Page 126 of Whips and Chains
I stared down at the message.
“No. No. No.” I punched Violet’s number on my phone, holding it up to my ear with shaky fingers, silently willing her to answer.
But I knew she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t want to be talked out of it.
I slammed the heel of my hand against the steering wheel and let out a scream of frustration that echoed around the van.
Violet was up on the bluffs, offering herself up to a madman. And I’d left Levi and Whip stranded in the middle of nowhere with no way of getting to her.
29
VIOLET
I’d put the message up on my social media, with Bliss looking over my shoulder. And then worked the rest of my shift with trembling fingers, not one-hundred-percent convinced I was going to go through with it.
I hadn’t missed the fact Travis had disappeared not long after I’d closed down my app.
Though he had also finished his meal and paid his tab to Bliss, so I couldn’t say with one-hundred-percent certainty that it wasn’t a coincidence either. A lot of people had left around the same time, their meals finished and the football game on the screen at a disappointing forty-point advantage.
Nobody was sticking around to watch that, and maybe that’s why Travis had left.
Or maybe it was him I’d be facing off against on the bluffs later that night.
The idea had left me cold. It was one thing to see him here in a crowded bar, where I knew he couldn’t do anything to hurt me.
But seeing him alone. In the dark. Knowing what he was capable of.
It was that thought that had me reaching for my phone, texting the guys, and telling them what I was doing.
X called almost instantly, and I silenced the phone, not wanting to be talked out of it.
I’d come this far. Set the wheels in motion. I needed this to end. I was so sick of being scared. So sick of always looking over my shoulder.
So sick of missing my best friend.
He’d died so I could live. And I wasn’t going to let him down. I wasn’t going to walk around these streets, just waiting for something evil to jump out of the shadows.
I was going to lure them out. Meet them face-to-face, on my own terms.
And then put a bullet through their heart.
Bliss had given me her gun.
I had very little idea how to use it, and if I wasn’t in point-blank range, I knew I would miss. But she’d pressed it into my hand anyway and said I couldn’t go up there unarmed.
She’d hugged me tight and eyed Fang and War still sitting at a table with the other Slayers, and led me to the back door. “They’re going to notice you aren’t here pretty soon, and I won’t lie to them when they ask.”
I nodded. “I wouldn’t ask you to. Please don’t tell them until then though? I just need a head start.”
She still seemed uncertain, but I grasped her fingers. “They’ll stop me if they know. Once I’m up there, they can back me up all they want. Hell, send the entire club up. I’m not on a death mission here.”
Bliss looked at me carefully. “Are you sure about that?”
I nodded. “I don’t want to die. But I don’t want to watch any more people I love die either. And that’s what’s going to happen if we don’t face this head-on.”
Bliss nodded, her tone turning hopeful, like she was trying to reassure herself as much as me. “They might not show up anyway.”
“You’re right. They might not. I might just end up staring out at the view.”
