“What happened?” Ashe asked. “When I went by Luke’s office, he told me y’all were about to have a rough day.”
She had no idea just how right he was.
“We trained on what to do if there was an active shooter in the elementary school,” I murmured, unlocking my door and walking into my half of the duplex.
Derek, who was my next-door neighbor, waved at us as he got out of his truck.
Instead of going into his own place, he walked over to mine.
“I ordered pizza,” Ashe said as she walked in the door behind me. “I ordered enough to feed half of the gated community.”
“It’s not a gated community.” Derek chuckled as he fell onto my couch.
I continued walking to the kitchen and pulled out three beers.
I handed one to Ashe as she stopped at the bar and then tossed the other to Derek, who caught it easily from his prone position.
“Actually,” Ashe corrected Derek. “It’s going to be. The owners were really worried about everything that’s happened lately, so they’re installing iron fencing and gates around the front half. The back will have ten-foot privacy fences that encompass the entire two-acre tract. But until they can afford the rest, it’ll all be one big open space.”
Derek’s brows rose. “When’s that going to go down?”
“They’re not quite sure.” Ashe took a healthy swallow of beer. “The fencing around the back is first. The gate’s going to come likely last. With it being the rainy season, they’re worried that with all the rain it’ll make the big poles sag for the massive gate. Or, at least, that was what was discussed while I was in the office.”
“Why were you in the office?” I questioned.
Ashe lived at the end of the duplex row, closest to the offices. It also happened to be one of the smallest ones because it was only a single unit and not a full duplex. It was supposed to be a maintenance worker’s building, but they’d ended up leasing it out to Ashe upon her uncle’s ‘talk’ with the owners.
“Well,” she said as she looked at her phone. She frowned and walked to the door, opening it with a small smile on her face. “Hello!” She took the eight pizzas in her hands and smiled at the pimply-faced teen that smiled back at her. Once the door was closed behind her, she placed the pizzas on the counter and walked back outside, closing the door softly behind her.
“What do you think she’s doing?” Derek asked, getting up and walking to the pizza boxes.
I took a slice out of the box myself and bit into it.
“Going to find the rest of us,” I admitted.
She appeared moments later with more stragglers.
Hayes, Saint, and Louis.
Samuel, Malachi, Nathan, Booth, and Bourne had gone to a bar. Dax had gone home to his wife—Rowen.
“Because I saw a potential new tenant that I most certainly didn’t like,” she replied to the question that I’d asked earlier before the pizza was delivered.
“What kind of tenant?” Saint questioned.
“The kind where he looked shady as fuck, kept making creepy eyes around the parking lot, and ultimately looked like he was on some sort of stimulant that wouldn’t let him keep still.” Ashe pushed between Derek and me, coming out with a piece of pizza that was twice as big as her face.
She took a bite and moaned, causing my dick to stir.
Today definitely hadn’t started how I wanted it.
But I knew how I wanted to end it.
The only problem was, I promised myself only once.
And I would stick to that.
I would.
Maybe.Chapter 7
Humans are deuterostomes. Which means that when they develop in the womb, their anus forms before any other opening. Also meaning at one point, you were nothing but an asshole.
-Fun fact
Ford
“Why am I here?” Ashe asked curiously, flipping through one of the file folders that she had on some deaths that she was obsessed about.
“I don’t know,” I murmured, leaning back in Ashe’s office chair and kicking my feet up onto the desk beside her thighs.
She spared a moment to glare at them before returning to her file.
“What are you reading?” I asked curiously.
She glanced up at me then back down at her paper.
“Well,” she said. “If all goes according to what experts predict, this will be the time of the year that the killer will strike.”
I felt a shiver roll down my spine.
This ‘project’ as she called it was something that she’d been looking into since she started her way into being a criminal psychologist.
I’d heard, as well as everyone that was willing to listen, about this killer in Haughton, Louisiana, who was killing young teenage girls.
One of the serial killer’s victims had been a friend of hers. Somebody that could’ve just as easily been her.
I decided that it was likely what had motivated her to get into the martial arts. To become able to protect herself.