Carter Reed (Carter Reed 1)

Absentmindedly, my hand found Mallory’s exposed and bleeding knee. I patted it to soothe her, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from him. I had killed him. I had killed someone. I couldn’t think it or comprehend it, but everything was wrong. I should’ve been at the gym. I should’ve been trying to flirt with the new trainer, but I had been tired. I skipped the gym, just this once, and came home instead. When I saw his car, I almost turned around. I hated Jeremy Dunvan. He was connected to the local mob and he treated Mallory like crap. Still, I hadn’t gone back to the gym. I figured I could sneak inside. They were always in her room anyway.

Jeremy’s face had fallen towards us somehow. I remembered that she had shoved him away from her so his body bent at an awkward angle, but his eyes looked at me. He was dead so they were vacant, but he could still see me. I knew it. A shiver went down my spine as I looked the guy I had murdered in the eye. He was damning me to hell with those eyes.

“Em,” Mallory sobbed.

This time her crying broke through my walls. The sound was now deafening to me. My heart picked up. I worried that they could hear in the next apartment, maybe below us or above us. They were going to call the police. We should call the police, but no—I had killed someone. No, I had killed Jeremy Dunvan. We couldn’t call anyone.

I found her hand and gripped it hard. One of them was cold and clammy. Mine. My hand was pale while hers was warm with blood. I turned and saw she had her other hand to her mouth. She kept taking gulping breaths as she tried to contain her sobbing.

“We have to go.”

My voice sounded harsh to my ears. I flinched from the fierceness in it.

She nodded, still sobbing, still gulping, still bleeding.

“We have to go.” My hand squeezed hers. “Now.”

Her head jerked in another nod, but neither of us moved. I didn’t think my legs worked anymore.

Everything after that was blurry, only remembered in flashes.

We were sitting in a gas station parking lot as we looked at each other. Mallory needed to be cleaned up. Did we go to the hospital? Did I need a camera to prove that she’d been raped? Then she started crying some more, and I remembered who I had killed. Jeremy’s father would c

ome for us. No police would help us, not when half of them worked for Jeremy’s father, who worked for the Bartel Family. His body would be found in our apartment, I hadn’t the stomach to dispose of it.

The bathroom was connected to the outside so I had to get the key. She couldn’t be seen like this. One of the two lightbulbs didn’t work so the lighting wasn’t the best, but I used my phone as I inspected every bruise on her body. She was covered from the top of her head to the two large welts on her calves. When I saw them and looked up, she whispered, “He kicked me.”

I got Mallory sunglasses and a scarf to cover her head. She looked like she was from a different country, but it hid the damage. No one spared us a second glance as we went into a diner and ordered two coffees. My stomach growled, but I couldn’t eat. Mallory’s hands shook so much she couldn’t pick up the cup so both of our coffees grew cold as we sat there. I’d grown numb long ago, but her lip still quivered. It’d been quivering for hours now.

It was past midnight. Neither of us ordered food. When the servers changed, I ordered a new coffee. This time I could finally sip it. Mallory gasped. My eyes shot to hers and then I felt the warmth in my mouth. I had burnt myself, but I barely felt it. After my second cup, I waited ten minutes before I picked it up. I knew it wouldn’t burn me then. Mallory still couldn’t pick hers up.

It was morning now. Both of our phones rang, but we only looked at them. I couldn’t speak. I could barely order more coffee from the new server. Mallory’s lip had stopped quivering, but I knew her hands still shook so she kept them in her lap. Then she choked out as she reminded me to go to the bathroom. We went together.

We were back in the car again. The staff had started to whisper about us so we left. We didn’t want them to call the police, but now we didn’t know where to go again. Then Mallory said, “Ben. We can go to Ben’s.” I looked over. “Are you sure?” My hand was so cold. I barely felt the steering wheel when I turned the car around. She nodded, some tears slipped down again. She had started crying when we left the diner. She said, “Yes. He’ll help us. I know it.” So we went to her co-worker’s house.

The force of what happened hit me full blast after we had been at Ben’s for a few hours. He opened the door, took one look at Mallory, and swept her up in his arms. She’d been sobbing ever since, and now all of us were huddled around his kitchen table. He draped a blanket over both of them at some point, but I couldn’t remember when.

As she told him what happened through her sobs, I slumped in my chair. Jeremy Dunvan. He had been living twenty-four hours ago, breathing. Oh my god. I had killed him—I felt punched in the stomach. No. I felt like someone tied up my hands and legs, threw me in the highway and waited as a bus ran over me, and then ran over me again. And again.

I was going to die. It was a matter of time.

Franco Dunvan worked for the Bartel Family. They killed my brother. It was my turn now. Icy panic seared through me. I couldn’t hear Mallory anymore. It had been in defense. He was going to kill her. He’d already been raping her. I killed him because he would’ve killed me too, but it didn’t matter. As I started struggling to breathe, I tried to remain logical. The police wouldn’t have helped. Why did we take pictures of her bruises then? What did it matter? None of it did. We ran. We should keep running.

“We have to go, Mals,” I choked out.

She looked up from Ben’s chest. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, and if possible, she paled even more. “We can’t.”

“We have to.” They were going to hunt us down and kill us.

“Please, Tomino, please.” My brother had begged for his life, but they shoved him to his knees and took a bat to him. AJ watched me the whole time. As he stared past the alley where they found him, we both knew they couldn’t see me. He made me crawl behind a vent before they saw him in the alley. My hands gripped each other as I kept myself from crawling out and helping him. He shook his head. He knew what I wanted to do.

“Emma!”

I jerked back to the present and saw Ben frowning at me. “What?”

Everything seemed so surreal. It was a dream. All of it was a dream, it had to be.

He snapped at me, “Christ, the least you can do is be there for her.” Then he pushed off from his chair and stormed past me.