My feet worked silently in the dark. The obstacles that annoyed me when I first entered now filled me with gratitude. While I stalked through her room and quietly entered the hall, the intruder was still struggling through the balled police tape left on the kitchen floor. My deadened heart remained silent as I slipped through her doorway and lifted a hair clip from her kitchen table. Without a gun, it was the only thing I had, and I had to imagine that it felt the same when it was pressed tight enough against the base of a skull.
At least, the cry that came next made me think so.
The shadowy figure in front of me couldn’t have been much more than a kid. Black clothes made him impossible to recognize in the dark, but as his whimpers for mercy leeched through my skin, buried memories clawed through to the surface. The trembling man in front of me was the same kid I stopped at the coffee shop that day, the same one who thought he ever stood a chance with the auburn-haired goddess.
The boy in front of me was Tristan.
“Please.” The cry pushed the clip a little harder into his spine, and Tristan’s squeal came again. “Don’t shoot! Please!”
“Don’t move.” When his trembling intensified, when I watched his knees buckle, the bile rose again. This prick thought he could take my place? This child thought he could take care of her the way I did? “I said don’t fucking move!”
“I’m sorry!” I would have pushed a little harder if I didn’t think he’d piss himself in her fucking kitchen. I loosened my grip, and the slightest hint of relief brought him bumbling again. “I was just trying to get her a photo.”
“Who?”
“Patty,” he choked. “Her mom said she wanted a photo of—”
“Stop talking.”
This thing in the back of my head hissed for another taste of violence. I’d already waited hours for the police to leave. No one else was supposed to be here. No one else was ever supposed to see me. Leaving Tristan alive was another liability, but if I’d been worried about cleaning my cum off her panties, how was I going to clean up a fucking corpse?
“Are you a cop?”
My jaw tightened, and when this thing pushed me forward, I took the only opportunity I had. “Yes.”
“What’s your—” As he cleared his throat, the kid flexed something thatalmostresembled a spine. “What’s your badge number?”
“93806.”
When he was silent, I worried he’d recognize the number. I’d been so used to giving out Omar’s badge that it’d slipped off my tongue before I could stop it. If he’d asked the cop before, he might have caught the duplication, but if he did, Tristan didn’t twitch.
You’re getting sloppy.
No loose ends.
“I was just trying to help.”
“By leaving me another fucking body to deal with?”
The hiss sent a chill down his back, and when Tristan’s head tried to tilt to the side, I shoved the plastic clip deeper into his neck. The kid straightened again, lifted his hands in defense, but he didn’t turn. Cowards never did.
“You think she’s dead?” Another lie caught in my throat, but Tristan’s eagerness didn’t leave much room for error. “Bridget can’t be dead. It was just an accident,” he reasoned. “My uncle got in one two years ago and he was fine.”
“You think I give a shit?” When the hiss escaped me, I could feel her eyes on me. If this kid was her friend, she would hate me more for scaring him. “Go home,” I warned. “All you’re doing here is getting in the way.”
“I just wanted to—” My snarl cut Tristan’s words short, and his hands lowered back down to the side. A nod of his head lowered my hand, but the kid wouldn’t turn around. He was smart enough for that, at least. “I just need to make sure she’s safe.”
The sickness pooled in my stomach, a new disgust forming as I listened to my words on his tongue.
“The police will find her,” I lied.
Tristan’s hands shoved in his pocket, and as the man spun on his heel, I did my best to avoid his eye. My attention shifted back to the hallway, and I thanked god for the dark. It was the only thing that stopped the boy from IDing me right there. It also happened to be the thing that hid my twisting stomach from him, that saved me from ripping his fucking throat out with the next lie.
“She’s had a crush on me for years.”
My body froze, my breath died. Suddenly that awful ringing had silenced, and all that was left were those disgusting words.
“She what?”