Page 56 of Reaper and Ruin

My stomach twisted. I couldn’t stop staring at it. My brain flashing up memories I would have rather forgotten for manyreasons except I couldn’t, because it had also been the day I’d met X.

“Vi?” Levi asked. “You good?”

X cringed. “Is it another round of the shits? Oh God, not more vomiting! I’ve done my time, Lord! Have you not punished me enough?”

The rest of us ignored his theatrics.

I slowly raised my head. “I’ve seen that bear before.”

“In a horror movie?” X asked.

I shook my head. “On Paul Jeddersen’s bookshelf the day he attacked me. The same day you…” I stared at X. “You know.” I ran my finger across my neck.

A dreamy expression spread across X’s handsome features. “Ah, yes. Paul Jeddersen on Olympic Drive. Lactose intolerant and wouldn’t offer me cheese. Stabbed multiple times until he was barely more than soup.” He grinned, focusing on me again. “And you in nothing but your underwear. What a day.”

His eyes darkened suddenly, like he’d remembered the rest of the details of that afternoon, the way I’d been in my underwear because Paul Jeddersen had drugged me, cut off my clothes, and was well on his way to raping and killing me when X and Scythe had randomly knocked on his door.

“I’d kill him all over again if I could.”

I knew he would, and I would have let him. But it wasn’t the point right now. I picked up the ratty teddy bear and held it out to X. “Do you remember this? It’s the same one, right? It was on that bookshelf you were hiding behind.”

X took it from my fingers but shrugged. “I honestly don’t remember. All I saw that day was you.”

He said it so seriously and earnestly that if I hadn’t been focused on racking my memories for that bear, I might have swooned.

I held it toward Levi and Whip. “I’m one-hundred-percent sure this bear was on Paul Jeddersen’s bookshelf.”

Levi squinted at it again, though was clearly uninterested in touching it. “Those toys are mass manufactured. There are probably millions of them out there.”

He had a point. “I guess so. But what if it’s not a coincidence? What if it is his? What does that mean?”

“Definitely not that old farty, rapey, Pauly-boy was here,” X piped up. “I killed him good. There was no zombie-style resurrection for him, I promise you that.”

Whip reached for the bear. “No, Paul Jeddersen is definitely chopped up into little pieces and disposed of. That was easy enough to do after X went all chop suey on him.” He turned the stuffed toy over in his hands and wrinkled his nose. “But it’s something.” He squeezed the bear, then paused. “Well, fuck me. Anyone got a knife?”

We all looked at X.

He rolled his eyes. “Why would you assume I have one! Geez!” He patted himself down. “Switchblade? Hunting knife? Serrated or just nice smooth steel? Oooh, pocket knife?” He started pulling weapons from various places on his body.

I gaped at him. “How many knives, exactly, do you carry at any one time?”

“On a weekday? Not many. Seven?”

“Only you would think seven knives is not many,” Levi muttered, but his gaze was firmly fixed on Whip as he took a blade from X and sliced it through the seams of the bear.

Whip yanked out fluffy bits of stuffing, then a small bundle of wires.

“What’s that?” I whispered.

Whip fished around in the bear’s belly some more, following the cords, seeing what else was in there. Eventually, his gaze met mine. “It’s a nanny cam. I should have realized. We hadone when…” He swallowed thickly but then forced himself to continue. “We had one when my daughter was little and my wife went back to work. We were new parents, super overprotective and didn’t fully trust anyone.”

X squinted at him. “So what? You stuck a bear with a camera in your home and spied on your babysitter?”

Whip lifted one shoulder. “Well, yeah. Essentially.”

“Paranoid much?”

Whip glared at him. “When you have a tiny baby who is fully dependent on you to keep them safe, that you love with a depth you’ve never felt before, come talk to me.”