Real Girl (Aston Creek High 4)

“Okay, but I wanted it stated for the record that if you die, this is on Lucien, not me.”

“Done, now get on with it.”

The tweezers in my back start moving around and I groan as they latch onto the bullet, at least I hope it’s the bullet. If this chick pulls out something that’s meant to be in there, I’m going to be pissed.

Luce gives a hard tug and the tweezers slip off the bullet making me groan. “Shit, sorry,” she says, digging them straight back in and adding a little more vodka to the mix.

She tries again and this time I feel it loosening until finally, it’s wedged out of my back and dropped down on the towel beside me. I can’t help but stare at the little fucker. It’s amazing how something so small can cause so much damage.

Luce goes crazy with the vodka and presses down, making sure I’m not about to bleed all over her pool house and after she’s convinced that my death isn’t about to be on her conscious, she pulls back. “I think I need to stitch you up a bit.”

I groan. “Seriously. It’s not enough to get shot. Now you want to poke at me with a fucking needle.”

“Are you kidding? You just survived a bullet. I think the needle will be fine.”

Luce gets busy and when she finally presses a bandage over the wound, I feel like my world can come back into perspective. “You know, only a fucking lovestruck idiot would go running in there like you did.”

“Thanks but Blake beat you to the punch. He’s already given me the ‘I told you so’ bullshit.”

“Blake?” she questions, her brow raising. “You’re friends with him too? Is he alright?”

“He’s been better. Lucien did a number on his leg. He’ll be in the hospital for a while.”

“But what about basketball and the NBA?”

“Jury is still out on that one.”

“Shit,” she sighs, pulling herself up off the bed and helping me sit. She dashes into the kitchen and grabs a massive trash bag and starts hauling everything into it before finding the disinfectant and scrubbing the shit out of the place.

“So, you said you were talking to Skylah earlier today?” I question, watching her move around the pool house. “Does she have a phone you called her on or an email that I don’t know of?”

“Nah, I went over there,” she says. “Lucien had me ‘helping’ him to find her all this time. If I knew…” she lets out a sigh and gets back on track. “She hasn’t got anything, no phone, no email, no Facebook. She might as well not exist. I’m going to try to get back in there tomorrow and smuggle her a phone but I can’t guarantee that he’ll let me in now that he knows that I know what he did to her.”

“Shit. You’ll let me know, right?” I say, standing. “If you can get her a phone.”

“Yeah,” she says with a small nod. “I’ll text you the number.”

“Thanks.” I nod and start heading for the door.

Luce grunts at my back. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

I looked back at her, my brows furrowed. “Umm…home. Where does it look like I’m going?”

Luce shakes her head. “Don’t be fucking stupid. You’ll stay here tonight. You literally just got shot and Skylah told me you guys are from Aston Creek. I googled that shit and it’s a long fucking drive. I can’t let you drive in your condition, and besides, you drank nearly half a bottle of vodka. If the bullet didn’t kill you, then your driving will.”

Fuck.

“Make yourself at home, Cruz,” Luce says, seeing the resignation in my eyes.

I stride back in and drop my phone, keys, and wallet onto the table. “Fine, but if I’m staying, I’m going to need to eat, and a fucking big juicy steak sounds good right about now.”

Luce rolls her eyes and continues cleaning up the mess I’ve left behind and despite how shitty I feel about leaving her to do it, I let out a sigh and drop back down onto the edge of the bed.

There’s something I have to do first, and because Lucien’s bullet didn’t kill me, he just might.

I press my phone to my ear and wait for my best friend to answer the call, knowing that I’m going to have to explain exactly why I didn’t bring him along on this little death-defying, failed suicide mission. While those answers are clear as hell in my head, he’s not going to understand it when I tell him that I did it for his own safety.

“Yo, where the fuck have you been?” Damian demands, answering the call after the second ring.

I let out a heavy sigh. “You sitting down, man? I gotta tell you something.”

Chapter 9

Eleven fucking days.

He’s been gone for eleven days and my whole world has turned upside down. One minute he was here and the next…gone.