Page 108 of Reaper and Ruin

“I’m serious,” he said. “Or a cat. For Harold. Or both! We leave a feather and a furball on the body. BAM! Case closed. The Murder Squad strikes again.”

Levi squinted at him. “My killer calling card is definitely not going to be an image of your ugly cat, X.”

X side-eyed him. “Do you have a better idea?” He held up a finger. “And do not say an image of Whip’s cock. You’re the only one who wants to see that.”

“Definitely not what I was going to say…” Levi muttered.

Whip flapped a hand at the two of them to shut up. “No calling cards. That’s…so…try-hard. Makes you look like a pick-me girl. Like you’re only doing it for the fame.”

I wasn’t sure at what point in my life conversations like this had become the norm and acceptable, but pretty much nothing surprised me anymore. “Oh, right. Heaven forbid you kill for the fame. How unclassy.”

All three of them stared at me.

I raised an eyebrow in challenge.

None of them went there. I folded my arms across my chest and focused on Whip. “Where is he going anyway? Can we get this over with?”

But Whip frowned at the screen on his phone. “I think he’s stopped. Seems to be a residential house a few blocks away.”

I held my hand out for the phone. “Let me see.”

Whip handed it over, and I peered down at the address displayed on the screen.

I felt the blood drain out of my face. It was as if I’d been on the receiving end of a cold bucket of water.

“Vi?” Levi twisted to catch a glimpse of my face. “Why did you just go all stiff?”

I stared down at the blinking green dot, willing it to move. Willing it to be anywhere but there.

But it didn’t budge.

I looked up at them. “It’s the house we lived in as kids. Our foster parents’ home.”

34

VIOLET

We sat in Whip’s car in front of a house I thought I would never see again. The last time I’d walked out of it, my shoulders had hunched, arms wrapped around myself, eye swelling from a backhand I’d received for no apparent reason, other than my foster father had been in a mood. Losing income because I’d aged out of the system would do that to a guy, I guessed.

I’d been a broken shell of a girl, my foster mother’ssweetreminders echoing in my head. I could hear them again now, clear as day.

What do you mean you’re leaving? You’re just going to walk out? We need the money from your job! What the hell are we supposed to do?

You’re a fat, ugly bitch, Violet. Your heart is as ugly as your face.

You ungrateful piece of shit, you aren’t even going to thank us for everything we’ve done for you? You owe us.

She’d always had the sharpest, most vile tongue. I’d preferred my foster father’s blows. Physical bruises had alwaysbeen easier to heal from than the constant torment of my foster mother’s cruelness.

“Vi?” Whip said quietly from behind the steering wheel. “You don’t have to do this, you know? We can take care of it.”

The thought was tempting. It would have been so easy to just let them take me back to the clubhouse. So easy to curl up in Levi’s bed and be lulled to sleep by the knowledge I was safe.

But the girl who’d lived in this house once upon a time, all those years ago, screamed I would never be safe until I faced down the demons that had haunted me my entire life.

That just like Travis popping up again, so would every other monster from my past, until I slayed them all.

I couldn’t just sit back and let them take care of this for me. I could let them back me up and support me, but I had to face it myself, or I would never be truly free from the shackles my shitty past held me in.