Page 42 of Lies He Told Me (Bratva Crime Syndicate 1)

Not that they mind. They’re all roaring with laughter. One of them calls after me, “Be seein’ you, honey!”

The laughter—hooting, horrible, shrill—chases me all the way into my tent, scrambles goose bumps up and down my arms, follows me as I cower under my sleeping bag, as if that’ll make any difference.

It’s not safe here anymore.

I wriggle until I’m at the bottom of the sleeping bag, pull the top over my head, cocoon myself inside entirely. I’m completely under the covers, like I used to do when I was a kid, my own little kingdom of warm and dark, totally enclosed and safe, safe, so safe.

But the truth is, it’s not safe here anymore.

The air crawls with danger. Threats in every shadow.

All those creepy bastards have to do is just wait until the blanket of night covers us all and they’re in the dark with me. Then, they can do to me what they want.

It’s not safe here anymore.

My hand darts out, grasps my sad attempt at self-protection—the jagged shard of mirror the size of my palm. It used to make me feel like a warrior princess. I’d pictured jabbing it at anyone who even looked at me wrong.

But now, it just feels pathetic. The best it can do is slit both my wrists so I’ll be dead and gone by the time they do get here.

“Way to be morbid,” I mutter under my breath.

But it’s true. Even as Chowder gallops in here, I know. He’ll just be like a stuffed animal they dropkick out of the way to get to me.

Still, though, there’s always … I peer out the tent flap and keep peering. The assholes are all too busy drinking beer and chortling over some dumb shit one guy said to notice an eye popping out of some tent.

Beyond them, there’s nothing.

Okay, not nothing. There’s still other tents, other people. But not Wanda. I must not have noticed before, since I was so deep in my own distraught world, but her purple tent is gone.

I sink back inside my tent onto my knees and my heels, even though they ache, and don’t even bother to zip the flap closed.

So that’s it then.

One more time for the folks in the back: It’s not safe here anymore.

I go through the motions in a dull haze. The ones I’ve promised myself I would do dozens of times, the same ones I’ve never gotten around to doing: packing up every single thing I own.

Chowder ‘helps’ in his own way: sitting on whatever item I’m trying to take away, then having the bright idea of plopping right down on my backpack itself. Even with that, it doesn’t take long to pack up my stuff. Jamming the art into something carryable is the only hard job.

It’s apparent from the start, although I still try wedging canvases the size of windows into pockets the size of laptops.

They won’t fit.

Some will, the smallest ones. But the bigger ones, like the one I did yesterday, refuse to comply.

I hold it, letting my fingers run along the paint globules sadly. Yesterday already seems forever ago. In a way, it was. Before that weird pizza day and Gavril Vaknin meeting. Before Teddy …

Impulsively, I grasp the canvas, press it to me tight.

I shut my eyes. Yes, I’m being stupid, childish, but I just want to go back there, just a day before, when things were only somewhat shitty. When I still had hope they could get better.

Chowder lets out a little yip. I sigh, releasing my stranglehold on the poor picture.

Back to reality. Where there’s no time to waste feeling sorry for myself. I’ll have lots of that later, I’m sure, once I make it out of this place.

IfI make it out of this place.

As I draw away from the canvas, I allow my fingers to roll across the orange, pink, and yellow-ringed figure one last time.

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