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An empty, windowless cell, a hard slab for a bed.
The two guys toss me inside unceremoniously and my shins hit the side of that slab. My head throbs. My heart is a jagged wasteland. I roll over onto the cushion-less platform and stretch out, breathing hard. It’s like being back in that place with that killer. My fists hum with pain, blood pouring from my split knuckles.
It’s worth it.
“See you in a week.” The guard’s voice echoes through the room. The door slams. A single lock scratches into place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
AVERY
Ionly have a few minutes in the gun store.
It was easier to get Nathan to drive me downtown for this, because he, unlike the bodyguard, is willing to risk leaving me alone for a few minutes. He thinks I’m waiting patiently in the car while he runs into a store to grab us drinks. I purposely picked a store that is busy, where the people behind the counter take their sweet time prepping orders. A few minutes is all I need. Aside from the gun, that is. I also need the gun.
There are rows of pistols lined up under glass, sleek and shiny, and one of them is going to be mine.
“Are you looking for something to take to the range?” The man behind the counter is a very casual shadow. My guess is, he sees women come through here all the time looking for a piece. The sign out front advertises quick background checks, and he’s already run mine. It’s not technically my name on the ID I handed over—it’s a fake name, attached to a fake ID Nathan had made for me in high school. It’s a good fake. He’s a Capulet. So it passed muster.
“Yeah,” I answer, a beat too late. “Something to take to the range. And for self-defense, I guess.”
Doesn’t seem to bother the guy. I’m not sure how to feel about all these guns. These pistols. Some of them look too similar to what the killer in his torture dungeon carried. I look at the rows of guns and see the red blossom of that girl’s head—the one Rome was forced to rape. The last thing she ever felt was a stranger fucking her before her brains were blown out.
The last thing I thought I was going to feel was Rome’s body pressed up to mine as he held my hand.
Anxiety threatens to squeeze the air out of my lungs.Not now, though. Not now. I don’t have time.I breathe through it and consider the guns again.
“That one.” I tap the glass with my finger.
It’s smaller than the one the masked man carried, but I’m not going to need a big-ass gun. I need something I can hide in my purse before Nathan gets back from getting the bubble tea. When he came to check on me this morning, I rolled over in bed and pretended to need it more than I needed anything in life. It’s a half-lie. I went through a phase senior year where I drank milk tea with golden boba every single day after school. Nathan’s smart enough to think I’m reaching for familiarity and stupid enough to believe I’d do it now, when he and his parents are camped out in my very own house.
The man behind the counter lifts the compact gun—a .22, probably—from its case with the same care as a jeweler lifting precious diamonds. He turns it over in his hands carefully and puts it into my palm handle-first.
It feels...good.
“Wow,” I whisper. I’ve got to stop. If I keep this up, he’ll know I’ve gone off my rocker.Surprise, surprise. I have.The XO killer did that to me. Thank you very much, serial killer. You’ve stripped the very last of my reservations from my brain. “This is nice.”
He scrutinizes me, face showing nothing. “You’ve got your safety there on the left.”
Years ago, Nathan and I did go to a shooting range. Later, Will and I visited one. For fun. There’s nothing like the kick and boom of a gun in your hand. So I keep my finger pointed out straight, away from the trigger. Gotta show off for this guy so he knows I’m all about safety.
“Ammunition?”
“One box. No, two.”
I turn the gun this way and that in my hand. It is nice. It fits me perfectly. How’d I pick it out of a lineup like that? I hope it’s as easy to pick the XO killer out of a lineup when they get him. Deep down, though, I’m not sure anyone ever will.
Rome is in jail. Joshua is in jail. Will is in jail.
As much as I’ve tried to figure it out, I can’t. I can’t figure out why Joshua would have been so fucking stupid when all he had to do was put a ring on my finger and install me in a house somewhere for the rest of time. I can’t figure out if Will was actually framed or if he and Joshua had the kind of twisted agreement I can only imagine because of my six weeks in hell.
The only thing I do know is that Rome is innocent, yet he’s in jail too. I’ve pleaded his innocence to the cops until I’m blue in the face, any time they’ll take my calls. Nothing makes any fucking sense.
Nothing but the gun in my hand and the boxes of ammo the shop owner slides across the counter.
I set the gun on a thin felt pad on the glass counter and hand him my credit card. I’d rather this were in cash—people could have access to my accounts, I don’t know—but I couldn’t withdraw cash in front of Nathan and I don’t know how much the bodyguard reports back to my family. I have to assume he reports everything. Credit it is.
“Receipt?” He says this like I’m buying a pint of Ben & Jerry’s.
