Chapter 7
SLOANE
“It’s me, Sloane.” Jade turned toward the door, grinning as she held up a bag of food. “It’s a Tuesday night, and I know you don’t have a hot date. Open up. I bring offerings.”
Her grin softened a notch. “I didn’t forget, Sloane. And you’re not doing this week alone.”
The second she said it, my lungs forgot how to work—like my body had been waiting for permission to fall apart for one minute. I rolled my shoulders, releasing the tension coiled in me since the first shock. Fuck, the head.
“Hang on,” I said through the intercom. “I was about to get in the shower. I need to throw some clothes on.” I lied like breathing.
Survival skill number one. I snorted as I ran to the kitchen, tugged open the refrigerator door, and jerked the lifelike head off the shelf.
The fact that it was still cold made my skin crawl.
Scrambling to decide where to put it, I chose the primary bedroom closet. I set it behind a few shoeboxes on the top shelf and shut the door as if that could shut out what it meant.
I wanted to run it for prints, but I’d already handled it with my bare hands and my panic all over it. It was too late for perfect evidence, but not too late for answers. Whoever had done this had walked into my house and left with their confidence intact. I intended to strip that from them.
I wiped my palms on my shorts, even though that didn’t do a damn thing, then jogged to the bathroom and splashed water on my face.
Breathe. Pretend.
I swapped out the hoodie for a different one before I brushed my hair back. Good enough. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone.
I headed for the front door and forced my shoulders down. Act normal. Like I hadn’t just hidden a fake head in my closet.
When I unlocked and opened the door, Jade slipped inside as though she belonged here.
That was the thing about her. She was never uncomfortable around people. Jade owned her space, and if someone didn’t like it, they could leave. It never bothered her.
Her dark hair was pulled into a messy knot, and her blue-green eyes swept over me in one sharp pass. Hoodie, bare feet, my hands that wouldn’t stop moving like they were trying to shake off whatever had happened earlier.
“Jesus,” she said. Dry. Flat. No pity. “You look like someone who tried to fistfight a panic attack and lost.” Jade didn’t ask permission to see the real me. She never had. That was why she mattered.
“I’m fine.”
Jade’s brows lifted like I’d told her the sky was purple. “Sure, you are.” She held up the bag again. “I brought tacos. Because you ‘forget to eat’ when you’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling.”
Jade shut the door behind her, locked it, then checked it as if it was habit. “Great. Then you’ll have no problem eating a taco like a stable adult.”
I glared at her.
Jade didn’t flinch. She never did. She scanned the corners of the room, the windows, the hallway, mapping exits.
My throat tightened. I hated that she could say one sentence and make my chest feel too small to hold my lungs. “I didn’t ask you to come,” I managed.
Jade’s mouth twitched. Not a smile. More like the idea of me being in charge was mildly offensive. “You also didn’t ask to be stuck with me in Chemistry.” She strolled toward the kitchen as if she owned the place. “But life makes choices for us sometimes.”
I followed her.
She set the bag on the counter and pulled out two containers. “One is for you. One is also for you. Don’t argue. I’m not in the mood to negotiate with self-destruction.”
“I don’t self-destruct,” I muttered.
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Sloane, you make a sport out of it.”
I snorted, but it came out thin.
Jade tilted her head as if she’d confirmed I was still in there somewhere. “Good. You’re awake.”
I looked at the food, then at her. “You expected this?”
She leaned her hip against the island, arms folding. The sarcasm stayed, but her eyes sharpened.
“I expected you to go quiet. You always do around this time.”
My stomach dropped.
Jade watched me as though she was reading a report. Then she said, “But now that I’m here, something else is off with you. And before you try to lie, don’t. I already drove across town. I earned the truth.”
She already knew something was wrong. Jade always did. And I was too exhausted to build another wall tonight.
I blinked as if I could magically make the nightmare disappear. “Someone was in my house.”
Jade’s face went blank, but it wasn’t fear. It was focus. “What the fuck? Who was it?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you sure they’re gone?” Her gaze flicked to the corners of the room, the windows, the hallway, as if she was mapping exits.
“Yeah. I wouldn’t have let you in otherwise.”
“Okay,” she said. “Then start at the beginning. And don’t skip the parts you think make you look weak. I’m not interested in your highlight reel.”
I exhaled slowly. “You’re bossy.”
“Yeah. That’s why you kept me.”
Her words hit hard because they were true.
We’d met in high school because I’d slammed my locker so hard it had bounced open again and dumped my books all over the floor. Jade had stepped over them like she’d been walking through a crime scene.
Then she’d looked at me and deadpanned, “If you wanted attention, there are easier ways than assaulting school property.” The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, the only indicator of her dry sense of humor.
I’d been having the worst day of my life, and I’d stared at her like I wanted to rip her head off.
She’d crouched, picked up my binder, and added, “Also, your eyeliner is smudged. It’s giving ‘future felon,’ not ‘mysterious.’ Fix it.”
I’d laughed. One sharp sound. I hadn’t laughed in weeks.
And Jade had looked up at me with her mouth barely curved at one corner. “There she is.”
That was it. That was how she’d become my best friend.
Now she pointed at the stool. “Sit.”
“I’m not sitting.”
Jade’s eyes narrowed. “Sloane.”
My knees wobbled as if they were arguing with my ego, so I sat.
Jade slid a container toward me. “Eat.”
“I’m going to throw up.”
“Throw up later,” she said. “Right now, you’re going to stay upright.”
I took a bite because arguing with Jade was pointless and because the act of chewing was something normal people did. Something human. I felt anything but at the moment.
Jade watched me like she was personally keeping me alive. Then she asked, “Did they leave something?”
“Yes.” The word tasted bitter. I could still feel the cold plastic on my fingertips.
“A note?” she asked. Her years with Red Thread had sharpened the instincts that were already rooted in her.
I nodded.
“What’d it say?”
I stared at the floor for a minute. “This is what will happen if you keep digging.”
Jade went still.
“They left a severed head … my head in my refrigerator. It was fake.”
“Holy fucking shit.” Then she exhaled slowly through her nose. “Okay. Then we do this the Red Thread way. Document what you can. No shame spiral. No lone wolf routine. And you don’t sleep here alone tonight.”
“I’m not a child.”
Jade tilted her head. “No. You’re not. You’re a woman who’s been carrying this by yourself for too long.”
The muscles in my neck managed to wind even tighter.
Jade tapped the counter once. “Now tell me where it is.”
“In my bedroom closet.”
Jade’s forehead creased as if she was filing it away. Evidence. Location. Next step. Then, she went still. Her attention landed on the living room windows.
“Show me. And after that, I want to see the Ring feed. Whoever did this didn’t only want to scare you.
They wanted you to know they can reach you.
Even if they were smart enough to avoid the Ring, there’s usually something they missed.
I’ll find it.” She paused, then added with dry disgust, “And I’d like to personally introduce them to my kind of consequences. ”
I managed a smile and another bite of a taco.
“Also, we’re not staying by the front windows, and you’re not pacing around this house tonight.”
I tried to joke. “Are you moving in?”
Jade gave a little half shrug. “If that’s what it takes.”
If Jade believed someone could be found, I believed her. Within seconds, my mind did what it always did. It went to my best lead. For a moment, I allowed my thoughts to remain on him. My body still remembered his hands. My mind hated it.
Somewhere across the city, Hal Whitney existed in the same darkness I’d walked into. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d just put my throat in the lion’s mouth.