Reese broke away fast, gritting his teeth as he seethed with anger.
“Tell us right now,” Levi said. “There’s no way out of this.”
“We can forget this if we know where it came from,” Reese said.
“I’ll get killed,” Starla said.
“Either way then, you lose,” Levi said. “But if you help us, we can protect you.”
“Yeah, I know how that goes,” she said. “You say you’ll help me but then I end up dead. And nobody gives a damn. Nobody ever gives a damn about me.”
Her voice cracked.
“Save the woe is me routine, sweetheart,” Reese said. “You’re the one with the bag full of drugs.”
“In my town,” Levi said through gritted teeth.
“We’re burning daylight here,” Hawk said. “Let me just take care of this the right way.”
Hawk reached for his gun and Starla turned, pulling her knees to her chest, sitting on the vanity. She began to rock, whispering something.
Reese put a hand out and approached her again.
“What are you whispering?” he asked.
Starla looked at him. “This isn’t me. This isn’t what I want.”
“What else?”
“This isn’t what I will become. This isn’t my life.”
“Why are you whispering that?”
“I used to say it with my sister when my father would beat on our mother,” Starla said. “We’d hug each other and say it. It helped.”
“Is it helping now?”
“Am I going to die, Reese?”
Reese curled his lip. “You’re the only one who can answer that.”
She slowly moved, swinging her legs off the vanity. Her robe opened quite a bit, showing off plenty of skin. Reese kept his eyes locked to hers.
“It was some guy,” she said. “I had been looking for something for fun. Okay? You guys have this entire town terrified of anything like that.”
“Good,” Levi said.
“So, there was a guy I met. He was dressed all in black.”
“A suit?” Reese asked.
“No. Not a suit. He had a black car with the windows all black, real low to the ground. Another guy told me to meet him in an alley. North part of town, where some of the buildings are abandoned.”
“Okay,” Reese said. “What happened?”
“I said what I wanted, and he said he had an offer for me. I could get my stuff for free.”
“Free,” Reese said.