There was no going back now though. We were only a street away from Axel’s place, and something about the whole thing felt off. I’d played it cool with Bliss, acting like his disappearance was a mere annoyance, but there was worry gnawing at my stomach.
Things had been weird with Axel for weeks. I’d pressed him on it multiple times, but he’d refused to admit anything was wrong.
We didn’t keep secrets from each other, so I’d let it go, knowing he’d tell me when he was ready.
But now, my stomach lurched as I pulled into his driveway with Bliss right behind me.
I should have killed the headlights.
I should have reversed, even if it meant running into her car. Whatever it took so she didn’t have to see.
The scene lit up on Axel’s front porch was ripped straight from my nightmares.
Bliss’s blood-curdling scream turned me to ice. And then on instinct, I was pushing out of my car and running.
Not toward my best friend who lay slumped on his porch with a bullet through his brain.
But to his little sister, screaming hysterically beside her car, her eyes trained on her brother’s still form and the slick pool of blood surrounding him.
I slammed into her, harder than I intended, cradling her to my chest and burying her face in my shirt.
“No! Let me go! We have to help him!” Her legs trembled, giving way now that I was there to catch her. But still, she fought me, slapping and shoving, trying to get around me to her brother, but she wasn’t strong enough to put up any sort of real fight. Her sobs echoed through the quiet night air, piercing straight through my soul.
I’d always hated when she cried. I couldn’t handle it at nineteen, and I found that now, even at thirty-nine, it was still my undoing.
Nothing had ever hurt me the way her tears did.
Except for the sight of my best friend, lying dead on his front step. The pain wrapped its way around every muscle, every organ, squeezing so tight. It was bloodied nails piercing every inch of me until I wanted to beg for mercy. Beg for it to stop.
Except I couldn’t. Because Bliss was there, and her needs had always come before mine.
“Don’t look,” I murmured into her hair, inhaling the honeysuckle scent of her shampoo. “Fuck, Bliss. Don’t look.”
I was speaking to myself as much as I was to her.
She didn’t respond, but she stopped trying to fight me. Her tears wet my shirt while I stared at an inky-black sky full of stars and cursed whatever fucking god was up there.
Axel was one of the good ones.
Dealt a shit hand in life that he had never deserved, and it had finally caught up with him.
I swallowed hard. I would be next. I was probably lucky to have lasted this long. This fucking shithole of a town and the people in it always won. There was no place for the good guys.
They just got chewed up, spat out, and left dead on their porches like it was any other Sunday.
4
BLISS
I stood protected in Nash’s arms while the police asked questions for hours. He never let me go, not for one moment, and when I shivered uncontrollably, he took his checkered flannel shirt off and draped it over my bare arms.
It was lightweight but warm and soft. His scent engulfed me, and just like when I’d been a little girl, huddled in the middle of two teenage boys more than twice my size, his smell meant safety. Comfort.
I knew I should have stepped away. If Caleb had suddenly arrived on the scene, he would have turned purple over me standing so close to another man, no less wearing his clothes.
But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was cold all over, from the inside out, and Nash was the only thing keeping me functioning at all.
I couldn’t look toward the porch where my brother’s body was now hidden by a swarm of officers and crime scene tape. Every now and then, there was a flash of light as their camera caught the sickening sight of my brother’s brains blown out on the front wall of his house.
The questions droned on and on.
Did Axel have gang affiliation?
No.
Did he have any enemies?
No.
Any suicidal tendencies?
Nash had steeled the officer with a glare at that suggestion. “You think he shot himself in the head, execution style? Are you a fucking moron?”
“Hey!” the policeman snapped without an ounce of empathy for our situation. “If you want us to find the person who killed your friend, then shut up with your attitude and answer the questions.”
I could see the moment the rage ignited inside Nash’s heart. His eyes frosted over, the blue depths turning icy cold. It was like all his humanity had suddenly up and left the building, and he was considering tossing common sense out of the window and launching a fist at the arrogant cop’s face.