Page 133 of Ghosted

Maybe I’m too fucked up to care.

I keep holding on because I don’t trust mercy, and I sure as fuck don’t trust luck.

Her grip is the last thing to go.

Those furious little fingers locked around my wrist, nails buried in my skin, holding on like hate alone might be enough to drag her back up.

Then they loosen. Not all at once.

One finger slips. Then another.

Her hand drifts away from me beneath the water, slow and useless, and that’s when she finally goes still.

When I let go, she doesn’t sink the way people think bodies sink.

She drifts.

Her hair spreads around her face. Tiny bubbles slip from her mouth and break against the surface.

For a moment, I just stare.

Then I remember Jagger, and the hollow feeling becomes useful.

I haul myself out first, water pouring off my clothes and slapping onto the tile. My hands shake once, quick and annoying, before I curl them into fists and make them stop.

Then I look back.

Alice drifts near the lane rope, hoodie dark around her body, hair spread across the water while the pool keeps moving for her.

Beautiful.

Fucked and mine to use.

A laugh slips out of me, but it isn’t happy. It’s sharp and pissed and a little breathless, because fuck her for making me do it, fuck Jagger for getting picked, and fuck both of them for thinking this place was ever going to stay clean.

He thought he won.

That’s the funniest part.

My baby brother walked out of here with her words sitting in his chest like a goddamn prize. Alice chose me. Alice trusts me. Alice looked at me and didn’t run.

Cute.

Really fucking cute.

I move fast after that, but not sloppy. Sloppy is Jagger’s thing when his feelings get too big for his fists.

I don’t need perfect. Perfect looks planned. Perfect gets questioned.

I need obvious.

Jagger brought her here. Jagger knows the side door. Jagger touched everything because he always touches things when he’s trying not to touch people. The cameras will have enough. The rumors will do the rest. Everyone already saw him lose his shit over Alice once, and people love a story that makes sense before they have to think too hard.

So I make it easy for them.

I clean up what points to me and leave everything that points to him.

Simple as that.