He hasn’t found a shred of evidence to connect me to anything, but his gut is telling him I’m up to no good—and his gut is right. His gut is in conflict with his desire for me. I felt it when he tangled his hand into my hair while I was on my knees in front of him and he told me tokeep going.
He wants more than to take me down, hewants me, and I recognize his drive to take me down as an argument against his instinct to lay me down in bed.
And we could be so much more than that, too.
We both want the same thing: justice. My route to fair and just resolution happens to look very different than his. But we’re the same, and he needs to see that. He has to.
The front door opens and closes, and Maeve breezes into the room, sinking into the couch next to me. “Witnesses are taken care of,” she chirps with a wink. I raise my eyebrows at her, a silent question to how exactly they are taken care of.
Stella and I may be willing to go to extreme lengths to end cycles of torture and abuse, but Maeve is best suited in the role she’s been in for years: admin support. And Stone, while doing a lot of prep and post-clean up for the messes Stella and I kick up, doesn’t tend to get his handsthatdirty. At least as far as I know.
Maeve shrugs, a sly smile creeping onto her lips. “None of them can be certain of the person they saw behind the wheel,” she says. “Not after I told them I was also there that day and ampositiveit was some biker chick with a shaved head and a scary looking boyfriend in the passenger seat.”
I snort, because that description doesn’t match a single one of us in the slightest. And even if the witnesses originally reported someone similar to me, it’s possible they’ll change their initial report, and that will only make them seem unreliable in the eyes of the court system.
“You drove all the way out there just to fuck with witnesses?”
She presses her hand to her chest, scoffing. “You act like I wouldn’t do something like that.” She gives me a cheeky smile. “But not exactly. There was a bridge I wanted to hit up, too. I heard rumors there was an artist who came through here recently, so I wanted to check out her work and leave a little of me behind.”
“Two birds with one stone,” Stone offers blankly.
“Exactly.”
Maeve’s demeanor shifts when she senses the tension in the room, her gaze bouncing between the three of us with concern. “What happened?”
“Chlo handcuffed Colin in her garage,” Stone tells her. Maeve whips her head around toward the garage door, her eyes wide.
“I let him go,” I assure her.
“After she blew him,” Stella adds, causing Maeve to toss her head back and release a cackle into the air.
“Well, it was, like, in the middle of blowing him,” I argue.
“You are batshit crazy,” Maeve teases.
“This is not funny, Maeve,” Stella chastises. “He’s literally going to throw us all in prison. Stone and I still have a lot of work to do.” She glances at Stone who gives her a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder.
I can tell Maeve wants the dirty details of my escapade with Colin, but she slides herself off the couch and moves around the coffee table, lowering herself to her knees in front of Stella.
“Babe,” she says, taking Stella’s hands in hers. “Nobody’s going to prison. Chloe would never do anything to put us in danger. Right, Chlo?” She bends her neck back toward me, her eyes soft. I meet Stella’s watery gaze and move to sit between her and Stone on the couch, throwing my arm around her shoulder and pulling her close to me.
“Of course. I would never. I would kill anyone before they could eventhinkabout hurting any of us.”
Stella laughs softly, which is a good sign, her potential tears subsiding. “Technically, that’s against the rules.”
“Rules, schmules,” I joke.
Colin can toss me in prison all he wants. If it comes to that, I will hand myself over to him on a silver platter, and I’ve already been trying to come up with a plan to ensure Maeve, Stella, and Stone face no repercussionsfor anything I might end up going down for. We’re all in this together, all following our own leads, but a lot of our recent activity has been centered around me and mine. I simply will not let them go down for it.
But of course, I could never bring myself to hurt someone who didn’t deserve it. I don’t havethattype of bad blood in my body.
The sound of a large clatter from the garage makes us all jump, and I rise from the couch, eyeing the door through the kitchen.
“You sure he’s not still in there?” Maeve whispers to Stone.
“Maybe one of those animals has come back to life,” he whispers back, gripping her knee until she’s wiggling and giggling.
“Stay here,” I tell them, crossing to the garage door and disappearing inside.
