Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
“He fucking hates me.” He seems to realize what he said, amending to, “I hate him.”
“No. He doesn’t. You’d know if he hated you.” I run a hand through my hair, frustration eating me up, chewing my bones. “Can you just fucking listen for once? Trust me, Dean, okay?”
“Trust you?” he shouts. “I’m fucking here when I shouldn’t be! You’re the one going off to do mysterious shit and won’t tell me what’s going on.”
I drop my head back, looking at the ceiling. This is so fucked up. I don’t even know what’s going on, why we’re having this…fight? What the hell even is this? We’re not boyfriends. “Nothing is going on.”
“I care about her too.”
And I know he does, but that doesn’t change the situation. I’ve known him for like five seconds. I can’t tell him something like this. “Then do what I tell you. It’s what Ash would want too. I don’t have time for this, Dean. Go home. Wait for Cil.”
He looks like I’ve hit him, like I’ve taken something away from him, before the mask of indifference slides over his face.
In one way or another, Dean and I are always walking away from each other, and this is no different.
I stare at the door for too long after he goes.
*
Michael Jensen is fucking one of his professors.
He can’t seem to keep it in his pants, and this time, that’s going to work to our benefit.
He drives a little out of Ashford to greenway trails with a small, dark parking lot, where he always parks in the far righthand corner. Then he follows one of the trails, makes a short detour off the sidewalk, and through to a neighborhood on the other side. Slips in, fucks his history professor, then slips out.
Tonight he won’t make it out of the parking lot.
Rory and I are waiting in the trees, tucked away in the darkness right beside where he parks. There’s a nip in the air, fall letting us know she’s here and soon will give way to winter.
“I can’t fucking wait.” Rory bounces on his toes, full of energy like always.
I grunt in reply. In reality, I feel the same. He deserves this.
Still, I’ll always be calmer than Rory in moments like this, and if Cillian were here, he’d be somewhere in the middle.
Aislin: About to pull up.
I still hate that my sister is involved in this shit. That she’s in my car, following Michael. That she’ll see what we do to people in situations like this. That she wants to be the one to end it all.
“Here he comes.” Rory motions toward the lot. We’re both masked and in black from head to toe, guns ready, me with the heavy weight of responsibility in my chest. If this goes wrong, it’s on me. If someone gets hurt, it’s on me. If my father finds out and punishes us, that’s on me too.
That’s why I haven’t allowed myself to consider what’s going on with Dean since he left the house earlier. He doesn’t understand the pressure I’m under.
Jensen parks and gets out. He glances toward the lot entrance as Aislin pulls in, so he doesn’t see me when I step up behind him, wrap a hand around his mouth, and hold the gun to his head. “Oh, look what I found. A fucking rapist.”
His body stiffens, but he doesn’t try to pull out of my hold. You can get people to do almost anything you want with a gun to their head.
Rory steps out too, looking like a fucking boxer in his movements.
“Who the fuck are you?” Jensen asks. “You can have my money. Anything you want.”
“We don’t want your money. We want your life.”
“Can I hit him?” Rory asks.
“Just once.”
I step back, and he takes a swing. Jensen drops to the ground.
Rory laughs. “What a pussy.”
I can’t help but smile. “Help me get him in the car.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dean
I’m not an idiot. I know what’s going down tonight. What’s throwing me for a fucking loop is that I feel…left out, when I have no business thinking that way when it comes to Tiernan, or hell, even Aislin.
She sees me as a friend, and Tiernan likes to fuck me, but that doesn’t make us family, and the fact that shit like that is even a thought floating around in my head is the worst kind of betrayal, but I can’t stop it. I don’t know if I’m more pissed at Tiernan or myself about it. And what the hell was him sleeping in the chair all about? I’d expected him to wake me up being an asshole, but he’d just…gone to sleep.
It has to be because of Aislin, not because he gives any kinds of fucks about me. In his protective way, that was him being there for her, but even that fucks with my head more than it should.