That came from somewhere close.
Was I followed?
Are they coming to finish the job?
I crawl and crawl, trying to get as far away from the area the gunshot came from, exerting myself over my physical limit. As my hands slip away, my chin drops down into the mud, which splatters all across my face, and I lie there with my eyes closed for a moment to breathe through the pain while the rain pours down on me.
I’m going to make it. I have to…
So I can rain hell on the motherfuckers who betrayed me.
Xavier
I holdthe paper against the wooden board and smash the tape against the flyer, making sure it’s tightly secured and clearly visible before I move on to the next board I can find on this campus, which is on the second floor of the building.
I have already plastered these all over campus under the judgmental gazes of plenty of students, but I don’t care what they think of me. I won’t stop pasting these flyers all over Spine Ridge University until I’m out of paper.
I run up the stairs without looking and nearly bump into my half brother Silas.
“Whoa, watch it, bro,” he says.
“Sorry,” I mutter, but as I pass him, he snatches the papers out of my hand. “Hey!”
“What is this?” He turns them over and inspects them. “You hanging wanted posters?”
I snatch back the paper. “Missingposters.”
He shrugs. “Same thing.”
“It’s not,” I reply.
Silas stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Sunny Reed? Really?”
“Got a problem?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Yeah. She’s part ofthatfamily.”
Oh, so that’s what this is all about. Old family feuds I thought were buried.
“Just because she’s Levi's family doesn’t mean she should be punished for what he did. You just wanna hate Levi so bad.” I make a tsk sound.
“Did you forget they killed our mother’s men?”
“To protect themselves,” I retort, “from you.”
That’s not why Silas has issues with Levi, though.
We stare at each other for a moment.
Levi is fucking my sister, and Silas doesn’t like that. Too bad for him, we don’t decide what Aspen does with her life. In fact, the women in our families basically have the men under their heels. That’s the hierarchy. I don’t make the rules.
And it’s not like his girlfriend, Ivy, doesn’t have Silas under her thumb too. He only pretends he’s in control.
“Whatever. I don’t have time for this,” I say. “Wanna help me or not?”
“Pass. Not because I wanna be a dick, but because I have class in five minutes,” he says. “Gotta run.”
“Great.” I roll my eyes.
