Page 107 of Trigger Happy Ending

“Tell her I’m coming.”

“Okay, but I’ve already—”

I look up from my phone and glare at Krystal. Nothing about my stare is friendly.

“Tell. Her. I’m. Coming.” I enunciate each word.

I’m well aware I need to get my ass out behind the bar and start work, but I need to do something about the very real fact that Cherry is missing.

I text Soren.

Can you do a welfare check on Cherry? Hilton Midtown, alias is Paloma Garrison. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it was serious. I can’t leave the club yet.

I wait as three dots dance along the screen.

Sure.

My shoulders sag in relief. Soren can check on Cherry, and it’ll all be fine.

It’s going to all be fine.

She’s probably just unwell, crashed out. Or she’s lost her phone and has no idea of the time. There will be nothing to worry about.

Everything will be fine.

There’s no way Derek would have found her, not with the new identity Smyth created for her. Her tracks were covered by one of the world’s best tech wizards.

Everything is going to be fine, fine, fine.

I slide my phone into my bra for when Cherry eventually calls. I can hear her laughing now, enjoying how riled up she’s gotten me. I’ll yell at her, tell her it was absolutely not funny, and cuss her out. That’s the best-case scenario. Because the worst? I can’t even entertain the thought.

But my gut is rarely wrong. I’m too attuned to the dark, lived through too much of it. And something about this feels very, very off.

I adjust my outfit in the mirror one final time, when the staff door to the back alley bursts open, the crisp night air wafting into the dressing room. Ava, a dancer, races inside. I already know—already fucking know—I’m about to live out a nightmare.

Ava’s face is sickeningly pale, like she’s going to vomit. “Help, I need help!”

My pulse quickens when I see Ava’s blood-soaked hands. “What’s happened?”

Even though I know the answer before she even confirms it.

Time slows as she struggles to swallow her sobs. “Cherry!”

I reach out and grab Ava by her shoulders. “Where is she?!”

“She’s—she’s …” Ava stammers. The bitch is in shock.

Roughly, I shake her shoulders and scream in her face, “WHERE IS SHE?”

She points to the door. Not wasting one more second, I race outside into the back alley and into light rainfall. The cold darkness envelopes me as my eyes adjust. Dumpsters, puddles … there. Next to the dumpster lies a body, slumped against the side of the bin.

“Ava, call 911! NOW!”

No. No. No. This can’t be happening.

I’ve spent my life around death. Dealing in it. Basking in it at times. But this?

This takes me right back to my mother’s. I’m fourteen again, helpless and alone, the only family I’ve ever known violently ripped away from me. Tonight, history repeats itself.