Page 138 of Reaper and Ruin

My stomach twisted in knots at the sight of Francine’s car sitting outside the house. That had definitely not been there the last time we’d visited. It was in a nicer part of Saint View,where the houses were old but bigger than the shit shacks the government put up as low-income housing. We were closer to the Providence border than the center of town where the Clean Sweep offices were. It would take Fang and the others fifteen minutes to get over here.

I wasn’t waiting that long.

Whip drove past the house and parked a few doors down. I yanked on the door handle the second he stopped the car.

X was out just as quick, Whip and Dax a second later.

X led the way back down the street but stopped suddenly well before the house, lifting his arm at a right angle, his fist clenched.

I ran smack into his back. “Ow, Jesus, X! What the hell are you doing?”

“That’s the sign to stop! Haven’t you ever watched a cop show? The SWAT leader puts his hand up like this, and his men all freeze behind him until he says it’s safe to go on.”

“Well, maybe you should have told me that before I practically bowled you over!”

“As your captain, I object to your tone, Soldier!”

I rolled my eyes. “So sorry, Captain Crunch.”

X grinned. “I like that. You can be Sargeant Sassy Pants, and Whip, you can be Drill Sargeant Daddy.” He winked. “But if I hear Levi say, ‘Drill me, Daddy,’ there will be consequences. Dax, you can be…actually, I don’t know you well enough to give you a code name, sorry. You’re just Dax.”

Dax looked completely baffled.

Clearly, he hadn’t been around X long enough to know this was completely typical X behavior, and I suspected his verbal diarrhea was a very real reaction to stress. But he could unpack that with Grayson later.

“Drill Sargeant Daddy—” I shook my head and sighed. “I meanWhipand Dax can cover the rear.”

“That’s what he said.” X sniggered.

I sighed heavily. “And you and I can create a distraction at the front. That work for a plan?”

It was as good as any. I just needed to get in there. If this woman had hurt Violet, she was dead. I’d wring her scrawny neck, twisting it like one of Grayson’s balloon animals if she had so much as touched one hair on Violet’s head.

I blinked at the thought.

X might have had a point about my angry prison-man persona.

Whip and Dax jogged through the neighbor’s yard, and I hoped they didn’t find dogs once they jumped the fence. And the owners were at work or something and not perfecting their tans in their backyards.

X looked at me. “If she watched the whole thing that happened at Paul Jeddersen’s house, she’s going to know my pizza delivery act. That won’t work. Got any other ideas we can use as a distraction?”

I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait another second to get in that house. The anticipation was killing me.

X trotted up the path after me, and I forced myself not to slam my fist against the door. Instead I knocked politely, and X raised an eyebrow at me, a silent, “You went in without a plan, so you better come up with something quick,” expression in his eyes. Knowing he was right, I screwed my face up and called, “Hello? We’d like to talk to you about your car’s extended warranty…”

I was pretty sure I would be hearing X’s laughter in my nightmares.

41

VIOLET

Francine had dropped her bomb about taking our babies and then locked us back in the darkness. It pressed in like it had weight, the air down here already stale and sour.

I clutched Nyah’s fingers, still trying to convince myself she was alive and not just a figment of my imagination. The daylight barely filtered through the cracks in the floorboards, but it was enough to see the dullness in her dark eyes.

I rubbed my thumb across the back of her hand. “Have you been down here this entire time?”

“Yes.” Her whisper barely carried over the sound of my heartbeat. She wrinkled her nose, and when she spoke again, her voice was a tiny bit louder. “As you can probably smell. She brings food and water. Changes the piss bucket occasionally. But it’s not exactly a five-star stay.” She sniffed and tried to laugh at herself. “I’ll be leaving a very poor one-star Yelp review.”