Page 83 of The Fix

I don’t know what else to do.

He nods solemnly, his clean-shaven jaw ticking with the severity. “Yes, ma’am.”

I don’t wait for him to go back inside before I move down the street and locate the store he’d mentioned.

I’m not even to the front of the barred windows and I know he’s here.

Because all I hear is yelling … glass shattering …

And I’m angry. Vibrating with the lead in my veins as my rage flows easily through my system.

The storefront is lined with more cameras. Phones and tablets aimed at the chaos going on inside.

There’s no way out of this now.

So I run in, headfirst.

And what I find, amidst the chaos of destroyed bottles and tipped over displays, is the last thing I ever wanted to see.

Chapter Forty-Two

Toby

Somewhere between meeting up with the guys and now, I’ve managed to acquire a four-ton anvil that’s parked itself right on my head.

While someone uses it to do blacksmithing.

Because all I hear is ting ting ting and all I feel is the reverberation of each hit inside my skull.

“Ugh,” I mumble, a mouth full of sand, eyes too heavy to open.

Maybe five more minutes …

The surface my face nuzzles against is cold and hard, but my limbs feel too heavy to do anything about it. In fact, I’m certain my hip bone is bruising with just the weight of me pressing into the unforgiving rigidity beneath me.

The cool feels nice.

And as long as I focus on the smooth chill my cheek is pressed against, the longer the why takes to settle in.

Who knows why I’m on the floor?

Not me.

Unlike most people, I actually enjoy waking up disoriented.

It’s like I get to go on the adventure all over again, rediscovering all the things I got up to before I passed out, possibly even doing them all over again later—but for the second first time.

First time experiences are cool.

It feels like a rift in time that only I have the power to redo.

Some superpower, huh?

If only it would stick around long enough to combat the fact that I do know why I’m on the floor, and I recall exactly what put me here.

Traitors.

Chapter Forty-Three

---