Beneath the Stars (Falling Stars 4)

But in the last year, something had changed. Noah going to Dalton and showing up at the bar. Then the pictures he sent of my mother right after I’d gone to visit Genny the last time. The texts he’d been sending that seemed unhinged.

Different.

And now…this.

This.

I cracked in two, body buckling at the middle. My hand shot out to the nightstand to keep me from falling.

Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

But I had.

I’d fallen hard and completely, and now I’d brought that destruction to Maggie.

To my mama.

My spirit moaned and the room swam.

A flood of torment.

But it was purpose that filled me when another text pinged through.

It was a dropped pin for the location.

A gauntlet thrown.

A call to war.

My past thirty miles away lurking in the desert converging with what I’d been fool enough to hope could be my future.

Let’s finish this. Come alone, asshole. Maybe I’ll let you decide which one it is going to be.

Which one it was going to be?

Cocksucker had it all wrong.

It was gonna be him.

We drove like a silent hurricane through the night. Spirits whipping and lashing and gaining in strength.

Deadly.

Lethal.

The threat of it emanated from our beings as we blazed through the deep, deep darkness from Tybee in the direction of where I’d been summoned to the feet of wickedness.

Fury hissed and crackled.

Every muscle in our bodies were rigid.

Taut.

Nerves set to high alert.

Our fists clenched and our hearts beating an erratic drum of vengeance.

Violence this palpable, acrid scent in the broiling air.

Richard hadn’t hesitated when I’d knocked at his door and I’d told him I needed backup.

Dude my oldest, closest friend.

One who got it.

One who’d always stand at my side just the same as I’d always stand at his.

Now, where he sat in the backseat, viciousness seeped from his pores. “Funny how we seem to keep gettin’ ourselves in these same situations,” he rumbled, rushing an aggressive hand through his hair. “Wasn’t but six months ago you two were climbin’ in next to me so we could get to Violet. How’s it trouble always finds us?”

I grunted. “Think it’s because guys like us beg for it.”

Royce seethed from the front seat. He kept rubbing his palms on his thighs, itchin’ and antsy, like he was having a hard time remaining sitting, wishing he could throw himself out the door and be exactly where we needed to be.

“It’s greed, man. Money.” Royce spat each of them as an answer. “That’s how. Wrong people get a taste of it, and it becomes a disease. That’s what happened to my mother. The dollar signs in her eyes shined so much brighter than the face of her daughter.”

Rage curled my hands tighter on the steering wheel, trees whipping by so fast that the landscape blurred in a whorl of thrumming disorder.

Refused to believe I was driving straight for tragedy.

Maggie and my mama. Maggie and my mama.

My heart stuttered and sped and made me feel like it was gettin’ cleaved from the center of my chest.

Nothing was going to happen to them. Nothin’. I’d die first.

I made a sharp left, the tires squealing, our pulses thundering when we realized we were getting close.

So fucking close, and I had no idea what length this maniac would go.

Tension bound the cab of the car. Anxiety suffocating. Nothing but fuel to feed the fire that burned and ravaged and became this violent aggression that raged through our veins.

We were on this desolate two-lane road with nothing in sight but trees.

I slowed, my approach filled with caution, breaths turning ragged as I watched the map lead me to this destiny.

To my girl.

Girl who’d changed everything. Who’d made me want to believe.

Fuck. She had. Had made me believe that there might be redemption for the damned.

Not a chance.

Only thing that mattered then was setting her and my mama free. Maybe Genny in the process.

My skin crawled with desperation. Shivers racin’ my flesh like my cells couldn’t sit still with the upheaval.

“Nothing is going to happen to them.” Royce’s voice was hard. Raw and cutting.

“No. Won’t let it happen.”

The fierce turmoil of it spun.

The promise that was made.

I slowed when I saw the small road I was supposed to take comin’ up on the right.

Apprehension rolled. A tidal wave of it. So fast and huge that I felt like it was knockin’ me from my feet. Catching me up in the undertow and suckin’ me to the darkest depths. To the place where those demons lived. Where they’d cried out for years. Where I’d always known I’d destroy the good.

Never fuckin’ strong enough.

“This is it,” Royce grumbled.

The road was nothin’ but a break in the trees. A dirt path carved out by old tire tracks. Grasses grew up in the middle, making the lane barely visible.

I slowed to a crawl as I made the turn, the low profile of my car scraping on the uneven terrain.