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Or cut her the fuck up.
No, thanks.
Billie did some shit, sure. But she isn’t about to go to her death willingly.
“Our best chance,” Kate says, “is stay at Trevor’s—and use that time to figure out who’s after us.”
Billie takes a long drag of the cigarette. The paper burns, glowing red. “Then what?”
“Then we kill the bastard.”
Billie smirks. “That’s why you’ve always been my favorite.”
9
It’s a challenge to shake the old walls and sturdy bones of this house. But Trevor and his fellow wasp frat-bros sure rise up to it.
On the second floor, tucked away in the guest bedroom, the four-poster bed shivers with each tremble of the floor that rattles up the walls—all the way from the kitchen, where raucous shouts and laughs blare from like a siren that won’t shut the fuck up, and not to mention the stereo so bulked up by all the speakers it’s practically a monument.
All going on directly beneath the girls.
Kate stomps her foot on the plush rug, as though the guys down there will somehow hear that or notice the chandelier disturbed. But even still, knowing that Trevor & Co. are too busy carrying on in their Limp Bizkit mini-party, Billie is flopped over the side of the bed, hands smacking the hardwood, and shouting ‘Shut the fuck up’until her throat starts to turn hoarse.
She’s the first to give up.
Groaning, she rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling.
Kate keeps at it, pacing in and out of the room, shouting over the banister to the guys in the kitchen, like they will hear anything at all over that racket.
But Billie’s exhaustion turns her to the feathery pillows instead. She cushions her ears with them, but the vibrations from the stereo downstairs still seem to be shivering her own bones.
It’s made a hell of a lot worse with Kate out in the hall, shouting over the banister, bedroom door wide open.
“Kate,” Billie groans into the pillow. She tries again, pifting the feathery pillow across the room. It whacks Kate on the back. “Get in here.Close the fucking door!”
The face Kate makes over her shoulder is a shutter of a mask she trains herself to wear every day. A fracture, one that would only happen for Billie, but in a blink it’s gone, and Kate’s expression is smooth, calm and undisturbed all over again.
Snatching up the pillow, she stalks back inside and slams the bedroom door shut.
Relief washes over Billie, a gentle wave over a rocky shore. A sigh deflates her; she runs her hands down her weary face. With the door closed, the room is still assaulted by the booms and bangs and laughs and shouts down in the kitchen. But it’s slightly muted again. Muffled.
Billie lets her head fall back into the headboard. Her lashes are low over clear blue eyes as she watches Kate toss aside the pillow onto the foot of the bed, then move for the two overnight bags left on the dresser.
As Kate starts to dig through her own leather backpack, Billie sighs, “Who has a fucking party in the middle of a murder spree?”
“Boys.” Kate’s reply is clipped, a tone tight with tension. She fishes out her cell from one of the zip pockets. “Especially boys who think they’re safe.”
Because the murder spree isn’t targeting them.
The unspoken truth lingers between the girls for a beat.
Then Billie rolls herself off the bed and drags her feet across the bedroom that she considers to be a home in its own right, given that it’s about the same size as her whole damn trailer. Bigger, even.
The frantic clacking of cellphone keys combined with her hard, focused look betrays Kate: Billie guesses she’s texting Trevor some not-so-loving messages.
Billie decides she doesn’t care anymore.
What better way to drown out music than to drown herself? She swipes the bottle she stole from the kitchen when they first got here. A brand she can’t pronounce and hasn’t ever tried before, but the taste isn’t what matters. It’s not how it goes down, or how it burns the throat or feels like honey over the tongue.
