Page 132 of Bad Seed
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
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AUBRY
By the time I pull up to her door, it hits me. I just wasted eight hours. The time passed with us talking about nothing important, or with her sleeping beside me as we wound through the mountains. Rather than dwell on the Brassicas’ offer, I lost myself in the music of her slumbering breaths to drown out the last twenty-four hours.
But we’re here, and I’m out of time.
I reach for the gear shift and freeze. All I have to do is put it in park, let her out, say goodbye. I tap my fingers on the lever.
Or, I could put it in reverse. Peel out. Run with her and Astin. Forge a new life where we’re always hunted by people with connections to the Vatican and Del Monte.
“I got you home,” I mumble, cranking the car into park. It jerks a bit after I move my foot. Mr. Oli didn’t exactly loan me a Ferrari. They’re probably watching right now.
Sadie’s haunted. She may not be thinking about it, or even aware now, but it’ll hit her. Probably once she gets into the shower to wash the blood away. How she nearly died. How she risked her life by trying to save mine.
How I have to let her go.
“What time is it?” she asks.
“Seven-thirteen.”
She gazes back at the house as if she can see through the door. “My roommate’s probably making pancakes.”
“Have you ever had them with cardamom?”
“No? Is it any good?”
“Fantastic. I like to add a dollop of applesauce to help…sweeten the…” I knock my fist against the console separating us. It could be an ocean for how wide the gap is growing.
“Can I ask you something?”
Here it comes. What am I going to do? Shall I accept the offer and become a mafia don myself? Take over control of Crudité, become obscenely wealthy, attend Raiders games with other men who smoke cigars because no one tells them what to do?
Or do I run? Do I keep dodging, living each day not knowing when the scope will find me, when the knife will sink in?
It’s not much of a choice.
“Go ahead,” I say, bracing myself.
“What did you do to Derek?”
“Huh?”
“Derek, my old…” She brushes her palm against her throat and shivers. “The one I told you about. He came here.”
“He did what?” I thunder, jerking up so fast, the top of my head smacks the roof. “That bastard doesn’t learn.”
“My roommate tased him, then pepper-sprayed his eyes.”
Really? I only thought of the woman in Sadie’s house as a flower-thieving ghost. “Good.”
“He was really mad though. I just wondered what you did.”
“I…” My lips seal, not wanting to tell her. But maybe it’s better if she knows the kind of man I am. There isn’t a noble bone in my body. If a man hurts me or the ones I love, I destroy them down to the atom. “I set up a tripwire so he’d hang himself. He wouldn’t die, but he’d be trapped there, all night, balancing on the tips of his toes knowing that if he made one wrong move…he’d choke to death.”
Her soft gasp is the only response.
