The Slaying Game by Faith Gardner

Author:Faith Gardner [Gardner, Faith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mirror House Press
Published: 2023-09-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 29

“Oh my fucking God,” I say as Teddy and I stand outside Dry, stunned and staring at the ambulance leaving and the police talking to the pigtailed bartender, who’s in tears. Across the street, Esmerelda and Daisy’s faces are pressed up against the picture window to get a load of the scene. My heart’s beating so fast that for a moment, I swear I’m going to faint.

“That was … that was a lot of drama for a bar with no alcohol,” Teddy finally manages.

“I need to get out of here,” I say.

“Sure, sure.”

We walk up the street. I’m sure Daisy saw me and she’s shitting her vintage granny panties because I was supposed to be working this afternoon but right now I don’t care. About anything. All I can think about is that woman with a face that looked like raw meat, the way she cried the word help.

A sting intensifies behind my eyeballs. I blink to keep away the tears. It’s my fault, isn’t it? It’s all my fault.

“I think that concrete block was meant for me,” I say to Teddy.

“What?”

“The same thing happened at my work. Concrete block through the window.”

“Yeah, well, someone lit a trash can on fire in front of my condo but that doesn’t mean it was meant for me.”

With a tug on my jacket sleeve, Teddy brings me to a stop. We’re standing in front of a rock-climbing gym. Through the window, there are smiling, happy, fit people and they’re a dozen feet away from me and a world away from me at the same time.

“Look at me,” Teddy says.

Reluctantly, I meet his gaze.

“That wasn’t for you,” he says slowly, the way you might talk down a person standing on a ledge. “You have enough to worry about, forget about that. You’re doing that paranoid thing where you think everything’s about you.”

“People are dying all around me,” I say, clenching my fists, wishing there were a punching bag. “It’s not crazy to think I could be next and don’t you dare.”

Teddy clenches his jaw so tight his facial muscles flex.

“I need to go somewhere and think,” I say. “Alone.”

He opens his mouth, surely to protest, but I cut him off before he can start.

“I’ll be your alibi if it’s just a phone call, Teddy, but I’m not doing more than that. I’m sorry about Genesis, I’m sorry, I …”

The volcano is about to erupt so I shake my head and wave at him and hurry up the street toward the BART station, a long jog that I hope will exhaust my anxiety. It doesn’t. Pretty sure I could do a triathlon right now and it wouldn’t make a difference.

The stress that has built, the things that are floating around in my head, are too much to bear. It takes every ounce of willpower for me to not go into fuck it mode and stop by the liquor store on the walk home. The concrete block, the injured woman, Genesis found dead in the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.