The two men stare at each other, trying to decide what they should do now. It gives me just enough time to slip out the door.
I send Jesse a text when I get to my car. She doesn’t have long.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jenny
Jesse walks around the room. “You were expecting me?”
“I received a letter from Rachel. She told me to expect a visitor.”
“And do you know why I’m here?”
“You’re here to finish what your father began.”
She sits down and pulls her long hair in front of her, beginning to braid it. Her laugh sends a shiver up my spine. “You’ll find our methods are a bit different.”
“How’s that?”
A dark smile pulls at the corner of her mouth. “He was patient. I am not.”
It makes my stomach tighten.
“How close did he get in convincing you to come home?” she asks.
Everyone keeps talking to me about home … they forget their world has never been my home. “We only made it as far as the gate.”
“Yet you managed to make it to his funeral.”
“I owed him that much.”
She sits forward, tipping her head to the side as she stares at me. “Do you love Raffe?”
I nod.
“To be a Skull you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people you love.”
“I have. I gave up my very existence for the people I love.”
Her gaze darkens, and she pulls my arm onto her lap, running a blood red nail over my scar.
“I’m taking you home with me. Today. I can’t do this anymore,” Bill says, gripping his beard in one hand and tugging on it.
I back up against the sink. “No,” I whisper.
“Dammit, Jenny. Do you know that we’re burying Jackson’s mom tomorrow?”
“She’s dead, so I assume that’s what one does with a body.”
He shakes his head. “This is too much. I can’t continue this charade with you.”
My heart beats wildly, because he’s going to bring me back to life and that can’t happen. The world has to believe I’m dead.
I reach behind me, wrapping my fingers around the knife I was using to cut tomatoes. In one smooth motion, I bring my hand back around and dip the tip of the blade into my flesh, pulling upward.
Bill’s eyes widen in disbelief, and then he jumps into action and wrestles it away from me.
“Oh sweetheart, what have you done?” he asks as the world slowly goes black.
