Page 255 of Lodestar

“You managed to get those crosshairs on you all by yourself. I don’t think blaming Star when we’re here to save you is fair,” I growled.

“This isn’t helping,” was Dead To Me’s flat response. Her words were bland but her actions weren’t.

Having hauled the duffle bags we’d brought with us from the trunk, she was digging through our gear and kept shoving weapons at the bickering women while checking out the highway for incoming grenades.

Because she was right and becauseIhadn’t been handed a semi-automatic, I asked, “Where do I go?”

The bickering stopped, and Star’s eyes widened as she turned to me. The deepest welter of regret whispered into being in her expression, so sharp it took me aback, then she stormed over to me, grabbed my shirt, and shook me.

“You get your ass inside. You stay away from windows. You do not leave the building unless I call you. Do you understand?”

Tapping my loaded holster, I frowned at her. “I can shoot, Star. I’m not like you but I can goddamn defend myself and I can help?—”

Troy sniffed. “Pretty boy like you ain’t got nothin’ in him but glittery jizz?—”

My brows lifted at that. “Excuse me? What the fuck is glittery jizz?”

“All sparkly like, to make the bitches ooh and aah.”

“I’ve never made a bitch ooh and ahh?—”

“I disagree,” Star butted in at the same time as Dead To Me snarled:

“We don’t have time for this.” D strapped a shotgun to her shoulder. “Conor, get your glittery jizz inside the goddamn house. This is our territory. I wouldn’t wade into a hacking war. We each have our strengths and there’s no shame in that.

“Plus, if Star thinks you’re wandering around, it’ll distract her and we don’t need her distracted. The three of us need to be hot shit.”

My mouth tightened but I nodded. I didn’t mind admitting that fighting insiegeswasn’t my strength, but… “I don’t have glittery jizz.”

The regret in Star’s eyes had dimmed some. “We can agree you’re a pretty boy, no?”

I sniffed. “If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it worked.”

She grinned, and that was the best thing I’d done the whole fucking day. If this was the last time?—

No.

She wasn’t going to die.

Iwasn’t going to die.

Troy rammed me in the side. I scowled at her as I accepted the SMG she handed me. “Glitter, you think you can handle this?”

“I know how to use it, yeah,” I growled. “And it’s aCooooig, thank you very much. If you don’t want me to call youHelenorThe Face, then I won’t, but only if you drop this Glitter bullshit.”

It was her turn to sniff. “Don’t go G.I. Joe on us. Just head to the second floor. To the east, there’s a long corridor that leads to a door at the end of the hall. First on the right, that’s where you stand. You stay there. You guard that fucking door with your life, do you hear me?”

“You want me to guarda door?” This Australian Shepherd shit was coming back to bite me in the ass.

“I do. Got a problem with that,Conor?”

Pointing the gun at the ground, I stated, “No, I don’t have a problem with that.” Just with her.

Bitch.

She dipped her chin. “Anything happens to us?—”

“It won’t,” Star snapped. “We got shit to do today and dying ain’t on the list.”

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