Page 66 of The Butcher

“All three of them.”

Rolling my eyes, I push myself up a little higher, wincing as a few of my wounds pinch. “Don’t.”

Nan swings her head in my direction, her icy eyes narrowed. “You already did.”

“I didn’t do shit.”

“Bramley Ambrose, don’t you forget, I know what this is like.” She grabs what I now smell to be her salve, piping hot and not even close to ready to be applied, then marches toward me. “You know I do.”

“Fuck,” I all but yelp as she slaps a huge blob of lava on the bullet hole in my chest.How the hell can she even touch that with her bare hands?

“Don’t be a baby,” she scolds. One thin, white eyebrow arches as she rubs in the salve. “Then again, that’s the only way you’ve been acting since Indy girl showed up.”

“I said, don’t.”

“And I said I can do what I damn well please.”

“Nan, I’m not—Jesus!” Another glob of Satan’s snot is dropped onto my body and I swear this is some form of torture.

Confirmed when my grandmother grins like a jerk. “You’re a giant baby. One who can’t handle anything going on in your life at the moment.”

Keeping my mouth shut, I grit my teeth and go back to the dying fire.

I can’t do this with her, not right now.

My instincts are going apeshit with Indigo being so close to me, it’s clouding my thoughts, and I need to be able to get her in here for five minutes before I change my mind completely.

“Call her in.”

Nan freezes, her hand suspended above my arm, her weapon of choice at the ready. “Who?”

“Who the hell do you think?” I roll my eyes but I don’t dare look at her.

My grandmother knows me better than almost anyone else, and I can’t lie to her because of it. I need to avoid eye contact and get her to do what I’m asking, then she can lose her shit once I carry out my half assed plan.

“Why?” She huffs as she crosses her arms, the salve dropping to the floor with a thud. “I don’t trust this.”

She shouldn’t. “Just get her in here, ok?”

Nan stares at me for a few moments, suspicion written all over her face, but then she nods her head, shrugs her shoulders, and proceeds to glare at me until she’s in the hall.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, stealing my spine the best I can in the last few seconds of normalcy I’m going to have for a while. What I’m about to do could easily change the entire course of my life, as well as a few others, and I need to make sure I’m ready to actually do it.

This is for the best.

It’s really the only way.

Omegas are in danger here.

I don’t need one, anyway.

Who the fuck decided a murderer gets a scent match?

A soft knock on the door has my eyes opening, and when Indy cautiously comes through, I feel like all the air has been sucked out of the room.

Wide purplish-blue eyes blink at me from underneath the hood of a sweatshirt while she chews the inside of her cheek. Indy is wringing her hands, hands that are tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie, the material twisted in her fingers so tightly it’s probably scraping her skin. Unlike the loose, black sweats she’s wearing, they definitely don’t fit her and might even be better suited for Nash or me. She’s nervously shifting herweight from socked foot to socked foot, the same kind Clayton wears and for some reason, that gets to me.

She could be wearing their clothes.

---