Chapter 21 Time for a Motherfucking Reckoning, I Tell Ya #2
Bobo tipped his head in the opposite direction from before.
Griffin mumbled to himself.
Bobo interrupted.
Bobo pointed his snout toward the ceiling. Then he looked at us, next me specifically.
Layla asked.
Hunt leaned forward with another swinging flick of his earring.
He sat up straighter.
Brady said.
Layla mumbled.
Bobo was tilting his head back and forth to either side.
Hunt asked,
Bobo’s head dipped again.
Hunt adjusted.
I sucked in a sharp breath. Griffin massaged my leg, his fingers rubbing the bare spots through my ripped jeans.
Layla interjected excitedly.
—he gestured with both hands to include all of our crew—
Layla bounced on the bed.
Brady snorted.
Thanks to said interruptions, Hunt had to repeat his question, simplifying it further.
Bobo barked, his tail wagging.
Layla asked.
But Bobo only dipped his head again.
Layla asked.
Bobo barked but shook his head.
Layla said.
Hunt said,
Layla snorted.
Griffin was rubbing my leg with one hand, the sexy scruff on his chin with the other.
Hunt shrugged. —he cast an adoring smile at Bobo—
Griffin continued.
Layla chuckled grimly.
She twirled her feathers some more. —she ran her hands along her waist to her hips—
I grimaced. Then,
Bobo nodded, his ears, relaxed now, flopping with the movement.
He whined.
I scratched under his chin. Finally, he sank to the bed again, in the middle of the five of us.
I said.
Griffin asked me.
I glanced over my shoulder, allowing my gaze to graze Magnum’s bare feet and nothing more.
Griffin scooted closer, as if he couldn’t stand recalling that he wasn’t here to protect me. His second hand wrapped around my waist, tugging me nearer still.
he said in a rumble that left unsaid a pained, And I wasn’t.
Griffin leaned his chin on my shoulder.
Bobo only stared back at him.
Griff rephrased.
My friends and I exchanged long looks.
Eventually, Brady whistled through his teeth.
Layla said with a grin and another jounce atop the bed.
Being singled out as the source of everyone’s immortality, and the one who was supposed to dreamwalk to connect the dots between our earthly existence and who knew what, I didn’t share Layla’s enthusiasm. Anxiety mingled with trepidation as it coated my skin.
Squeeing, Layla bounced some more, softly clapping her hands together.
I tried to smile.
Layla frowned.
Hunt said.
Layla waved a hand dismissively.
I said around another grimace.
Griffin began rubbing my shoulders.
Layla said.
Layla said with a shrug.
I cycled through a few breaths, leaning into Griffin’s massage before asking Bobo,
Griffin said, with a vicious growl and a glance of disgust over my shoulder at the body rapidly cooling behind us.
Shit had gotten so majorly messed up.
I said. To recover, is what I didn’t say.
Hunt said right away.
Only, we didn’t. Not really. Not at all, actually.
The enemy was circling us as rapaciously as a kettle of eager vultures zeroing in on the scent of decaying carcasses.
Brady was saying.
A knock I recognized from years of hearing it—tap, tap, tap, tap, in quick succession, always the four soft raps—rattled my bedroom door.
“Joss, honey?” It was my not-dad, Judas himself. “You awake, sleepyhead?”
When I didn’t answer, he swung open the door. With his hand still on the handle, his eyes boggled as they trailed along the naked body with its obvious stab wounds. His jaw waggled open, closed, open, then closed again.
“Oh shit,” he eventually muttered under his breath with a panicked look that skirted once more across the dead body of his boss, then the five of us.
“That about sums it up,” Layla said, a little too peppily.
“Let me …” Judas mumbled while he fumbled for his phone in his back pocket. His hair was damp from his postrun shower, a few wet strands tumbling onto his forehead.
His thumbs flew across his screen before he looked up at us again. “Uh, I’ll … I’ll be back.”
“I’ll just bet you will, Mr. Bryson,” Layla said with an unsettling smile that was part predatory, part jaunty.
Mr. Bryson scurried away like the seat of his pants was on fire and he was trying to stay ahead of the flames.
In less than ten minutes flat, as fast as my friends had responded to my SOS in the middle of the night, every single one of our traitorous lie-rents was crowded into my bedroom.