Page 36 of The Final Cut

I pull the sweatshirt over my head.

Slowly.

The gray fabric slides up my ribs, over my breasts, catches for one second at my elbows before I free myself and let it fall to the floor. I am wearing the bra Sonny helped me into hours ago, delicate and ridiculous under everything that happened after. Its lace is torn near one strap. There is a faint smear of old blood along the side where the sweatshirt rubbed against skin.

Ever’s hand tightens around the axe handle.

I kick off the too-big sneakers.

One. Then the other.

My borrowed sweatpants go next, pushed down over my hips and left in a soft heap around my feet. I step out of them and stand in the bedroom light wearing torn lace, bruises, and a look I know he can read from the clearing.

Come here.

His chest rises once. Then he sets the axe down.

Carefully.

That carefulness does obscene things to my pulse. He starts toward the house.

I turn before he reaches the porch.

The bathroom light glows warm over black tile and white towels. I walk into it without looking back, leaving my clothes on the bedroom floor and the blinds wide open behind me.

CHAPTER SEVEN

EVER

I walk away because I’d end up being cruel if I stayed.

Reva stands in the range lights with broken china at her feet and that word still hanging between us. No. Small word. Hard word. The kind that can save a life or end one, depending on who listens and who doesn’t.

Every part of me wants to turn back. Every part of me wants to put my body between her and the entire fucking world, even the parts of the world she keeps trying to run toward with her bare hands and her bleeding heart. Cal is in a hospital bed. Delia is gone. Isabel has already reached past every wall we built and put blood in the way.

Reva wants to move.

I understand that in my bones.

Standing still while someone you love is in danger feels like rot. It gets under the skin. It makes the body turn on itself, desperate to do anything except wait. I know that feeling. I have lived on it for years.

The difference is that Reva wants to run toward Delia.

I want to keep Reva breathing.

My need wins.

That sounds simple in my head. It is ugly in reality. It means I’m going to piss her off. It means I’m going to stand in doorways she wants to walk through. It means I’ll drag my own fear into the open and let her hate the shape of it, if that hatred is what keeps her from putting herself in Isabel’s hands.

I make it past the corner of the cabin before my control starts tearing at the seams.

The shed is built into the side of the property, half-hidden behind wax myrtle and cypress, its rough exterior matching the cabin’s lie. I key in the code, open the door, and breathe in the smell of oil, cut wood, damp rope, and metal. Tools line one wall in locked racks, and fuel cans are locked in a vented cabinet. Stacked firewood sits along the back, most of it old, dry, barely touched.

Nash had the stove put in because the first winter after he bought this place, a storm knocked power out along half the coast for two days. The generator handled most of it, but Nash does not like relying on one solution when five will do. The wood stove in the main room has been used maybe three times.

There is enough wood stacked to heat the place for a month, if we even needed a fire. We don’t need a fire. I just need to vent some frustration.

I pull my shirt off and toss it to the floor, then take the axe from the wall.