Page 226 of Chaos Kills

“My friends are here,” she protests as fat tears begin to form in her beautiful blue eyes. “Dad is here.”

I steal two steps closer. He’s in a fucking grave, and it’s not as though we can see him, but I understand where she’s coming from. “Ellie, babe…it’s not safe here for us anymore. I don’t want?—”

“I’m not leaving. You can’t make me, Bay.” She wraps her arms around her Taylor Swift shirt, all innocent and naive, because I’ve tried my damndest to keep her that way. “I have Peter.”

Yeah, fuck, Peter.

I was on board with her having a boyfriend who was going to treat her right, but he doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things or my sisters’ safety. However, I know what I’m asking and how the decision Levi and I made is going to affect her.

This is her home.

And I’d be ripping her from everything she knows and has.

“I know,” I reply softly. “But things are getting worse?—”

“That’s your fault,” she snaps back through knitted eyebrows. “You’rethe problem. Why do we need to suffer because you’re not part of this family.”

I feel as though she just gut-punched me because all the air from my lungs escaped.

In reality, she’s right. I’ve been given a place here.

However, she’s not either.

We’re both fuckin’ strays Dad took in. Not that I’m going to mention it at this particular moment.

“Ellie, I’m sorry—” She spins on her heels, instantly dismissing whatever I was going to say, and starts down the hallway toward her room.

I’d follow, but she wants to be alone. Nothing I say is going to make it right or better, but I still take several steps to follow her.

Until I don’t.

That’s because I hear Travis quiver my name like he just shit his pants and needs backup followed by a click.

Glimpsing over my shoulder, I don’t find my best friend, but Ozzy. Looming behind the couch I was sitting on with a Glock precariously pointed at Travis’s head.

“Oz—what the fuck are you doing?” I leer, through the sudden rapid thudding in my chest. Travis has gone completely still as Ozzy composedly stares at my friend’s forehead like he’s deciding which spot he wants to put a bullet in. “Ozzy…drop it.”

He doesn’t.

My brain quickly sprints, calculates, and tries to figure out how I can get to him before he makes a mistake he can’t take back. Before Ellie might come back in here to give me round two of whatever it is she wants to say to me.

“My sisters are— This is my friend, Travis. We’ve been friends since grade school.”

Still nothing.

Geezus Christ.

I’d get a full psych evaluation on this man for future correspondence, but they may never let him out.

“Ozzy,please.” The quick movement of his gaze on me ceases my next breath, and I fight for my voice to give way. “He’s been around my family for a long time. He’s no threat.”

In one blink, Ozzy’s dark blues go back to Travis’s skull again.

Slowly, I inch forward.

One wrong move and Ozzy may do something he can’t take back. And I’m not going to another fucking funeral.

“He’s going to leave,” I state slowly. “And then we’ll talk about it.”

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