Page 143 of Reaper and Ruin

And yet it was Francine who crumpled to her knees.

A plastic shiv sticking out of her neck.

Nyah took the gun from Francine’s fingers and turned it on her.

“Are you shot?” I whispered.

She shook her head, both of us staring at Francine, slumped at our feet. She fumbled at her neck, and I didn’t stop her when she yanked the shiv out, making the bleeding so much worse.

I watched in morbid fascination while the blood flowed from her neck across the dirt.

“You moved so fast,” Nyah whispered. “I barely even saw you pick it up after I dropped it.”

I had literally no recollection of doing it.

All I remembered was the red haze of anger and a blinding need to protect what was mine. My friend. My baby.

Myself.

Francine spluttered and choked on her own blood. She clawed at our legs, her mouth opening and closing silently, and I knew in my heart she was begging us to save her.

Neither of us made a move to help her. I let the dark part of me take hold and just stood there, watching a woman die.

It didn’t take long. The wound in her neck had clearly caught something vital, and the blood pumped hard and fast, emptying from her body until she stopped fighting at all.

Nyah didn’t lower the gun until Francine’s chest stopped rising. But once she did, she looked up at me with a new fear in her eyes. “What do we do now? What if they can’t get in here, Vi? What if she’s…”

I filled in the blanks.

What if Francine’s traps had killed them all and nobody else knew we were here?

42

X

“We are under fire! Drill Sargeant Daddy went down! And not in the good way!”

Whip groaned and pointed his gun at me. “I’m literally going to add to our bullet count if you do not speak like a normal person!”

I rolled my eyes and translated down the line to Scythe. “Violet’s psycho boss has a house of horrors that shoots lovely sharp bits of shrapnel every time we try to get close to it, and Whip got hit in the leg. Went down like Levi was on his knees with his mouth open. Or so legend says. Dax was the one who dragged him out.”

Scythe was silent on the line for a second, then eventually said, “I… Don’t have words. Is this what my family feels like when they have to deal with me? I need to buy them all flowers or something. We’re two minutes out. Just sit tight until we get there.”

Yeah, there was no way any of us were doing that.

Levi breathed heavily, maybe from the short dive off the porch we’d both done when the fucking house started shooting at us. Maybe from the jagged wound on Whip’s leg that wasbleeding profusely as Dax tried to wrap strips from his shirt around it.

Levi seemed torn in two, his gaze dragging from the house that held Violet prisoner, and Whip bleeding, though definitely not dying, on the ground.

“We need to get in there,” Levi muttered, finally making a decision.

“No shit, Sargeant Sassy Pants. Got any ideas on how?” I mused on that for a second. “Maybe I should call my new friends at the hockey rink and ask to borrow some pads? Then we could just storm in, deflecting shrapnel like its pucks. Kiii-ya!” I straightened my fingers and threw a wobbly roundhouse kick at the air.

“Are you doing karate or playing hockey?” Levi stared at the house that kept trying to kill us. “Violet!” He edged closer again, even though every time he did a new round of tiny sharp bits of metal went flying through the air.

I dragged him back, and we both crouched, trying to come up with a plan. “We go through the roof,” I suggested eventually. “Climb the tree, shimmy along that branch, drop onto the roof, remove a few shingles, and burst in through the ceiling.”

Levi glanced at me. “I weigh two hundred and fifty pounds. I’m gonna snap that tree branch like it’s a matchstick.”