Scythe & Sparrow (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #3)(5)

I claw my way backward. My left hand slides through the slime of a mashed banana. Matt Cranwell crawls after me, half-blind with dust and rage. He reaches forward and I scramble around me for something to grab on to. A weapon. A shred of hope. Anything.

I sweep my hand through the gravel and a sharp point digs into my palm. I glance over just long enough to spot the cocktail sticks strewn next to my fingers. A bunch of them rest in the shattered plastic tube.




I grab them just as Cranwell wraps his hand around the ankle of my busted leg and tugs.

The scream I let loose is agony and feral rage and desperation. I pitch forward, the spikes clutched in my fist. And I drive their pointed ends right into Matt Cranwell’s eye.

He cries out. Releases my ankle. Squirms in the dust, a shaking hand hovering over his face. He turns in my direction as he thrashes from the pain he can’t escape. Blood tumbles over his lashes and down his cheek in a viscous crimson rivulet. Three cocktail sticks jut from his eye like a macabre kindergarten craft. Their little flags quiver with his shock. His lid tries to blink, a reflex he can’t stop. Every motion of his eyelid hits the highest wooden skewer and he jolts with a fresh hit of pain. He’s screaming. Screaming a sound I’ve never heard before.

My stomach churns and I retch in my helmet. I manage to swallow the vomit down, but just barely.

I have to get the fuck out of here.

I turn myself over and push up onto my good foot, the other dragging behind me as I limp to the bottom of the driveway. Matt is still yelling behind me, curses and pleas that tumble after me down the gravel track.

Tears stream down my face. My molars clamp tight, ready to crack. Every hop I take forces my broken leg to take the pressure of the step. Agony. It’s fucking agony. A spike of pain that drives from my heel to my thigh. That threatens to bring me down.

“Keep fucking going,” I whisper as I flip my visor open. My first breath of fresh air is the only thing that keeps me upright.

I don’t know what happens when you get poked in the eye with a fistful of cocktail sticks. His other eye might be squeezed shut. Or maybe he’ll be able to fight through the pain and run after me. But I can’t think about that shit now. I just have to get to my bike. Hold on to the hope that I can get away.

When I get to the bottom of the driveway, I glance toward the farm. Matt Cranwell is on his hands and knees, still yelling and cursing, spitting venom and dripping blood onto the gravel. And then I look toward the house. Lucy is there, standing behind the screen door. A silhouette. I can’t see her face, but I can feel her eyes on me. She can’t see me clearly from this distance, not with the helmet obscuring most of my face. She doesn’t know me well enough to recognize me from my clothes or my mannerisms. She knows something life-altering has happened, that something is very wrong with this moment, her husband screaming in distress on the driveway. But it’s not him she’s watching. It’s me.

She closes the door and disappears inside the house.

I leave Matt where he belongs, rolling in the dirt. I hobble to my motorcycle. When I swing my leg over the seat, something catches against the inside of my leather pants. Pain ripples up my leg. But I keep going. I start the engine. Close my hand around the clutch. Change gears and pull back the throttle and get the fuck away from this farm.

I don’t know where to go.

I just follow my instinct and ride.





OATH


Fionn



I’m rounding the corner for home, walking briskly after my evening run. It’ll be the perfect night to sit on the porch with the glass of Weller bourbon I’ve definitely earned, not just from this run but from the unholy combination of Fran Richard’s ingrown toenail and Harold McEnroe’s massive boil that I had to deal with at the clinic today. My little house is within sight when an alert comes through on my watch.

Motion detected at front door.

“Fucking Barbara,” I hiss as I pivot on my heel and retrace my path into town. I pull up my phone to open the video doorbell app. “I know it’s you, you fucking crazy—”

I stop dead in my tracks. It’s … it’s definitely not Barbara at the office.

There’s a woman I don’t recognize on the camera. Dark hair. Leather jacket. I can’t make out distinct features of her face before she looks away down the street. But she’s unsteady on her feet. Probably drunk. Maybe someone who’s come into town for the circus and had too much fun at the beer garden down the road from the fairgrounds. I consider pressing the button to speak to her, and though my thumb hovers over the circle, I don’t touch it. Maybe I should set the alarm I hardly ever use now, thanks to Barbara triggering it one too many times in the middle of the night. I should call the police, I think as I start walking, staring at my screen. But I don’t do that either.




Not even when she somehow manages to open the locked door.

“Shit.”

I pocket my phone and run.

I do the math in my head as I sprint in the direction of the clinic. I’ve just finished a long run and can’t push much faster than a 5:30-minutes-per-mile pace, so I’ll be there in seven minutes and nine seconds. I’m sure I’ll make it to the office in less time than that if I push as hard as I can.

But it feels like an hour. My lungs burn. My heart riots. I slow to a walk as I round the last corner and a wave of nausea rolls in my stomach.