Page 66 of One Last Chance

I glared at him silently until he relented. As I dragged him away, he pointed back at Dayle. “This isn’t over,” he said.

“Keep up with the threats and it’s your funeral this town will be celebrating next,” Dayle said carelessly.

I almost stepped on my phone as we walked away, having forgotten that I’d dropped it. I picked it up and slid it into my pocket, more focused on the blood pouring out of various gashes on Kash’s face and body than I was on the phone.

There was a little convenience store on the corner, and I made Kash wait outside while I ran in for first aid supplies. When I came back out, he was sitting on the curb with his head in his hands.

“Let me see,” I ordered.

He looked up at me with a resigned expression. I cleaned the blood off of his face and chest, then taped him together as best I could. He had one deep cut on his cheekbone which ended just before it reached his temple. His lower lip was pierced with a jagged slice which matched his teeth, and he had scratches all over his chest which were just barely deep enough to bleed.

“Someone’s gonna see you,” he mumbled around my fingers as I superglued his lip back together.

“I’ll worry about that when the bleeding stops,” I said, taping gauze over my handiwork. “Now sit still.”

He sighed at me through his nose but let me finish cleaning him up. When I was done with his face and chest, I moved to his knuckles, which were raw and bloodied. I frowned as I washed the blood away.

“I didn’t think you hit him that many times,” I said.

“We started long before you got there.”

“Mm. How long before?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

I shook my head. “I guess not. What was that all about, anyway?”

“I had a hunch. Went nowhere, obviously.”

“What was your hunch?”

He glared down the street the way we’d come. “Don’t worry about it,” he said and shrugged.

“You think he killed Hunter?”

He shrugged, but didn’t answer.

I finished with his hands and put the kit back together, then balled up the trash and threw it away. “It’s a bit too late to tell me not to worry about it, don’t you think?” He shrugged again. “Come on, I’ll walk you home,” I said and set out a foot before him.

“Now you’re just trying to get caught,” he said, exasperated. “If you’re gonna act like this, why don’t you just tell your dad about us?”

I gave him a stern look. “These are extenuating circumstances. You could have a concussion. I’m not going to let you walk yourself home in that condition. What if you fall in a ditch and die? I’d do this for anybody, and everybody knows it.”

“Daisy—”

“Look, either you let me walk you home or I call you an ambulance.”

He rolled his eyes and stood up. “Well I guess if my financial future depends on it, you can walk me home.”

“There you go,” I said smugly, lacing my arm through his. “Now let’s see if you can walk straight.”

His bumps, cuts, and bruises looked worse than they were. He was in good enough shape that I had no qualms about continuing to question his thought process.

“You know Dayle’s a dealer, right?” I asked.

“Yup. Deals to kids.”

I sighed. “So what, you decided to go all vigilante? Turn him in if you feel like it. What would your PO do if he knew you were fighting? And what would he think seeing you get kicked out of Dayle’s house.”

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