Page 137 of One Killer Night

Everywhere I look, I see ten new versions of Billy.

There are just too many knives, masks, and hammers. Someone’s even carrying a chainsaw. I can’t tell what’s real or fake. And that makes my pulse speed up even faster.

I swear to god, this is just my luck. Imminent death is everywhere, and my girlfriend won’t stop fucking running away.

“Killer,” I yell louder, pushing past a guy in a Ghostface mask, but the crowd goes wild around me, chanting her nickname and yelling out as if it’s a joke.

“Yeah, killer” . . . “I’m a killer” . . . “Kill me.”

She looks over her shoulder one last time before disappearing around the corner of a building, so I shove through two people, hearing them gripe “Hey!” before I cut through the rest of the crowd to where she went.

As soon as I get into the shadows between the two buildings, I catch only a glimpse of her, because she closes a door behind her. Instead of running, I glance over my shoulder ensuring nobody’s following me before heading in her direction, because I don’t know what I’m about to walk in on. I think I saw the word “Cafeteria” on the front ... So this time there could be real knives.

I get to the door, pulling it open slowly before sliding inside, then quietly close it behind me. I’m in a kitchen.

The room’s dark but not pitch black. So I stand for a moment and let my eyes adjust before I look around for her.

“Goldie,” I whisper cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other as I walk deeper into the space. “I swear to god, I am not here to hurt you.”

I reach carefully into my back pocket and pull out my phone, but as I bring it to my face, the light gives away my exact location. I hear a grunt from my left side before something hard nails me right in the shoulder.

“Fuck.” I drop my phone as I grab my shoulder, immediately tensing both of them. “What the hell are you doing?”

Another can whizzes by me, making me jump out of the way.

“I know what you did to the apartment,” she yells before hitting me in the thigh, making me yell again. “You lied about who you are. You destroyed everything I own. You tracked me down to the middle of nowhere. And you think that I’m going to go without a fight? Clearly, neither of us knew the other.”

This time a can narrowly misses my face.

“Jesus Christ,” I bellow. “You’re the one throwing shit at me, and I’m the dangerous one?” I’m rubbing my shoulder and partially limpingfrom the charley horse I now have as I notice my phone is close by her feet. “Just open my phone and look at the top message. It’s proof I’m here for what I say I’m here for.”

She’s still holding a can up by her head, aimed right at me. “Why would I do that? I’m not listening to anything you tell me.”

I huff a laugh as I make my way a foot and a half over to a chair, flinching when she cocks the can back more.

“Easy, killer. I haven’t actively avoided dying for most of my life to have my headstone read, ‘Killed by creamed corn.’” I sit and wave a hand at the damn phone. “Would you please just look at the text?”

Goldie keeps her eyes on me as she slowly bends down and swipes my phone up quickly.

“Fine, but don’t move a muscle, because I’ve got a whole fucking stack of cans over here.”

I hold up my hands in surrender before I let out a breath and begin rubbing the knot out of my thigh.

Her eyes volley between me and the screen as she swipes it open, and I watch her thumb hit the message icon.

I chuckle at the irony ... I’m the secretive one, but I don’t have a password on my phone. She looks at me, confused.

“Why am I looking at a picture of myself, Noah?” I don’t miss the way she winces when she says my name. “Did you take this this morning? That was you in the woods?”

I shake my head, relaxing back in my chair. “No. Look at the time stamp, Golds. I got that this afternoon after I found that PI who’s been looking into your birth parents. He was murdered in his car.”

She gasps, her eyes opening wider as her mouth stays agape.

“Before you get ahead of yourself ...” My words are tinged with anger masking the hurt, because the way she’s looking at me with so much fear makes me sick to my stomach. “Chase was with me when I found Matthew Wright. You can see in another text that he invited me there ... Go on, look. So, if I did it, I’m really bad at crime. Plus, Chase has been with me every day for the last week, so ...”

If I hated the way she looked at me before, I hate the look she’s giving me now even more. The one where she isn’t even ashamed that she thought I could’ve done something like that in the first place.

I jerk my chin toward the phone. “Whoever sent that to me was letting me know that they could get to you. I made it my mission to get here first.”