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“My reasons are none of your business,” I tell him, harsher than I’d intended. But Travis only smiles again, which is probably no better than kicking me out.
“What are you going to do for it?”
I grit my teeth until my jaw crunches with pain. “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, Travis O’Connor … when the police finally catch me and take me back to prison, I’ll keep your fucking name out of my mouth. How’s that? Does that work for you?”
The smile melts from Travis’ face, slowly and deliberately. Next to him, Sasha is glaring at me through furious eyes. I know that if it was up to her, she would have ripped my head off before I even stepped through the door. I want to take a step back, away from Travis, but I don’t. I hold his gaze until his expression relaxes once more.
“You drive a hard bargain, girl.”
“Are you going to help me, or not?”
“If it was anyone else, I would have you shot down where you stand.” Travis looks away from me, focusing his gaze on another dude that’s sitting on a ragged, torn-up couch, one who’s in the process of taking a hit off a glass pipe.
“Dane,” he says, and the guy looks up. Travis nods his head, just once, and Dane gets to his feet. My entire body chokes up, freezing with fear, and I sneak a glance at the front door in case I have to make a quick escape.
“Relax, princess,” Travis says, eying me. “All’s fair in love and war.”
Ignoring him, I keep my eyes on Dane, who vanishes into a bedroom, then comes out a few seconds later with a shoe box, which is closed. He glances at Travis, who nods once, then he steps forward and hands the box to me. It’s heavy in my hand.
“Is this it?” I ask Travis. He smiles again, and I cringe inwardly.
“Open it.”
And so I do. With my injured arm, I peel the lid off the box, my eyes landing at once on the 19mm Glock resting easy at the bottom of the box. I pick it up and look at it, dropping the shoe box to check the chamber. There’s a single bullet.
“Don’t miss,” Travis says, winking at me. “If you do, it’s up to you to find your own bullets.”
I swallow and nod then tuck the Glock safely into the front hem of my scrub pants.
“Thank you.”
Travis nods, his eyes narrowing a bit. “Take it and go,” he says. “And if the pigs ever show up here to fuck with me, well, we’ll know who sent them.”
I know that’s the best I’m going to get, so I nod at him and turn and walk away. I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until I’m safely out the front door and down the first set of stairs.
The chill in the air grows as the night goes on. As I wait on the curb for the next city bus, fingering the loose change in the pocket of the nurse’s jacket, it feels like everyone is looking at me, judging me. So many pairs of eyes scan my body and my face, and I’m almost certain that everyone can see the gun hidden under the bulky jacket. Every time a siren echoes in the distance, my entire body goes stiff, and a flash of heat travels up my spin. Fear. No, terror. It’s only a matter of time before I’m caught and taken back to Ashgate. I have to do this. I have to do thisnow.
The forty-five-minute bus ride takes me just three blocks away from the neighborhood I need. I get off the bus and start down the sidewalk, pulling Camilla’s paper out of my pocket to confirm my direction. It’s quieter here, less people, because now I’m in the suburbs instead of downtown. The streets are deserted and quiet, and whoever ends up passing me on the street doesn’t look twice in my direction. I’m just a girl here, a girl walking in the neighborhood. I’m not a criminal, not to these people.
Not yet, anyway.
The house my sister is renting is just around the corner. As I walk, I swipe my thumb against the gun still tucked into my pants, a reassurance of sorts. It’s so cold outside now that my breath comes out in a white, foggy mist. My fingers are numb from the cold, and the injured arm screams in pain with every step I take. The later it gets, the fainter I feel, and by the time I find the rental house and fall to my knees in a shrubbery garden outside the front window, the blood from my wounds has seeped through the wrap and stained Nurse Annie’s jacket with blood. I take a breath of air that seems to freeze my lungs, then cower down into the brush so I’m not noticeable from the large front window. The car that sits in the driveway is a rental car, I can tell. It’s green, Julie’s favorite color. I know she’s here.
Slowly, I pull the gun from the hem of my pants and hold it gently in one hand, finger resting, cold but steady, on the steel. Through the enormous front window, my eyes catch movement in the living-room; a woman, walking across the carpet, one ear pressed against a small silver cell phone. She’s laughing, throwing her head back in such a familiar way that my heart twists and shatters, and my hands, with the gun, fall to my lap.
It’s Julie. My twin. My best friend. The very woman who put me in prison and left me there for her own benefit. This is where I have a clear shot of my sister, and this is where I can do what needs to be done. Slowly and deliberately, I raise the gun and point it at the window. If I can catch her off guard, I have a better chance of killing her at once. For all I know, she is armed too, and I only have one bullet.
Taking in another breath of air, I close one eye and point the barrel at my sister’s face. She’s leaning against the kitchen counter now, one arm tucked under the other, oblivious to anything and everything around her.
My index finger rests on the trigger.
“Joey.” A voice behind me speaks, startling me. I spin around on my heels, gun secured safely in my grip, the barrel now pointed directly at the intruder. Nick Jaxon is squatting behind me, and both of his hands are in the air in surrender. He doesn’t look surprised to see me here, wielding a gun at my sister. He looks sad, frightened even, but not so much for himself. For me.
“What are you doing here?” I hiss, keeping the gun aimed at him. “Go away, Mr. Jaxon. You shouldn’t be here.”
“It actually looks like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be,” says Jaxon, dropping one knee into the dirt. His hands are still in the air, holding there steady. “After I told you what I found out about Julie, I knew you were up to something, but I didn’t realize what it was until we found you bleeding in the bathroom. You’re not a cutter, are you? You had no reason to do that, to make it bad enough to land you in the hospital, but you did.” Jaxon swallows, his eyes wavering from me and to the gun still aimed in his direction. “It didn’t take much convincing from Lace to tell me that you had managed to get the information I wouldn’t give you, the exact location of your sister’s lodging.” He stops to take another breath. Steam from the chill rises in front of him “When Mia reported your disappearance to Warden Flynn, I knew where you’d be headed. A little cliché, isn’t it?”
“No one knew but you,” I remind him. “And that was my first mistake, was trusting you.”
