Page 30 of Edge of Ruin (The Edge Trilogy #3)

Chapter Eighteen

Vivi

I locked up my shop and headed toward my van.

I had finally finished painting the place, and I was a rumpled, snarled, ivory-spattered mess.

I caught sight of myself in the rearview mirror as I started up the ignition, and winced at the spectacle.

Yikes. Eyes red and puffy, face paper white, mouth blurry and dry.

But who cared how I looked? Hell with it.

I pointed the van in the direction of Evergreen Acres.

I’d asked around yesterday, and that was the one place I could afford that would accept my dog.

It also bordered on a creek and had a little forested area nearby for Edna to run and catch sticks and do her doggie business.

The downside was, it was a pathetic dump.

It was clear that the creek had overflowed its bounds and flooded the rental units more than once.

The number of discolored waterlines and the rotting carpet were my first clues to that.

Besides the overwhelming stench of mold, of course.

The cinder-block cube they’d assigned to me was the last in the row.

It was tiny and cramped, and it stank of cigarettes, damp, and just a faint touch of urine to blend with the scent of toxic mold.

The ceiling was so splotchy, it looked like it would fall down right on top of me.

The curtains were full of cigarette holes. It was a tableau of misery.

Spot-on perfect for my mood.

I pulled into the Acres, parked my van next to my wretched little abode, and stared at it, dispirited. Back to roughing it. Back to making do. I’d gotten so spoiled.

Feeling sorry for myself would not help. I had learned that lesson so many times, in so many ways in my life, it still amazed me when the “poor-little-me’s” took me by storm. Like, who the fuck cared how I felt? No one. Deal with it.

I let Edna out of the van, and we headed down to the creek so Edna could stretch her legs.

After that, I would clean up, change, organize my stuff, and get motivated for some tight-assed, dollar-a-day grocery shopping.

Not that I had any appetite, but I needed to act like a grown-up. Starving myself would not help matters.

I flung the stick for Edna until my arm felt like it was about to fall off, and finally decided to stop procrastinating.

I walked back to the cabin. Staring at the flimsy door with the knob lock that a credit card could swipe open in one pass.

At the single-paned windows with the warped, swollen wood sills that I hadn’t been able to wrench closed.

I hadn’t known how safe Jack’s infrared alarm, and more than that, his tough, stalwart presence at my side, had made me feel until now. I’d been so relaxed, soft and open inside, for weeks now. Now that it was taken away from me, I felt like a snail with no shell. Fear was my constant backdrop.

I shoved the key into the lock. Edna stopped at the threshhold and shrank back, whining, but I was trying so hard to be tough, I didn’t register the dog’s gesture until I’d stepped in, flipped on the light?—

And found the two men lurking in the dark on either side of the door.

Their two pistols were pointed straight at me.