Chapter 4
FOUR
NEVE
Jackson is lying on the snow-frosted ground. I think I screamed but all I know now is my hands are over my mouth and I’m stepping back, and back, and back. My stomach lurches and there’s blood in the thin layer of snow—more is falling now—and my pulse is racing and I feel hot despite the cold.
He’s on his back, his eyes unseeing as he stares up at the sky. Red is on the corner of his mouth, but there’s more, there at his chest, bleeding through his flannel shirt, so bloody it’s nearly black all over, and in the remaining blades of dead grass, and…
I think I might throw up.
He was just… He was leaving, wasn’t he? I heard a truck. I thought it was his?
Where did those guys go?
Oh, God. What if it was them?
Fuck.
Fuck.
Even Nolan didn’t have a chance to warn me away from this and if he could see what I’ve stumbled into, he’d berate me for it.
After the guys sounded like they were planning to find me, I scurried across the back parking lot, staying in the lights of the arena, then I found myself on the other side, headed toward the front again, ready to find the sidewalk that would lead me to my apartment.
There was the shape of a person on the ground, but I thought it was something else, because I stupidly left my glasses at home.
I walked closer, every instinct in me telling me to run, but as my vision grew sharper, I realized I was right.
And the person wasn’t moving.
I saw the flannel first. Then the hat a few feet away from his body.
DD. Drayton Dragons.
What if they…
I had called his name at first, not noticing the blood. Then my eyes processed what I was seeing and shot it straight to my brain.
And he wasn’t breathing. Isn’t breathing.
And he isn’t really… looking at anything either.
There are footsteps at my back and my heart leaps to my chest as I spin around, my arms extended out, ready to defend myself.
Ready to run.
I’m not an athlete, but I lift heavy weights. Surely, I could fight if I needed to. I could—
Fuck.
Not them.
The two guys who intimidated Jackson back to his truck.
Who might have… killed him?
No. No way.
How?
I mean, someone stabbed him, didn’t they? Someone meant to murder him. And it’s either me, or them, seeing as we’re the only people out here.
And it definitely wasn’t me.
I take a step back and nearly trip. Before I can fall onto Jackson—his body—the dark-haired guy reaches out quick, his fingers locking around my wrist like they were earlier when I collided with him.
He’s staring at me.
The blond one is looking at the body, the sharpness of his nose turned up into what looks like a sneer. His eyes are narrowed, and he’s right here, standing right at Jackson’s feet, and he’s perfectly still.
“Did you do it?” the dark-haired guy asks me.
I dart my eyes to him, not bothering to shrug him off.
Logically, he couldn’t have killed Jackson, right?
Besides, I don’t think I can stand on my own.
It feels like enough blood isn’t going to my brain.
The campus spins a little, the giant arena at my side seems foreboding, like a castle, like one of those villainous places in the fantasy books I loved to read before psychology took over.
The dark-haired guy yanks me closer.
My hands come to his chest, and this time, I grip the soft cotton of his red hoodie.
He bands an arm around my spine, tugging me close as he stares down at me.
Then there’s a voice at my back. Low, cold. Close to my ear.
“Did you kill him, Neve?”
For a second, my knees threaten to give out. How does he know my name?
But Jackson said it at some point, didn’t he?
Fuck.
What if they did do it, though? What if Jackson owed them money and that’s how they’re taking payment or—
Leather against the back of my neck scatters my thoughts.
The blond guy’s fingers, I realize, gripping my bones.
My eyes widen and I shoot my gaze up to the one in front of me.
“I didn’t do it.” The words come out in a rush. “Did you?” I almost laugh. I feel hysterical. Out of control. Everything is vibrating under my skin and—
“I don’t know,” the blond one starts. “Maybe we—”
“Shut the fuck up, Sylvan.”
Sylvan. I try to remember, because what if they did? What if these are the suspects? I need to tell someone later. The police? If I make it out of here alive, I’ll need to remember.
For now I need to survive.
“I don’t know about that, Faust.”
Sylvan, blond.
Faust, dark hair.
Faust. Fuck. He made a pact with the devil. He could have everything he wanted, but he lost his soul. I remember the story.
I blink, looking at the man in front of me with new eyes. His are so dark, they appear black even under the lights from Sky Arena.
His jaw is defined, his nose broad, unlike Sylvan’s. He’s… hot.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t do it. Think, Neve. Keep your shit together.
I glance at his hand; the one still wrapped around my wrist. No blood I can see.
“I think we should question her properly before they do. Either way, we’re the last to see him alive, aren’t we? Cops are going to want to know something, and we should have the full story so ours match.”
I’m struggling to breathe, but anger pushes away my fear.
I didn’t do anything.
I barely know Jackson. And maybe it makes me a horrible person that I’m not crying over his death, but I’m sure he would’ve attacked me in that truck if I hadn’t run away. And I will not go to prison for something I had no hand in.
Between the three of us, they have the strength to drive a knife between a man’s ribs more than I do, don’t they?
“Let go of me.” I’m speaking to both of them, but I’m looking at Faust. A deal with a demon.
Faust doesn’t release me. Neither does Sylvan.
“Let go of me or I’m going to scream again.”
Sylvan laughs against my ear, then he releases my neck.
A warm current of relief sweeps through me until it’s replaced by icy cold fear as his hand slams over my mouth, the scent of leather filling my nose.
I try to jerk away but I just ram my spine into his hard body, Faust’s hand between us, and now I’m trapped in the middle of the both of them. Even at my height, they tower over me.
I can barely breathe with Sylvan’s hand over my mouth and leather in my lungs and the cold and the fear and the one screaming thought in my mind: Are they going to kill me next?
“I don’t like threats,” Sylvan says over my skin. His lips touch me and I’m gasping against his gloved hand.
My eyes find Faust’s, and he’s staring at me in such a calm way, I feel certain, in this moment, he either killed Jackson, or he knows who did.
And I wouldn’t put it past the man behind me.