Page 18 of Cruel Lies

Why hadn’t they killed me while I was asleep, though?

Had I forgotten a window? Had I really been meticulous in making sure they were all closed? Could I have sleepwalked and opened one in the middle of that nightmare?

It wasn’t likely.

As a last resort, an attempt to make myself feel safer, I grabbed the baseball bat beside my bedroom door, hoisting it over my shoulder in preparation to knock someone out, should I have the chance. They could be outside my bedroom door right now, waiting for me in the dark.

Curse my habit of turning the lights out when I went to bed.

Forcing myself to suck in a breath, I took a step toward the door, opening it the rest of the way with slow precision. I was prepared for anything, or so I told myself.

Stepping into that living room area was like the purest form of torture. If I survived tonight, I’d check myself into the emergency room just to make sure I wasn’t having a heart attack. Thesteady drumming of said organ echoed loudly in my ears as I stepped behind the couch, scanning the room as I flipped a light on.

Nothing.

There were no boogeymen in the living room, nor the kitchen. But the fuckers had been in my house, that much was certain.

Sitting on the kitchen counter was an empty glass with my knife from earlier beside it. The one I’d left in the alley in my mad dash to escape.

The knife that onlytheycould have brought me.

A sharpie sat open on the counter next to the knife, weighing down a hastily scrawled message on a piece of paper ripped from my wall calendar.

Sorry, July. Guess we’re not celebrating you this year.

I read the message aloud to the room, knowing they were gone but needing to hear anything, even myself, to ground my mental state.

"We’re not done with you. Be seeing you soon. N."My brows furrowed as I reread the ominous and vague words, wishing the second or third read-through would give me anything—a clue I’d missed, maybe words I skimmed over.

Nothing.

The coffee pot sat abandoned in the corner of my counter, so I started her up, knowing damn well I wasn't about to get any sleep tonight. The least I could do was caffeinate myself and be productive.

I might not be able to sleep, but I could plan.

Fuckers wouldn’t catch me slipping twice.

EIGHT

ANGEL

Nash might’ve stoppedme from bashing in Rowan’s skull with the tire iron, but that didn’t mean I was going to be all hunky dory with the man. He followed me back to the asylum on foot, and I half expected to see Nash when we arrived, leaning against the Torino’s hood, his arms crossed over his chest, that know-it-all smirk on his face. Instead, neither he nor the Torino were in sight, and I was forced to march up to the rooms, angry as fuck and very hyperaware of the tail I’d developed—the last fucker I wanted on my ass right now.

If Rowan opened his mouth and said so much as two words to me right now, I’d likely punch him so hard he woke up in last week.

My room was my safe haven tonight, and I punctuated my feelings and desire to be left the fuck alone by slamming the door so hard it rattled in the frame. If my younger brother couldn’t takethathint, he was dumber than I gave him credit for.

The clock on the wall was the only sound in the silence outside of my breath, the slowtic tic ticof the second hand reminding me that time moved on whether I participated or not. My lungs expanded with a massive gulp of air, then deflated like two balloons, and on and on it went, the breathing steady and monotonous. Still, I had to do something, or my thoughts would spiral, and I didn’t feel like dealing with the unknown right now.

Nash would be home any minute. I didn’t spiral. That was his schtick. Let him have the mental breakdown. I was Angel Blackwood, the strong one, the one without a care. I was a free spirit.

But inside, I was falling apart.

If that really was Harper, we had more problems than just killing her. We had to decide if we evencoulddo it. Clearly, it hadn’t been successful the first time around. And the longer we waited, the more time she had to form an escape plan and get the hell out of town. If she made it away from us, we’d lose our chance, and the job.

On the other hand, Rowan had one thing deadto rights. I could no more kill her now than I could seven years ago. We’d stepped aside and let him deal with it, just like he did everything else. But the problem with that was the fucker had been in love with her since the moment he laid eyes on her.

From the moment our parents introduced us as new step-siblings, he was smitten. Rowan hadn’t been interested in girls, not like Nash was, or even me. But one look in those gorgeous baby blues, and he was a fucking goner. He dragged her along to everything we did, ensuring she was always with us. When she wasn’t, he was talking about her nonstop. It felt like a fucking obsession at times. But he would deny the fuck out of it, like we didn’t have eyeballs. He’d refused to admit it, but clearly all of us, her included, had seen it.

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