Page 26 of Watch Your Back (Devil’s Backbone #2)

This shit with Carter has shaken us all so much more than anyone showed to Ashley.

No one wants to scare her, and I get it.

But I know my friends…I think they’re going to do something reckless.

Royce is a loose cannon, and something snapped in him tonight.

I’m worried he will do something he can’t take back.

C arter drove like the devil himself was chasing us down, and it only served to fill me with overwhelming levels of dread for what we might find at Dr. Fox’s house.

The most solid theory I came up with on our way over was that he’d become frustrated that his hypnosis of Carter failed and was retaliating by turning the other guys into mindless zombies by whatever means necessary.

The whole drive, all I could picture was finding the three of them limp and lifeless, drool running from the corners of their mouths because their brains had been fried.

When we arrived, Carter put his hand out to stop me leaping from the car. “Wait,” he ordered, jaw tight and eyes dark. “We don’t know what we’ll be walking into. Just…can you please wait one minute while I take a look around? Please?”

If it’d been an outright order, a demand, I’d have told him to go fuck himself and leapt out of the car. But he was genuinely asking and using manners, and that in itself was so unlike Carter, it stopped me in my tracks.

“One minute?” I repeated, anxiety damn near choking me.

Carter nodded firmly, his expression grim. “One minute, that’s all I’m asking, Spark. Just let me work out what we’re dealing with before putting yourself in the firing line. If you got hurt again…”

I swallowed hard, biting my lip. He had a valid point after last night. So I kissed him quickly, told him to be careful, then damn near crawled out of my own skin with nervousness while he got out of the car and headed toward Dr. Fox’s house.

He was casual about it, hands tucked in his pockets and posture relaxed as he strolled up the path as though he were just stopping by to ask for an extra-credit assignment or something. I chewed the crap out of my lip while watching him knock on the door and peer through the window.

For a moment, I wondered if this would be an anticlimactic endeavor and no one would be home.

Maybe the guys had been here and already left?

And maybe the tracking app was malfunctioning or something?

We hadn’t tried calling any of the guys on the drive over, because Carter had pointed out that if they were in danger we could be tipping our hand to Dr. Fox.

Right as Carter turned back to where I waited in the car, spreading his hands wide with confusion, the door jerked open and a hand shot out.

That was all I could see from where I sat.

Just a hand darting out, grabbing Carter’s hoodie, and dragging him into the house with one swift movement.

Then the door slammed shut once more, and my stomach dropped clean out of my asshole.

“Fuck!” I exclaimed aloud. “Carter!” As if he could hear me from my position inside the car across the street. Fuck waiting the rest of the minute I’d promised, he was clearly in danger, and I was the only one left who could save him. Them.

It took several tries to unbuckle my seat belt and get out of the car. Then I nearly lost the way-too-big shorts I’d borrowed as I sprinted across the road and up the pathway. Not bothering to knock, I threw open the front door and burst inside with zero plan and even less skill.

I barely made it two steps inside the house before colliding with a hard chest, and a pair of strong arms banded around me like iron shackles. Holy fuck, this really wasn’t my finest hour.

“Let me go!” I shrieked, only to find a hand clamped over my mouth.

“Shhhh!” someone hissed, and the door closed firmly behind me.

The sheer audacity of my captor and possible murderer to shush me? Oh hell no, not on ? —

“Layne, cut it out,” Nate growled, hauling me away from the front door. “Stop acting like we’re trying to kill you, and I’ll let you go.”

Oh. Shit. My “captor” was Nate and I’d just been shushed by an exceptionally amused-looking Royce. Well, it was still rude.

Nate must have sensed the fight evaporating from me because he released his hold on my body a moment later and peeled his hand away from my mouth. “You good?” he asked when I wobbled and spun around to face him.

I took a moment to glance between him and Royce, then nodded shakily. “Yup. Sorry, I thought you were… Someone grabbed Carter and I thought he was… Um, what the fuck is going on?”

Nate squinted at me, folding his arms over his chest. “You thought Carter was in mortal peril so you decided the best course of action was to come bursting in here armed with your sharp wit and cutting sarcasm? Well-thought-out plan, Layne. That wasn’t stupid at all.”

I glowered, embarrassed at how accurate his summation was. “Fuck you. Where’s Heath and Carter? And Dr. Fox? Why are we in Dr. Fox’s house without him? This feels illegal.”

Royce scoffed at that. “Illegal barely scratches the surface, Squirrel. You shouldn’t be here, though. Someone needs to get you back to campus, asap.”

Outrage saw me give a squeak of protest. “What? Why?”

His answering grimace was full of dread. “Plausible deniability, babe. Best if we drop you off to spend the day with Carly. Maybe go to the mall or somewhere lots of people will be able to provide an alibi.”

“An alibi?” I exclaimed, confused as fuck. “What for? Breaking and entering?”

The sound of arguing echoed from deeper inside the house, and I gave Royce a puzzled look before heading that way. I needed to see Heath and Carter for myself to know they were both okay, and these guys were acting suspicious as hell.

“Uh, that’s not a good idea!” Royce called out after me, while Nate tried to grab my arm to stop me again. I dodged his hand and picked up the pace. Either he was going to have to tackle me, or I was going to find out what the hell was going on in Dr. Fox’s house.

The arguing was definitely Carter and Heath; I recognized their voices as I drew closer. Or it was largely Carter asking what the fuck with increasing levels of confusion and outrage, while Heath snapped back about not needing a lecture.

“Bass failed to mention he’d brought Ashley along for the ride!” Nate called out, seeming to feel the need to warn them I was approaching.

Sure enough, Carter dashed out of what I guessed was the kitchen, intercepting me in the hall. “Spark, baby, you said you’d wait in the car. We just have a little situation here.”

I scowled, now one hundred percent sure something suss was going on. “For one minute, yes. One minute is up, Bassington. What the fuck is going on? I thought you were all dead but this?—”

“Ashes, I really think it’d be best if you went back to campus!” Heath called out from the kitchen. “Nate, can you drive her back? Please? Carter can help me deal with this.”

Carter wheeled around, shaking his head despite the fact Heath couldn’t see him. “No, Carter cannot. Carter is in enough trouble as it is without calling in any more favors from that person.”

Okay, I was annoyed before, but now that Carter was speaking both ambiguously and in third person? Something was seriously fishy. With his back turned, I ducked past him and continued on in the direction Heath’s voice had come from. Carter gasped and grabbed for me, but he was too slow.

I’d already seen it.

“What…the fuck?” I asked in a strangled whisper, taking in the sight of blood splattered everywhere. All over the walls, the cabinets, the fridge, the floor…Heath. Holy shit, Heath was covered. And I had to assume the source was the very lifeless body on the tile floor.

Heath gave me a sheepish grimace, gesturing weakly to the corpse. “So, um, this isn’t ideal. It’d really be preferable if you’d let Nate drive you back to campus now so no one connects you with this…”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Royce spoke up, joining us in the kitchen and gingerly picking a clean patch of tile to stand on. Now that I paid attention, he was also splattered in blood but just nowhere near as much as Heath. “Carter, we figured you could call your guy and?—”

“I can’t,” Carter growled, shaking his head. “He’s not my guy, he’s my mother’s. And since she’s currently threatening to pin my last cleanup on Spark…I’d prefer not to hand over even more ammunition.”

I gasped so hard, I nearly choked on my own saliva. That was why he’d been so weird about his mom?

The other boys seemed just as shocked as I was by this information, all of them speaking over each other to the point I couldn’t make out what anyone was truly saying. The gist of it was that they weren’t fucking happy, though.

“Okay, enough!” I shouted, needing to be heard over them all. “Enough. We can untangle that mess later. Right now…let’s deal with this. Um. What happened?”

The boys exchanged cryptic looks, then Royce leaned his butt against a clean patch of counter and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “We came over to ask Dr. Fox some questions.”

That was it. That was his whole explanation.

I waited a moment longer, thinking surely he’d elaborate a little more on the subject, but nope, that was it.

My eyes narrowed, and I glared daggers his way.

“Thank you, Roycey, very informative. Heath?” I turned my gaze to my blood-soaked lover, who was looking seriously pale and sweaty.

“Jesus, fuck, someone grab a bucket before he vomits on the evidence?”

Carter snagged a fruit bowl from the table and dumped the fruit out before sticking it under Heath’s face.

“I’m okay,” Heath informed us with a weak cringe.

“I’m okay. Promise. Just…the smell just hit me.

” He gagged but somehow managed to hold back his vomit as he clamped his lips together.

“I just…I’m going to sit down for a second.

” He took the fruit bowl with him as he stumbled to the corner of the kitchen and slid down the cabinets to sit on his ass.

Confused and worried, I turned to Nate for answers. I was seeking honesty and logic from Nate of all people. Hell must have been preparing for a snowstorm.

“Royce isn’t wrong. We did come looking for some answers,” he confirmed, speaking cautiously as his gaze traveled across his three friends before landing on me.

He stood there in the doorway with his stance balanced and his arms folded across his chest like he was taking charge.

Thank fuck too, because someone needed to.

“We maybe didn’t approach it in the most diplomatic way, but after what happened to Carter, we weren’t really thinking the consequences through. ”

Royce scoffed at that, a loopy grin on his lips. “I’d say this played out fairly similar to what we theorized.”

“And what if we’d been wrong?” Nate exploded, glaring death at Royce and giving me a pretty clear idea of who’d initiated this field trip. “If we were wrong—and we easily could have been—then we’d all be getting arrested for assault and god only knows what else.”

“Instead of murder?” Carter asked, tilting his head as he stared down at the body on the floor. “Somehow I’d think assault would be the lesser crime here.”

“It was an accident,” Heath muttered from his seat on the floor, looking miserable.

If I hadn’t already guessed purely based on how bloody he was, that confirmed for me who’d done the deed itself.

Honestly, I was shocked. Of the four of them, Heath would have been my last guess for committing murder.

Nate ran a hand through his hair, messing it up a little as he blew out a breath. “I’m not sure we can call it an accident when you repeatedly bludgeoned a restrained man, bro. There’s literally nothing left of his face.”

Oh. Wow. That…explained the mess.

For some reason, I glanced around the kitchen until I spotted what must have been the murder weapon. A granite duck figurine.

A startled laugh escaped me, and I clapped a hand over my mouth to hold it in. “Sorry,” I muttered. “It’s not funny. Sorry. I just… You used a duck? What is with you guys and waterfowl?”