Page 75 of Ramsay

I get into my own car with a sigh and pull out of the lot, driving around aimlessly. Did something happen with Dixie? Or is she angry with me for something I did?

This is why I’ve avoided my darkness because it eats away at everything good around me.

Before I know it, I’ve found my way to the spot where the girls turning tricks told me Carmen was last seen.

This area is known for hooking, consisting mainly of warehouses and abandoned buildings, much like ironically, where Carmen was laid to rest. If you go out of your way to come here, it’s not for a Sunday stroll with the family.

Idling in my car, I watch girls wander by in garish makeup and skimpy clothes, some younger than even I.

Occasionally, a vehicle stops picking one up and taking them away somewhere. Each time they do, I hold my breath for a minute and pray they’re returned in the same condition they left, but even that’s a foolish dream. For surely, these girls lose a piece of themselves every time they get in a stranger’s car.

My heart speeds up when I spy a vehicle that looks suspiciously like the one that followed me from the cemetery. I can’t see inside even though I twist my head at an awkward angle when the window goes down and a girl steps up.

Frantic, I put my car in gear and follow when she gets inside, my palms slick under the wheel.

Is this him? Where is he taking her? What can I possibly do?

My heart thuds painfully as I turn at every corner the car before me does, only backing off when I realize it’s probably super obvious what I’m doing.

Letting off on the gas, I clench my jaw against the urge to speed up and allow a few cars to come between us, tailing the dark sedan with tinted windows across town and into a neighborhood I recognize from my dark days.

Eventually, the car pulls to the curb, and I ease into a spot behind a parked vehicle in between.

And with bated breath, I watch, expecting, I don’t even know what, as a man approaches the vehicle, but my terror turns to confusion when I spy Jagger greeting the girl inside. He pulls her from the seat and gives her a sloppy kiss before patting her ass as she walks away.

Why does Jagger know the dude who was following me? And then it hits me, fucking Jagger sent someone to watch me, and I fell into his trap all too easily.

Gritting my teeth, I pull a U-turn and drive away, damming my own paranoia. I allowed a fucking rabbit's foot to push me into the arms of the devil and he probably laughed his ass off the whole way over to pick me up.

Chapter Sixteen

Willow

After my revelations about Jagger, I resolve to make his evil ass bleed but what I’m considering is foolish at best. Playing in his world is downright dangerous.

Since he’s an issue that can wait though, I reach out to Dixie. Finally, she answers, and I grudgingly agree to go back out to the creepy as fuck woods.

Of course, I lose my opportunity if I say no, but I’m still not convinced whoever was fucking with me out there didn’t have malintent.

Muttering under my breath, I curse the chilly air and pull my coat tighter around my body. It’s fucking December, wouldn’t an inside party be more appropriate?

Dixie isn’t here to greet me this time, so I trudge along the path alone, peering around me with wary eyes until the fire comes into view. Matt gives me a shy smile when I emerge, Dixie gives me a tepid grin, and Bone eyes me up and down.

Maeve is absent, which is a relief because I still haven’t determined whether she’s a sleeper cell for the Sinners, waiting for the right time to blow my shit up.

Giving Bone a cool look, I sit down beside Matt and hold my hands out to the flames.

“Haven’t you fuckers ever heard of indoor heating?” I gripe.

Bone’s mouth stretches into a wide smile as Dixie huffs and says, “Whatever.”

I glance at Bone with his purple hair and tough-guy persona, and sigh. Next, I look at Dixie with her self-righteous glare and then Matt’s perpetually embarrassed expression. Beyond them is Ghost, who I met last time, with his sloe eyes and easy grin along with a few others I don’t know well.

Shit.

“First off, I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been focusing on the Sabrina shit. I’ve got a few ideas there.”

Dixie huffs again, and I give her a stern look. “I said I’m sorry. We’ll figure something out. When the time is right, she’ll go down.”

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