Page 65 of Little Psycho

“Fuck, it’s my father,” Ash announces, his voice trembling and fear flickering in his gray eyes.

It breaks my heart to see the effect that man still has on him, but I know how hard it is to escae torment from those who have sank their claws into your mind, body, and soul.

“I won’t hesitate to kill you if you tell him where the fuck I am,” I threaten, feeling my temper go from zero to a hundred in a split second.

“Calista, I wouldn’t do that shit.You’ve gotta give me more credit than that,” Ash says, shaking his head as he stands to take the call in the other room.

“But do I?”I shrug, waving him off with feelings of fear and nausea swirling in my stomach.

Trying to listen to his angry, hushed whispers doesn’t work; I can’t make out shit, and it just fuels the crippling anxiety inside me.Realizing I need to pull my shit together, I take another deep breath and try to get my ragged emotions under control.My stomach is turning and my head is pounding, but somehow I manage to push through the haze of anxiety and paranoia.I have to focus.I have to find a way to handle whatever comes next, even though I have no fucking idea what that might be.

“He’s not going to say anything, Cali.In fact, our fathers wanted us to find you, but we refused,” Kill tells me, trying to diffuse the toxicity in the air.

“I don’t fucking know you guys anymore, Kill.I don’t know if I can trust you.Shit, I don’t know who I can trust anymore.”

He almost looks like I’ve slapped him across the face, hurt by my truthful admission.But can he blame me for feeling this way?

“I promise you can trust us.I know it’ll take some time, but Cali, we’re not going anywhere.We’re never letting you go again.”He offers a reassuring smile that somewhat puts my nerves at ease, but the voices in my head are too loud, forcing me to remain firm in my beliefs.

As Ash finishes his call and rejoins us, the atmosphere feels heavier and much more tense.I glance at Killian, who looks as uncomfortable and uncertain as I feel.

“What did the old man want?”I turn to Ash, curious as to why he looks like he just saw a ghost.

“Same shit,” he sighs.“He’s coming to pick me up, and he’s pissed because when he asked if we had any leads on you, I told him no.”

“Does he do this shit a lot?”I ask timidly, curious to see if they know what I’m talking about.

They both nod, and while the fear hasn’t completely disappeared from their eyes, there’s a glimmer of hope that maybe things will change now that we’re together again.

So we sit here in the dimly lit room, each grappling with our own ghosts and nightmares but somehow finding a way to connect despite the darkness that surrounds us—through silence.They keep staring at me, the look in their eyes letting me know there’s something they want to say, but they don’t know how.

“What?”I huff, taking a rolled-up dollar bill out of Ash’s hand as he pushes the plate with cut lines of coke over to me.

I sniff one of them, instantly regretting it.The burn is so intense it makes my eyes water, and as the coke drips down the back of my throat, I begin to cough, not used to the bitter numbing feeling taking over.

“Did you kill those men, Calista?”Kill asks out of the blue, an eerie silence hovering between us.

I stare at him with a firm look on my face, curling my lips upward into a sinister smirk as I recall bits and pieces of each murder.“I did,” I admit proudly, handing back the dollar bill.“And there’s plenty more to come.”

“Wow, little Calista turned into a fucking badass.”Ash chuckles, popping the top on a beer, chugging it down.

“They call me Little Psycho, and you haven’t seen anything yet.”Again, I grin, letting them know I’m not fucking around.

“Did you come to kill us too?:

“Relax, Ash.If I was going to kill you fuckers, I would’ve done it weeks ago when I first ran away.”

He smiles and Kill nods his head, both of them looking relaxed—for the most part.I haven’t told them about my plans for the other names on my list, including their fathers.I wonder how they’re going to take the news when I tell them that they’re going to help me kill all three of them.Because, like it or not, it’s fucking happening.

As we sit in the quiet aftermath of our words, a tentative sense of hope begins to take root in my heart.It’s fragile and raw, but it’s there, and for the first time, I allow myself to believe that maybe we can find our way back to each other and put all the bullshit behind us for good.

I look at Ash and then Killian, and I know that we have a long, difficult road ahead of us.But I also know that we no longer have to walk it alone.Whether we fight or fall, we’ll be there for each other, and in that unity, there is strength.

We’ll make it through—we have to.

TWENTY-SIX

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