“Forget it.” The bitch lunges toward me and snatches the paper from my hand. “I’ll get the money another way.”
“She’s not being shipped off to a bible camp, Reno.” Yeah, I saw that little cherry amongst the preamble.
Hand on the car door, she swings back around to face me. “I need to work, Fang, and I need time to do that! Need money for rent, food, clothes. How am I supposed to do that with a kid under my feet all the goddamn time?”
“Perhaps you should have thought that through before you got yourself knocked up. Or were you that hell-bent on locking me down that you never imagined you’d be doing it alone?”
She laughs, throaty and disbelieving. “You still think that’s what it was, huh? A ploy to trap you? Are you ever going to stop playing the victim?”
“I told you I didn’t want kids!”
“Then why are you so worried about what I do with this one?” She drops into the driver’s seat and slams the door, revving the still-running engine to spin the car around and tear off the way she came in, spraying me with stones and mud.
“You want me to go get her?”
I damn near jump out of my skin, unaware Circus had moved to stand beside me. “No point. The bitch’s mind is made up.”
“I meant Molly.”
I stare at the guy. The fucker would too. I can see him happily kicking in the door of Rhonda’s house to bring her back here.
But collecting her is my job, not his. “It’ll keep.”
Molly will be safe enough staying where she is for the night. The women we’re off to find?
I can’t confidently say the same.
THREE
JENNA
The waterin the base of the canister barely touches the sides. “Here.” I hold it out to Mila. “You need it more than me.” Her voice has almost disappeared due to how dry her throat is.
“Thanks.” She accepts the vessel with bony hands and tosses the water back.
It’s hardly enough for her to warrant swallowing.
“I want you to know,” she says with a shy smile. “I’m not proud of what I did to myself to end up like this.” She holds the vessel out with a shaking hand.
“I never assumed you were.” I accept the empty canister back and cap it.
“What’s your story?” Mila asks, tipping her chin toward me. “How did you end up here?”
I glance at Mary-Beth’s body, and swallow. “Much the same as all of you. Wrong place at the wrong time.”
She thankfully accepts my vague answer and settles down to rest again. The asshole upstairs took The Kid what feels like hours ago, Eleanor never returning either. It’s not the length of their absence that concerns me, more the lack of anything that followed.
No shouting.
No screams.
No crying.
Just long, awkward beats of silence broken by the occasional murmur.
I shuffle over to where Nandi sits beside Darla, arm linked through hers. “How do you feel?” Thankfully, Nandi didn’t take too long to wake up after the asshole hit her, but the ice-pick headache she struggles with now worries me.
“The same.” Eyes closed, head back against the wall, she sighs. “I keep thinking it all through, trying to remember what happened last night before I went to sleep, and I can’t recall anything that seems important.”
