Page 155 of Endless Anger
“Only when…we’re cleaning up…garbage.”
“Well, close your eyes and pretend then, because I’m not fucking ditching you, and you’re not going to ask me to leave you here,” I snap, hating the bite of my words but unable—unwilling—to leach it from my tone.
Anger’s all I’ve got at the moment.
“This is probably going to hurt, so just…” My hands hover over her broken, battered body. Fuck.Fuck. Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them away, inhaling deeply. I rip off another piece of my sweater, offering it to her. “Can you put this between your teeth? I don’t want you to scream and alert those shitheads, wherever they are.”
“Wheredoyou think they are?” Foxe asks. “What if they come back while you’re?—”
“I don’tknow, Foxe, okay? I don’t know. I’m just…trying here. Keep an eye on the door while I figure out what she can handle.”
Willa bites down on the fabric, and as I start to roll her onto her good side, she grunts low in her chest, as if resisting the urge to yell.
Tears mix with the blood on her face—just one side though, and again I wonder about her left eye.
She spits out the sweater, wheezing. “Lucy…I can’t?—”
“Shutup, Willa, for fuck’s sake.” I release her, and she rolls back. “I’m going to figure something out, all right? Just…just stop fucking talking.”
“Fine…but you…owe me a friend date…after,” she gasps out.
That makes me laugh despite everything. I wipe some of the blood and grime from her face. “Deal. Where do you want?—”
The bullet comes out of fuckingnowhere.
I don’t even see it until it’s already lodged in Willa’s back, a massive hole that tears through flesh and bone, stealing the air from both our lungs.
Foxe’s curse is the only thing I hear as a roaring noise rushes between my ears.
On instinct, I shuffle away and see one of the hooded, masked figures from earlier slip through a thin white sheet hung up to my left, concealing another exit.
The figure gets closer, and as they do, I note the emblem on their hoodie; there’s a design that’s faded and scratched off, only a couple of lines remaining. It almost looks like a torch, but it’s too hard to make out, especially with the other insignia that’s been ironed overtop of it.
A three-headed beast.
Death’s Teeth in the flesh.
“Lucy,” Foxe hisses, but I’m frozen in place, paralyzed and unable to look away as the masked man approaches Willa, points the gun at the back of her head, and pulls the trigger once more.
The popping noise is dulled by the suppressor attachment on the pistol, but I still feel it. Still jump when the bullet leaves the chamber, embedding itself in my friend’s skull.
Her one good eye remains wide open. Staring forever right at me.
Silence descends upon the three of us.
I can’t move.
I want to but can’t.
“Oh, for crying out fucking loud!” Beckett races back into the cavern, his fingers yanking tight on his short hair as he takes in the scene. “What the hell is your problem, Tiernan? We weren’t supposed tokillher.”
The masked figure rolls his eyes. “She was seconds from dying anyway after what?—”
“My brother is going tokillme, oh my God.” Beckett paces back and forth in front of Willa’s corpse, biting on his thumbnail, a frenzied look on his face.
A part of me catches the mention of his brother, but right now, I’m truly too far inside my head to register the implication.
Her eye is wide open.
