She smiles fleetingly at the memories flooding her mind.
Preston used to come by the Joint all the time. Especially before she’d saved enough dough to replace her old Ford that Cletus stripped down to nothing, then set on fire and had dumped in the swamp.
Without a car, the walk between the Joint and the trailer park was an hour or so. Preston didn’t like her walking that long, alone, and especially at night.
So when summer came and he was in town, he’d pick her up and drive her back to his place. One time, she was closing up the bar. She was the last one inside the Joint when Preston turned up.
Offered for the hundredth time to pay for a new car she could use. And for the hundredth time, she told him, “I don’t want your money.”
Made her uneasy, you know?
Kate so freely took the keys to a new BMW, a birthday present from Trevor. She took jewelry and a new phone, tickets to fly out to the city where she met him for luxury hotel stays and shopping trips at designer stores.
Billie couldn’t do that.
Felt… wrong. Somehow. Like if she was to take something from Preston, money she needed to meet rent for the month or pay to keep the power on, then it would mean that his mom was right about her.
Gold diggin’ trash.
Bet Bunny’s real fucking happy right about now.
12
Overnight bag. For herself.
Smokes. For Tonya.
Pot. For all the girls.
Fucking errand girl apparently. She’ll have to stop by the gas station on the way for cigs.
Gigi doesn’t bother getting her panties in a twist over it, though. She and T might be twins, but it ain’t no secret how the group sees her. The baby. Maybe it’s her doe eyes, her youthful complexion, or that she’s the shortest of the lot… Maybe it’s because she doesn’t fill the quiet with useless talk that bores her, or that she’s the one who didn’t want to doit.
Whatever it is, they look at her like that one little sister that just runs around after the big girls.
Gigi never really noticed before—before that night.
But after?
Now they eye her like a trembling mouse in the corner, surrounded by feral cats, like murdering someone they knew, hacking him up into pieces, then whoringherout for payment, should only ever be met with resolve.
Strength.
That’s what Kate and Billie would call it.
Strength, survival.
Carmine and T? If they just look the other way, it didn’t happen.
Thing is, Gigi knows what they don’t. She’s not weak. She’s just not a fucking psychopath.
Billie and Kate are.
They’reabsolutepsychopaths.
Gigi’s known that for seven years now. Since that night, watching them get their hands dirty. And did they get their handsdirty…
Would have been cleaner to just walk up to Henry Maxwell and shoot him in the face.