Page 150 of Stop and Seek
Sound slammed back into the room—Jagger yelling, Noah breathing hard, the fridge rumbling like it knew what was coming.
Whelp.
Guess that’s happening now.
Jagger shrieked, stumbling back, blood already welling up in his hairline. His eyes went big and round. Terrified.
“What thefuck?” he yelled. “What is yourproblem?”
Noah didn’t answer. He grabbed the nasty, stained shirt and slammed Jagger to the ground hard enough to rattle the furniture. Something cracked. Maybe the table. Maybe Jagger.
As soon as Jagger’s head hit the wood, the pressure that had been coiled tight in his brain started to loosen. The creak of the house masked the worst of the wet noises, and the sweat stank rising off Jagger only made the whole thingriper.
This was usually where Noah stopped. Usually where he pulled back and told himselfI’m not a killer.
But that was before Jagger.
He didn’t have time to think too hard—to second guess his decision. Jagger thrashed under him, panicking, punching Noah in the ribs—Noah barely felt it. Just leaned in and drove his fist into Jagger’s face. Then again. And again.
His hand was numb. His knuckles split. Something cracked—either his hand or Jagger’s stupid, smug nose. Hopefully both.
“Stop!” Jagger gargled, blood pouring out of his mouth. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry!”
Noah sat back, chest rising and falling like he’d just run a mile, the air ragged in his lungs. His eyes flicked down, caught on a shard of glass glinting under the table.
Perfect.
He picked it up, fingers curling tight around it, and wiped sweat off his brow with his free hand.
“I hate that he talks like you,” he murmured, soft and bitter.
Theo’s little inflections. The dry humor. It all came from Jagger. He didn’t wantanyof that leftover. Not anymore.
Jagger’s gaze darted to the door, then back to Noah—full freak-out mode. He tried to scramble, to escape.
Noah yanked him back by hem of the tank top.
Then—calmly—he pushed the glass into Jagger’s eye. The pop was way quieter than he expected. Poking a spoon into a jam jar. Wet and neat.
Jagger twitched, that awful shriek gurgling out of him—nothuman. Not even close. Just pain and fear and desperation in a sound that made Noah feel a little bad for him.
He stayed where he was, kneeling. Watching. Breathing. His own heartbeat slowing as Jagger’s did. Slower. Slower.
Gone.
The noise in his brain, the scratchy static that made it hard tothink, finally went quiet. He let out a long breath and the world exhaled with him.
Sticky fingers made the phone hard to use. Blood all over the screen, too much to get a clean press. His hands left smears and red blotches across the glass as he unlocked it. He didn’t have Max’s contact saved on his phone. His brain fumbled through numbers, eyes blurry.
Two rings.
“I need your help.”
Max was still in California, but her people were always there.
She bitched at him through the phone. Called him every name under the sun. Noah didn’t remember sitting down, but he was on the couch now, staring at the curve of his own hand, smeared with blood so thick it had already dried in the creases of his palm.
I should’ve had gloves on.
