, Elle following, and finally, Lake came in last.
As she crawled in, her mind quickly ran through scenarios. All but two of them ended in too much spilled blood. She shut the door behind her, looking around to see if anything could be placed in front of the door. Nothing. Only one scenario remained.
She handed Elle her phone then whispered to them all, “Call Nero. Then get in the tub and keep your heads down.”
Elle hurriedly pressed the buttons, putting it to her ear while simultaneously trying to get a paralyzed Chloe in the bathtub.
Lake turned back toward the door, the small window of time closing.
“Where are you going?” Adalyn whispered harshly as she crawled into the end of the tub.
She put her hand on the doorknob.
“Nero, someone’s h-here. I think they have a gun,” Elle whispered into the phone, trying not to cry.
“Lake!” Adalyn tried to crawl out but Elle was halfway on top of her, trying to give Chloe the most room.
Turning the knob, she opened the door and locked it for when she closed it. She crawled out of the door, turning back to see tears run down Adalyn’s face as well as Elle’s while she tried to hold Adalyn still. It finally hit her in that moment why she could relate to Elle.