Page 4 of Wrath

I stop to drink some water, and when I notice a female lying face down in the sand I shake my head and laugh as I move toward her.

“Hey, c’mon, you can’t sleep out here. Sun’ll be gettin’ hot soon.” I gently shake her shoulder, but she doesn’t respond. She must have gotten even more wasted than I did last night.

“Hey, wake up. C’mon.” I shake her harder, and when I still get nothing I pull back her shoulder to roll her over. “Holy fuuck!” Her skin is white, and the empty eyes that stare back at me, confirm that this girl ain’t sleepin’. She’s dead.

I glance her over, still in shock, and when I notice the purple marks on her neck I immediately take my hands off her. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I take a few paces back, quickly rifling through my rucksack so I can pull out my cell.

“No.” Raze answers my call in that stern ‘don’t fuckin’ try it’ tone of his.

“What? No. Raze, I?—-”

“Whatever it is, if it concerns Eden the answer isno,” he tells me firmly.

“Raze, this ain’t about Eden, you need to come out here,right now.” I hang up and keep my eyes focused on the dead girl in front of me. She can’t be much older than my youngest sister, Willow. She’s even got the same long, dark hair, and suddenly I realize how easily this could be her. I don’t know where my littlesister is. But I know thathetook her. She could be lying dead and cold somewhere, just like this poor girl.

Raze takes his time as he steps off his porch and starts his journey toward me. We may be on opposite ends of the stretch of beach the club owns, but I can feel his tension as he marches past the clubhouse and gets closer. Right now he’ll be thinking the same as I did. Drunk girl sprawled on the beach, she won’t be the first and she won’t be the last but as he gets closer his frown lines get deeper and he tosses the cigarette he’s smoking into the sand when he notices the body by my feet.

“What the fuck is this?” He stares at her with the same shocked expression as my own. “Ya know her?” he checks, taking out another cigarette and sparking it up.

“Never seen her before.” I shake my head staring at the blue ring that’s formed around her lips

“And you just found her like this?” He inhales sharply.

“No, Raze, I found her back at the marina and decided to drag her ontoourfuckin’ beach. Of course, I found her like this.”

“Hey.” Raze throws the smoke out his mouth and grips the front of my tee. “You watch ya fuckin’ mouth, and remember who you’re talkin’ to.” He releases me with a shove before pacing the sand. He’s clearly still pissed with me, and since he’s unable to think straight, I decide to take some control of the situation.

“Whoa…whatcha doin’?” His head starts shaking when he notices me move around her body and take both her wrists.

“I’m movin’ her. In case you hadn’t realized it’s fuckin’ daylight and we have a dead girl on our beach.”

“You leave her right there.” He points his finger at me, before scrubbing his hand over his face and taking a cell outta his cut.

“Who ya callin’?” We ain’t got time for making calls, we need to get this dead fuckin’ body moving, pronto.

“I’m callin’ someone who can fuckin’ fix this.” Raze’s nostrils flare while he waits for whoever that someone is to pick up.

“Is that the best you could come up with?” Raze looks unimpressed as Sasquatch erects a colorfully striped windbreak around the girl’s body.

“At 8 am on a Sunday mornin’? Yeah,” he growls before slamming another one of the stakes into the ground with a mallet.

“Any of you seen her before?” Raze shifts his eyes between Ruckus and Sasquatch.

“No. Sorry, boss.” Ruck shakes his head as he looks down at her solemnly.

“Looks like our help showed up.” Raze flicks another cigarette in the sand as he looks past my shoulder toward the gate to the parking lot. “This one’s a little…quirky. Remember to be nice.” He warns as we all turn our heads in the direction his eyes are pointing, and I gotta admit I’m a little shocked at what steps through the gate and onto the sand.

“Who the hell is that?” Ruck asks as we watch the 5ft nothing woman with more colors in her hair than the fuckin’ windbreak, strut her way across the sand.

“Before we get started you should know that my Sunday morning call-out fees are astronomical.” She slides her sun shades up into her hair and drops a doctor's bag that’s covered in stickers, next to the body.

“Boys, this is Quinn, she’s a medical examiner.” Raze introduces her, and she takes the time to shake our hands before pulling a pair of disposable gloves from her pocket and sliding them on.

We take that as our cue to turn our backs, giving the dead girl some respect while Quinn examines her.

There's a long, awkward silence which I spend staring out at the ocean and thinking about Eden. I wonder if she’s still at Raze’s hut, or if he told her to leave and go back to her life. Not knowing is driving me insane.

“Well, she’s definitely dead,” Quinn informs us, snapping off her gloves once we’ve all turned back around.

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