Page 17 of Bourbon & Blood

There were several patches on the front that were gifted or earned, but only one of them was starting to peel. The iron-on adhesive starting to give way. I’d needed to sew it on for a while, I just hadn’t gotten around to it.

It read one of my life mottos –Silence is better than bullshit.

Once upon a time, it’d been gifted to me by Ruthless. It was a reminder to me, to stay in my lane and to do better than he had because toward the end there? Only thing to come out of his mouth had been a diatribe of bullshit.

Still, he was my friend, and if ever there was anything close to a regret for a kill I’d done, his was the one which weighed heaviest.

I pulled the patch from my cut and tucked it into her curled fingers at her side.

She whimpered and turned her head slightly and I stood carefully. I didn’t want to move too hard or too quick. I didn’t need her to wake prematurely. I bent carefully and put my lips to her forehead. She sighed out softly and relaxed again.

I straightened, letting my hand slip from hers which was a peculiar sort of exquisite agony.

Then, I gathered her bloody things and left her. I stopped at her door to go through her pockets and put anything I found along with her keys in the wooden bowl by the door and then with a hard sigh did the hard thing. I went out the door, twisted the lock at the knob and shut it behind me, securing her alone inside.

CHAPTERNINE

Alina…

I woke to sunlight streaming between the slats of the wooden venetian blinds over my bedroom window. The light and gauzy curtains to either side hadn’t been drawn the night before to diffuse the hard light that managed to creep around the edges and between the slats of the blinds and that made me frown.

I never forgot to do that… why did I?

I sat up and put a hand to the throbbing ache in the back of my head, wincing at the bruised sensation radiating through the back of my scalp and at the knot that took up residence in my stomach as I gently palpated the goose egg I found there.

I gasped; the very breath stolen out of my lungs when I saw what I was wearing. I clenched my fist at my hip and blinked at the rough fabric sensation that was in it. I brought my hand up off the top of my covers which remained undisturbed beneath me and read the rough black patch with white writing on it.

Silence is better than bullshit.

I frowned in confusion and looked around and down at myself again. I was in a nightgown that I had thrifted once upon a time. The cream satin hugging what I had that passed for curves, and the lace trim elegant. It was only something I wore on special occasions. You know, for like a partner or if I was feeling blue and just needed to pick myself up and feel a little pretty for a change.

It was one of my very favorite things. Something I cherished; and so, it was something I didn’t wear often.

So why was I wearing it now?

I couldn’t remember… I mean, the last thing Ididremember was leaving the bar and setting out for home. I didn’t know how I got here, or what happened, but clearly, I’d taken some kind of a knock to my head becauseow.

I got out of bed slowly and went to Maya’s room and stared at her empty made bed, perplexed.

I knew she had a… a… adate– for lack of a better term – last night; for lack of a better term; but sheneverstayed out overnight. Shealwayscame home. That was part of the deal.

I worried and went looking for my clothes from the night before but I couldn’t find them. What Ididfind were my things – like my keys, phone, wallet, all the stuff from my purse, gathered in the bowl we used for our keys and loose change. The cash from my tips from last night was all there, too. I counted it. Three hundred and three dollars. All there. But my purse and my clothes – all gone and I do meangone, nowhere to be found in the entire apartment! I looked.

I’d found one of our popcorn bowls in the kitchen sink and when I shuffled into the bathroom, I found one of the decorative washcloths missing off the towel rack. My confusion only mounted as I discovered my soap had somehow relocated to the bathroom countertop as well. I put it back in the shower and I felt sick, worried, afraid, and uncertain.Just what had happened last night?

I thrust the feelings aside as the worry for Maya surged anew. I swallowed hard, and with my phone in my hand from where I’d found it with the rest of my things on the entry table, I padded back into my room with it. It was dead. I needed to plug it in. I did, and I sat on the edge of the bed, barely able to breathe, as I held my breath, waiting for the screen to indicate it had enough charge to turn it on.

“Yes!” I cried, and some of the tension leaked out of me before returning as I anxiously waited for the screen to turn on.

I swallowed hard and when the phone had cycled through all of its startup bullshit, I held my breath again for precious seconds as I waited for a text, a voicemail, something;anythingto let me know Maya was okay to come through…

Except there was nothing.

“Shit,” I muttered with feeling.

I tried to call her but it went straight to voicemail.

“This is Maya!”her voice sang out cheerily.“You know what to do…”

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