“Ain’t you gotta be at the ink place?”
I didn’t hear what he said back because, at that moment, something tapped me on the side, and it took everything in me not to scream my ass off. It was only because he’d said the guys were coming that I managed not to, knowing they’d have ridden hard to get here quickly.
I didn’t want to take my eyes off them, but when the person tapped me again, I begrudgingly did it, turning my body sideways so I could see who it was.
Wes and Blaze were standing there with two others behind them, one of whom I was sure was Nico, and Wes had his finger pressed against his lips.
Like I needed that reminder.
When he motioned at me to come toward him, I shook my head frantically. I couldn’t leave Jordan on his own. Seeing it, Wes pointed at Nico and motioned that he was coming in.
It wasn’t enough. I needed to be here.
“Please!” I mouthed, tears starting to trail down my cheeks.
A tattooed arm nudged Blaze out of the way, and then Nico was taking his place. In a series of hand motions, he got the message across to me. I was to go out there, and he’d take my place.
It was too risky. Hazel would shoot him if she saw him.
“She has a gun,” I mouthed, making sure to form my mouth as much as possible so they could read it.
All four of them reached down to their sides and held up their own, showing me they weren’t going in empty handed.
Just as I turned to look back over at where Jordan and Hazel were, a strong pair of hands lifted me and pulled me through the window without making a noise. Then I was placed on the ground with my back against the wall, far enough away from the window that I could only just hear them talking inside.
I don’t know why I did it, maybe because I was so desperate to help out in some way, but I offered Nico the walking stick as he braced his hands on the windowsill.
Almost like he was moving in slow motion, he turned his head to look at it, blinked, then glared at me.
Wes apparently found it funny, because he lifted it out of my hand, his body shaking with his silent laughter.
“Really?” Nico whisper-hissed.
“It’s the best I could come up with.”
Pressing his lips together, he looked over the top of me at Wes, shaking his head in disbelief. Then, making it look like it took no effort at all, Nico hoisted himself through the window and disappeared.
Leaning down close to my ear, Wes whispered, “You’re a brave woman, Sienna, and Jinx’ll be proud of you. The only thing putting him in danger was having you in there, and now you’re out, he’s safe.”
Through the sobs I was doing my best to hold in, I croaked, “How do you know that? She’s got a gun and a pencil.”
Some people might have laughed at the last bit, but not someone who knew my history and the damage that’d been inflicted on me by one of them.
“Honey, he was too busy making sure you were okay. If she started shooting, he’d have been too distracted by you to defend himself. Now he can do that with Nico behind him, okay?”
The hardest thing was admitting it was the right decision to leave someone you loved in a dangerous situation, but he was right.
Just as I was opening my mouth to answer him, the sound of something falling came from the room, followed by Hazel screeching, “She has to die. Don’t you see?”
Instinctively, I moved forward to go back in, just as Wes caught me with an arm around my waist and the sound of a gunshot sounded loudly in the silence of the night.
“Fuck, Jinx! Get an ambulance,” Nico bellowed, and my legs gave out from under me.
The only thing that stopped me from hitting the dirt was Wes’s arm. And then he was lifting me up and moving me away as Blaze called 911.
Chapter Fourteen
Jinx
My scar didn’t match Sienna’s, but it’d been caused by the same thing Hazel had used on her, so I was counting them as twin scars.
It’d been two weeks since the night she’d broken in, cutting the power to the house, and breaking in through a window.
Come to find out, the small window in the pantry was only a single pane of glass, meaning it was the best way for her to get in. Hazel had also been right—without the power to the house, the alarm system that’d been installed didn’t work. It was an oversight we’d had rectified since, and one that’d almost cost me my world.
While I’d been talking to her, trying to get her to move into the living room and away from where I knew they’d be protecting Sienna outside, she’d thrown multiple accusations at me, like she’d built up an alternate life for us in her deluded head. I’d been pretending to listen to her to keep her attention on me, while watching them extract Sienna out of the window out the corner of my eye.