Page 144 of Reaper and Ruin

I rolled my eyes. “Well, you should have laid off the steroids in prison, then, shouldn’t you!” I huffed a sigh and headed for the tree. “Don’t worry. I can climb. I had plenty of practice climbing into Violet’s apartment before she liked me.”

Levi stared at me. “You did what?”

I cringed. “Nothing. Give me a boost.”

Whip looked like he was going to have a coronary. “Hurry the fuck up! She could be dying in there, X!”

Did he really think he had to tell me that? Did he really think I wasn’t playing it over and over again in my mind like a wakingnightmare, dredged up from my own personal pit of hell? Did he think I wasn’t scared out of my fucking mind that I was going to get into that house and find out we were too late?

All I had to calm me down was bad jokes. Otherwise I’d be self-combusting on the sidewalk like he and Levi were.

And where the fuck was that going to get us? If Whip was injured and Levi was out of his mind, and I was just flapping around with them.

Someone had to be the hero.

And it was definitely going to be me.

I scaled that tree like I was part koala, clawing and scratching my round little booty up the branches, clinging to it for dear life once I got high enough for the fall to kill me. I eyed the branch overhanging the second-story roof and debated whether it really could hold my weight or not.

The ground suddenly seemed really far away, and climbing this tree was a lot harder than climbing the balconies of Violet’s building. I was getting splinters in my fingers, and twigs and leaves were poking me in the eyes.

“Go, X!” Levi shouted from beneath me. “She needs you!”

He was right. The branch had looked thick enough to hold my weight from the ground. Just because when I got up here it was about as sturdy as a toothpick didn’t mean anything.

I needed to do this for my Omelet.

I lay down on the branch and inched my way along. I wrapped my legs around it, squeezing my thighs. Splinters stabbed me in the belly, but I kept going, reminding myself the branch would hold, that I would land safely on the roof, and I’d sweep inside like a knight in shining armor, pluck Violet up from wherever she was bound and gagged, and carry her out to cheers and applause.

That was the image I kept in my head, and not the ground that was so far away I could barely see it.

I might as well have been on a plane.

I was nearly there, my stomach threatening to erupt, when Levi’s phone rang.

I stared down at him and watched him pull it out of his pocket.

My mouth dropped open. “Not the time to be taking a call, bro! I need some support here!”

Or this freaking tree branch did. It protested my weight with a violent-sounding creak.

“Violet!” Levi shouted.

I froze, dread filling me.

His head jerked up. “It’s Violet! She’s in a pit beneath the house. Francine is dead, but they’re both okay. Francine had her phone on her when she fell into the pit with them.”

“What do you mean Francine is dead but they’rebothokay? Who’s them?” Whip asked.

Levi looked over at Dax. “Nyah is there too. She’s okay.”

Even from up in the tree, I could see the color drain from Dax’s face. He sat down hard next to Whip and buried his face in his hands, his shoulders silently shaking.

Whip slung an arm around his shoulders, and Levi crouched, awkwardly patting him on the back.

Which was all fine and good, but hello? I was up in a tree on a branch that was about to snap. “So, uh, Violet doesn’t need rescuing?”

Levi shook his head. “No, she’s okay. She said she doesn’t want any of us trying to go in there because she thinks there could be more traps set. I’m calling the cops, and they can get the bomb squad or whatever the hell department down here to check the place out first and get them out. You can come down.”