Chapter 32 #2
The asshole shifts his weight to stand, but he favors one side. Glancing over, I see a familiar shiny black tool sticking out from his side. The fucking cat ears. That must have been what Wyn did when she swung at him, embedded it right in his side.
Walking closer, Birdie tilts her head and looks at the protruding object.
What the fuck is she doing? Wyn’s eyes meet mine when I look back at her, and she’s wearing the same pissed-off question plastered on her face.
My hand burns and pulses as blood drips down my forearm.
Shit. Lifting my shirt over my head, I twist and wrap it around my hand that still bleeds steadily.
Wyn notices and moves slowly from where she stood next to Lu, bypassing a locked and loaded Birdie, toward me.
She glances at my hand and then back up to me, silently asking if I’m alright.
I give her a short nod while still trying to keep focus on the standoff playing out in front of me.
“Birdie, everything alright out here?” Tommy shouts from the back door, standing shoulder to shoulder with a big guy in leather cuts.
“I’m sorting it out, Thomas. No need to get the sheriff.” She lifts her shotgun and rests it on her shoulder. “Unless you want to press charges, Reed.”
Reed glances at me first, nostrils flared, and then Wyn, before he turns his head, and says, “That won’t be necessary. I’m sure we can sort this out.”
“Good.” Birdie nods, holding out the bottle of whiskey to him. “Take a sip. We’re going to need to pull that out to get a better look.” She gestures to Wyn’s handiwork.
Wyn grips onto me as he reaches for the bottle, pressing it to his lips while Lu pulls the cat ear weapon from his side.
She’s not gentle about it either, which has him hissing through his teeth.
His dress shirt soaks red more quickly than I would have expected.
But it's the way he starts coughing that has him looking up at the Crowne women with widening eyes.
I look down at Wyn again, and she raises her chin as she watches on, like she understands what’s happening. And now, so do I.
“You’re a smart one,” Lu rasps to him. “I think that’s why Wyn liked you so much at first. You were the opposite of every other man I had been around.
” Humming, she looks at Wyn, who’s still at my side, holding on to me tightly.
“She’s smarter, though. She knew you weren’t ever going to cut it for her. ”
Reed coughs out again, holding his punctured side.
This is how they do it.
“The beauty of whiskey is found in what we like to call the ‘heart.’ Not sure if you’re familiar,” she says under her breath.
“That’s the part that’ll warm you up or fuck you up, just depends on your plans for it.
But the head . . .” She trails off with a smirk, turning her head slowly, left and then right.
Birdie tips her chin up, a satisfied look in her eyes.
But it’s Wyn who chimes in. Her shoulders shove down, chest out as she says, “The head is dangerous. The scientist in you should know that methanol evaporates at lower temps. It’s the first thing to discard when distilling.
It’s either careless or intentional when it’s not properly separated.
A small sip will make a person go blind.
Anything more and it’ll race to poison the bloodstream.
” Tilting her head to the side, she deviously asks, “How big of a sip did you just take, Reed?”
The realization of it hits, blood draining from his face as he tries swallowing again and then spitting out.
Wyn carries on, “Do you think it was more than what you slipped into my drink the night I ended up being taken?”
Her words have my stomach bottoming out—that better not be fucking true.
“You may not be the same monster who took me, but you made it easier for him.”
I glance at Lu and then Birdie, but the looks on their faces seem just as surprised by what she’s saying. Wyn moves into my side, wrapping herself as close as she can. When she looks up at me, I know instantly.
The growl that escapes my throat has Lu and Birdie turning toward me.
Lu laughs out, “Oh, you have so many people lining up to punish you, Doctor Boring. You. Are. Fucked.”
Visibly trembling, he looks around at each of us, realizing nobody here is in his corner. In fact, the one person who he maybe thought would’ve believed him, just poisoned him.
“He was buying drugs from Stan Billings,” Lu continues, keeping her eyes trained on Reed.
He looks nervously to Wyn and then to Birdie as he coughs out again.
“Cora, Stan’s wife, confirmed it when she was drunk as hell at the bluegrass festival.
And he was the last person two young university students had been with before they woke up in their apartments.
And while Andi was crushing real hard on you, she couldn’t understand why the same thing had happened to her.
” Lu shakes her head, blowing out a breath that speaks for how disgusted she is.
“And your stupid ass went ahead and tried it again tonight, under my goddamn roof.”
Birdie’s Southern drawl shifts our attention as she takes a few steps closer.
“It must have felt nice to fall through the cracks like that, to get away with such things just because your gender and status allowed for it. Did you think you wouldn’t be held accountable?
” It almost sounds sweet until he registers what she’s saying.
Reed shakes his head as much as he can. The reality of what’s happening must finally be kicking in as he raises his hands in front of him. “Birdie, please? I didn’t?—”
“Lu?” she says, looking at Wyn's mom and cutting him off.
It’s their quick silent exchange that has Lu giving Reed a nice shove. The embankment isn’t far enough to cause much of an injury, but the sound of him hitting the water with a thud has Wyn gasping and covering her mouth.
“That’s how we do things around here,” Birdie says as she walks closer to the edge. “Let's see if the gators are hungry tonight. If not, then it looks like that cleanup job is still on, Mr. Colton.”
“Oh, they’re hungry,” Lu says as she looks over the embankment.
I’m usually the cleanup, not the killer. But tonight, that would have been different if these two hadn’t stepped in. And I would be here in the morning if they needed me. There wouldn’t be a sign of anything happening here, I’d make sure of it.
Wyn locks eyes with me and a thousand emotions run wordlessly between us.
Reed was bleeding pretty heavily, but the drink Birdie handed him is what made it fairly simple for Lu to catch him off guard and tip him over the edge. The sound of water splashing ferociously and a clipped yell, echoes out just as the door to the bar swings open.
“Wyn, my dear.” Birdie tucks her shotgun into the crook of her arm. “Why don’t you go now. Get Julian cleaned up while we figure out how best to proceed here. I think maybe you’ve seen enough.”
Wyn’s teary eyes look to her mother and then back to Birdie.
With her chin held high, she gives them both a nod and maybe even more with the way they look back at her.
They’ve just put her in the middle of what they do and the summary of what they’ve done to those deserving in the past. It’s a legacy I don’t think she ever planned to witness, but I’m betting she’s glad she did.
Tommy stands in the doorway with his arm out, encouraging us toward him.
“Julian, let's take a look at that hand,” he says, ignoring what just occurred behind us. A part of me knows that this isn’t anything new for him—a supporting character in these women’s lives when they need him to be and even when they don’t.
“I’ve got him,” Wyn calls out to him. She looks down at my wrapped hand. Her shaky hands move down around my forearm as she leads me forward.
“Wyn, I can back off, I just need to know if you’re good,” Tommy says with his hands out. “Look at me.” Tilting his head down, he meets her attention as she stares back at him. “You need me, I’m here.”
She lets go of me and shakes out her hands as she steps forward, giving him a curt nod.
I glance at him just as he gives me a tight-lipped smile, like he knows how to handle this or maybe just that he’s been around long enough to know when to back off.
She walks ahead of me, picking up the pace as I hustle up next to her. I know what she just survived and witnessed, but something’s shifted and I can’t read her right now. “Talk to me, Crowne.”
She gives me a side glance, her cheeks flushed as she takes quick breaths like she can’t get a deep one in. But she keeps going.
We hustle along the side of the bar, and she doesn’t say a damn thing.
My mind reels about how she’s reacting and trying to process all of this—to go from the high she was on when I dropped her off, to being shoved around, having someone she trusted betray her, and then watching us fight.
Add in the poisoning, the history, fuck, even witnessing the things her mother and grandmother are capable of .
. . Even for someone without the trauma she’s had to endure would be unraveling.
Fuck, my hand hurts. I look down at my blood-soaked shirt. The adrenaline is quickly dissipating. “Wyn, baby, I need to have my hand looked at.”
She doesn’t slow. She keeps walking—over the footbridge and along the path that leads to her house.
Scanning the fingerprint lock on her front door, she shoves the door open, striding toward the bar cart in the corner.
If there was ever a good time for a drink, it would be now.
She pours out a splash in a rocks glass and tosses it back.
Without even turning, she pours herself another as I reach her.
“Hey,” I say quietly. “Talk to me.” I wrap my fingers around the bottom of the glass just as it reaches her lips.
I slowly pull it back, holding her glare.
Moving the glass to my lips, I sip half of what she poured.
If she needs a minute, the familiar taste, the burn to take the edge off, I won’t be the one to stop her—I’ll drink with her.
She holds the bottom of the glass with me, drinking what’s left.
“More?” I ask, my heart racing.
She nods slowly and steps back. Taking another, she looks down at the gash in my hand.
“Can that wait?” she asks, chest heaving as if she’s trying to gauge what she can have right now. Taking a step closer, her fingers flex at her sides.
Without hesitation, I say, “It can wait.”