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This wasn’t Bri. It couldn’t be.
She couldn’t know that.
No oneknew about that. No one was there.
It had to be a coincidence. I could remember walking along the tracks a handful of times back from downtown, anyone could’ve seen me. This didn’t mean anything. Right?
But then who was it? Why the anonymity?
The number that sent this message late Friday night wasn’t the same one that sent the others on Thursday, but the feel of them was the same. If they were sent by the same person, then why use two different numbers?
I could reply. Ask who it was. But my gut told me that would only be inviting even more messages from someone who was giving off major stalker vibes.
Ignore it and whoever it is will get bored and stop.
“Are you waiting for it to sprout legs and run away?” Becca asked, sweeping out of her bedroom fully dressed for the school day. The smell of her earthy body spray filling the room with her.
I blinked, glancing up from my phone and realizing how tightly I’d been holding it. Any tighter and I might’ve cracked the screen even more than it already was. “Oh,” I swallowed. “No. It’s just...I got this weird message on Friday.”
She cocked her head at me, and I lost my nerve, not wanting to give whoever this creep was the attention he or she so clearly wanted. Not wanting to give Becca even the tiniest clue as to the potential meaning of the message still trespassing on my phone’s drive. What would she think if she found out what I’d done?
“Never mind,” I shook my head, stuffing my phone down deep into the pocket of my jeans.
Her eyes narrowed for an instant before she seemed to decide not to press. “So,” she said, dropping onto the soft leather beside me on the couch with a snicker. “How excited are you for homeroom?”
I groaned, letting my head fall against the backrest with a roll of my eyes.
All weekend I’d been waiting for theBrihammer to drop. Becca warned me that there would be retaliation, if not actual police involvement. Apparently Mr. Moore, the poor fucker who sired the queen bitch, didn’t take kindly to people touching his precious girl. Being more of a strait-laced sort of fellow, his retribution would likely come in the form of a lawsuit or some other legal bullshittery that I didnotwant to deal with.
Frankly, I’d rather he send a hired gun. I had a much better idea what to expect and how to handle that than I did a lawyer.
If he dragged police and shit into this there would be no way to keep it from getting back to Aunt Humphrey.Good-bye ticket to freedom.
“That excited, hey?”
“Why hasn’t she done anything yet?” I moaned.
Becca barked a laugh. “She must be cooking up somethingreallyspecial for you.”
I’d spent the weekend catching up on assignments for the most part, but I also spent a solid three hours doing recon on Bri. I now knew where she went to get her nails and hair done. Where she liked to shop and grab coffee. What type of car she droveandher license plate number—what kind of dumbass doesn’t at least blur that out for a social media photo?
I felt pretty confident that if she retaliated in any way not legally driven that I’d be ready to beat her right back, even if just the idea of wasting that kind of time on her was exhausting.
“Bri can be a cantankerous bitch, there’s no doubt about that,” Becca added as she got back up to pillage a handful of peanut M&M’s from the kitchen counter for her breakfast. “But if I were you, I’d be more worried about the Crows.”
The mere mention of them made me sneer. I hadn’t been able to find the blade Corvus lost in the lake. I searched for a solid fifteen minutes in the chilly lake water, digging through seaweed and litter, but it was gone. I had three more from the set, but that wasn’t the point. They were a gift from my dad. The last thing he ever bought me.
I now kepttwoon me at all times. If I’d learned anything from my run-ins with both Grey and Corvus last week, it was that one just wasn’t enough. At least, not for them.
“That asshole owes me a blade,” I grumbled, crossing my arms over my chest.
Becca snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that. I can’t see Corvus James replacing your precious metals, babe.”
Oh, he’d replace it. Even if it wouldn’t be the same.
“Is that his last name?” I asked. “James? Why didn’t Diesel give him his last name when he adopted him?”
Becca shrugged. “None of them are St. Crows. They all kept their last names. People say it’s because Diesel only adopted them for his wife after she died. Because she always talked about wanting to give a few kids a better life.”
