Carter Reed

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.
    What had happened?
    “Carter’s going to come for you.”
    I went back to that alley. I heard my brother warn them as he gasped for breath. He was choking on the blood, but they laughed at him. They fucking laughed!
    “Whatever. You’re a nobody, Martins. You’re a waste of space. Your boy’s going to get the same as you if he comes after us. In fact, we want him to come to us, don’t we, boys?” Tomino had spread his arms out wide and the other three snickered with him. Then he lifted the bat once more.
    AJ looked at me. He mouthed the words, “I love you.”
    Then the bat came down at full speed.
    I fell off my chair and was slammed back to the present again. I was on the floor now.
    “Jesus, Emma. What the fuck’s your problem?” Ben grabbed my arm and hauled me up. He pointed to the bedroom. “I finally got her to sleep and now you’re going to wake her up? Do you know the hell she’s been through? I can’t believe you. Have some consideration.”
    Have some consideration?
    I yanked my arm away from him and glared back. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Was he? He had to have been. I shoved him back and then followed to get in his face. “I killed him, you asshole. I killed that rapist for her. I saved her life!”
    Now I needed someone to save mine.

When I woke,