“You just happened to pass an empty apartment?”
It was, in fact, empty when I got there.“Mhmm.”
“So you were alone?”
“Yup.” I popped my P, climbing onto the bed and preparing to switch off the light before Gabby really started in on me.
“All night?” she pressed. Her expression set on full interrogation mode. This was what she was good at. Pulling information out of people, trapping them with their own words. I’d much rather just shoot 'em in the face.
Call her the brains and me the brawn, if you wanted to. Didn’t mean I was dumb, just that I preferred to get right to it.
“Well, obviously notall night.” I pointed to the wallet in her hand and smirked.
“Then whose blood is that on your bra?”
I glanced down at myself before I figured out what she was doing. My clothes were black. Always black. Including my bras and underwear. If there was blood on me, there was no way she could see it from where she was standing.
I kept with the half-truths anyway. Always commit to the bit. Something else Vee taught us. “Told you the guy knocked my pump loose. It was very possible he got some blood on me too.”
“Blood from where you shot him.”
“Yup. Exactly.” I nodded. It would have been smarter to say it was my blood from the pump. But it was too late now.
“In the head…”
“Uh…”
“So…” Gabby pushed off the dresser, taking two steps forward before pivoting on a heel and taking two similarly-sized steps in the opposite direction. All while tapping a finger to her chin. “Let me get this straight. The guy you shot. Once in the head. Somehow managed to get blood. On your bra. During ascuffle—your word—afterhe was already shot in the head.”
I could have claimed I had to shoot him more than once but that’d leave me wide open for even more questions. It would also be easily proven to be a lie.
“It’s possible.” It really was. “Plenty of people have survived headshots before. It happens,” I assured her.
“Not Allie. And not him.” She waved the wallet in the air.
“I really am tired. Can’t we just talk about this later?” I tugged the blanket over my body and rolled to face the other way.
“Sure,” was all I got in return as Gabby spun around and walked out of the room. The clanking of her heels telling me my version oflaterwas much different from what hers was gonna be. I was sure.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CASPER
Islapped the faucet off and glanced up at my reflection in the mirror. At the ghost looking back at me in the glass. Pale skin, almost-white blonde hair, and eyes that flipped between light blue and navy on any given day. Ink that trailed from toe to tit and neck to navel with the occasional barbell.
Then I wrapped a damp palm around the extra piece of metal I’d found sticking out of me. The one I didn’t put there and had me standing a few inches back from the vanity—instead of dick to porcelain like I should have been—ya know,if I didn’t have an extra piece of metal sticking out of me.
I took a deep breath and yanked the handle out. The blade clanking against the sink basin and settling on the drain when I dropped it. Blood went everywhere, except back inside me. Which was why it was exactly the opposite of what you should do with a protruding stab wound. But I’d never been very good at doing what I was supposed to do. Or learning my lesson. Or staying away from shit I knew was bad for me.
Like the girl who’d put the knife there. And was apparently keeping count of her attempts on my life.
The word “six” was written on the wall. With more of my blood. Finger-painted above the bed. It was the first thing I noticed when I woke up. The knife was the second.
I grinned.I appreciated the theatrics. I really did.
Even if they were wasted on me. If I did have nine lives, they woulda run out years ago. I’d looked death in the face before. Fucker didn’t want me. Not then and not now. Not tomorrow either.
I snorted the line of coke I’d laid out on the glass shelf, stuffed a hand towel into the gaping hole in my guts, walked out of the bathroom, threw my jacket on, and strolled out the door with a post-nut skip in my step.
