Chapter 12
Scarlett
He pushes the door in, and I let him.
Perhaps the dumbest, most clueless person in this room isn’t Alexis, but me. I’m the fool here because I’m the only one who doesn’t get it. Is that it? That’s certainly the picture my sister is trying to paint. The idea that led the other three boys to fight me so hard on the track tonight.
Naaah. No matter how bad it looks, this is Ash’s plan. He won the race, so I’m going along with it—for now.
“Hello, Scarlett-o-chan.” Ash drawls my name out, adding an extra syllable along with his accent.
His smile is that of a viper, a venomous serpent slithering.
Goddamn me, but I like it. His eyes, these sharp flecks of obsidian, sweep me in a rush of sex and violence that I can feel in my bones.
With the all-black suit and the bloodred tie, he’s a vision of intrigue and betrayal.
He’s a temptation I never should have let myself fall into.
Too little, too late. He was mine the moment he laid his hands on me.
MINE. My fingers twitch at my sides, edging.
Stepping back when I want to step forward.
This is strategic for me. Ash might be the easiest fuckboy to tame, but he’s still a fuckboy.
At the track, he was Ash hiding behind a mask and a hoodie. Here, he looks exactly like Aspen. He’ll act exactly like Aspen, too.
Ash steps into the house and Alexis smiles at him. I look between the two of them, trying to figure out their dynamic. Alexis raises the shotgun in my direction and rests her finger on the trigger. She’s pointing it at my belly. Probably a killshot, what with it being a shotgun and all.
Ugh.
“Finally. I thought for a second you might not come.” Lexi bites her lip and bats her lashes at Ash, and the entire display makes me sick to my stomach. Where the fuck is Widow?! For that matter, where is Bohnes? Alexei?
There’s a fuckboy web here, and I’m caught directly in the middle of it.
Good thing I am the spider.
“Kawaisou,” Ash murmurs, pouting his lower lip.
He doesn’t look anything like the feral creature that peered out at me from beneath a hooded sweatshirt.
“How pitiful.” He cocks his head and there’s so much carefully restrained violence in that move that I almost attack him.
But his eyes, they’re galaxies. “Would I leave my favorite girl all alone on such an important night? Your sister is a whore and you’re an angel, my love. ”
Alexis smiles beautifully at him. Like Lemon did.
He isn’t talking to her though.
“Ash—” Just that one word from me.
Ash lifts up a pistol and pulls the trigger, that easily. There’s no posturing, no pretense. The bullet strikes Alexis between the eyes, snapping her head back and sending the shotgun tumbling to the floor. In the span of ten seconds, he’s walked into my house and he’s killed my sister.
Patricia is screaming now.
I’m just standing there, numb and stupid. So stupid. So fucking stupid. I should’ve taken care of Lexi myself. Instead, I let Ash do it. Role reversal. I kill his brother. He executes my sister.
Quid pro quo.
“Take her.” Ash presses his hot lips to the side of my neck, but I can’t move. I’m stuck in place wondering how I’m ever going to explain this to Gram. She’s going to hate Ash forever because of tonight. What will she think when she sees me screwing my sister’s killer?
Men in suits swarm the house as Gram’s screams cut off in a gasp, alarm instead of anguish.
That’s what snaps me out of it, my grandma.
I have to put up a fight. Ash’s plan or not, I have to pretend like he’s the bad guy because that’s what he wants.
His entire strategy is hinging on it. I have no doubt that someone in here has a camera that’s feeding images directly into Jonas’ waiting maw.
I slam my elbow back into Ash’s face, and he grunts, blood smearing across my arm as I spin away from him. My hands are on the gun, wrenching it from his grasp. Is he even trying? I stumble back and take aim at the first of the goons.
Instead of shooting Ash, I fire at his meat-for-hire bodyguards, hitting one in the throat. Crimson sprays across the floor, adding to the mess, and the second man slips in it, going down hard. I shoot him next. Not sure if he’s dead, but I got him in the chest. Yay me.
Alexis is dead. My sister is dead. Another Prescott girl is dead. I’m a failure. I’m a fuck-up.
All or most of those things might be true, but I’ve never been one to break down in the middle of a fight.
Breakdowns are best left for quiet nights in the guys’ arms. I grit my teeth and empty the magazine. When there are no rounds left, I use the weapon itself to break a man’s orbital arch.
Hands grasp me from all sides. I can fight off a half-dozen chicks at the track, but a half-dozen full-grown goon dudes is a lot.
The pistol is torn from my grasp as I swing and kick and—unashamedly—bite, drawing blood from the hairy arm of a bastard who has the gall to punch me in the stomach with his opposite hand.
“Watch the merchandise,” Ash drawls from near the door, leaning back against the wall with his ankles crossed, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
He watches as I’m subdued by his lackeys, shoved to my knees and panting, the acrid taste of blood in my mouth.
I spit on the floor and glance over to check for Gram.
She’s gone. Where the fuck is she?! My furious gaze swings back to Ash, trying to understand what sort of game it is that we’re playing here. I don’t like not knowing the rules. I don’t like my sister being dead. I really, really don’t like that—even if I know it was a long time coming.
Another man walks in the door, frowning at the corpses littered across the floor, nostrils flared at the sight of so much blood. That carefully cropped blond hair, that Ken doll jawline, those empty glass eyes.
Chet Junior Cody Archer. Ridiculous name. Horrible human being (if you can even call him that).
He steps right over the body of one of the men and comes up to me, reaching down to take my chin. I snap my teeth at his fingers and he just barely manages to keep his fingertips intact (can’t say the same for his dick). With my arms held by men on either side of me, I can’t stop the backhand.
My head rings, and I taste my own blood on my tongue, spitting that out. This time, the pinkish glob lands on the toe of CJ’s fancy loafer. Ash let him hit me? I convince myself this is all for a good cause, some crusade Ash is waging to fix the mess that Alexis got us all into.
If this doesn’t work out, I’m going to look like an idiot. Like Lemon. Difference is: I make choices based on peoples’ actions. Not fantasies of who I want them to be.
“Hey, I got somethin’ sexy for you in my fuckboy’s glovebox, Junior. Want to see it?” I ask, cheeky as I can be with my sister’s cooling body on the floor beside me. Her blood is on my shoes now. I’m wearing my own sister’s blood, holy fuck.
“That so?” Ash asks from the doorway, nodding at one of his men, dark eyes shining mischievously. “Get his keys.”
His keys. Widow. So Widow is outside then?
I struggle, but it’s pointless. One of the meatheads moves past Ash and out the door.
There’s a fight happening on the front lawn.
I can hear it from here. Yup. That’ll be Widow then.
My blood is sluggish, iced. My pulse slows, clearing my mind.
That cold anger I’ve been saving, I turn it into a sword, wielding it against the chaos of my manic thoughts. Keeping as calm as I can be.
Queen calm. More than Scarlett. A spider.
Ash exits the house with one hand tucked casually in the pocket of his slacks, leaving me alone with CJ. I still don’t know where my grandma is. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
Sloe-eyes and wild obsessive promises. The taste of his mouth in the pouring rain. The way he came when I breathed the name ‘Ash’. Facts: Alexis was a villain, so Ash murdered her in my place. Facts are more important than feelings.
“What a feisty little cunt you are.” Chet curls his lip at me as he looks around the duplex.
He sure is cocky for a rapist without a dick.
“What a goddamn dump. I’d fuck you in your sister’s blood with the barrel of that shotgun, but I’m afraid I might catch something by touching that whore pussy of yours. ”
“What difference would that make? You already smell like an unchecked STD. Think your groin might be gangrenous, Junior? Seeing as my lover gave you the ol’ snip-snip.
” I egg Cody on, trying not to relive Lemon’s death through Lexi’s.
This is different. This isn’t a failing on my part.
No more panic attacks, Scar. No more pie shakes.
The diamond ring Ash sent me is still lodged firmly on my finger, tucked up nice and snug against Widow’s twisted strip of metal.
Cody adjusts the rings on his own fingers and then he punches me closed-fist in the face. White splotches scatter across my vision, and I find myself eating my own blood. Choking on it. Spraying red when I cough. Damn, that hurt. Didn’t think this bitch had it in ‘im.
Ash walks back in holding the blue box with the severed dick inside of it, his gait slow and casual.
A detached smile haunts his perverted mouth.
He acts like the sight of me bleeding in front of this monster doesn’t affect him whatsoever.
He doesn’t care. Maybe he even enjoys the sight of me dripping red onto my polka dot blouse.
In his eyes, I read the truth like dark scripture, unholy and blasphemous.