The Inheritance Games (The Inheritance Games #1)(59)

“I’ll put on some tea,” she said. My heart pounding, I wondered if it was safe to drink anything she gave me.

“You okay with me playing medic?” Oren asked, settling me in a chair. “I’m sure Alisa could arrange for some fancy plastic surgeon.”

I wasn’t okay with any of this. Everyone had been so sure that I wasn’t going to get ax-murdered that I’d let my guard down. I’d pushed back the thought that people had killed over far less than what I’d inherited. I’d let every single one of the Hawthorne brothers past my defenses.

This wasn’t Xander. I couldn’t get my body to calm down, no matter how hard I tried. Jameson was right next to me. Nash doesn’t want the money, and Grayson wouldn’t…

He wouldn’t.

“Avery?” Oren prompted, a note of concern working its way into his deep voice.

I tried to stop my mind from racing. I felt sick—physically sick. Stop panicking. I had a piece of wood in my flesh. I would have preferred not having a piece of wood in my flesh. Pull it together.

“Do what you need to do to stop the bleeding,” I told Oren. My voice only shook a little.

Removing the bark hurt. The disinfectant hurt a hell of a lot more. The med kit included a shot of local anesthetic, but there was no amount of anesthetic that could alter my brain’s awareness of the needle when Oren began stitching my skin back together.

Focus on that. Let it hurt. After a moment, I looked away from Oren and tracked Mrs. Laughlin’s movements. Before handing me my tea, she laced it—heavily—with whiskey.

“Done.” Oren nodded to my cup. “Drink that.”

He’d brought me here because he trusted the Laughlins more than he trusted the Hawthornes. He was telling me that it was safe to drink. But he’d told me a lot of things.

Someone shot at me. They tried to kill me. I could be dead. My hands were shaking. Oren steadied them. His eyes knowing, he lifted my teacup to his own mouth and took a drink.

It’s fine. He’s showing me that it’s fine. Unsure if I’d ever be able to kick myself out of fight-or-flight mode, I forced myself to drink. The tea was hot. The whiskey was strong.

It burned all the way down.

Mrs. Laughlin gave me an almost maternal look, then scowled at Oren. “Mr. Laughlin will want to know what happened,” she said, as if she herself were not at all curious about why I was bleeding at her kitchen table. “And someone needs to clean up the poor girl’s face.” She gave me a sympathetic look and clucked her tongue.

Before, I’d been an outsider. Now she was hovering like a mother hen. All it took was a few bullets.

“Where is Mr. Laughlin?” Oren asked, his tone conversational, but I heard the question—and the implication underneath. He’s not here. Is he a good shot? Would he—

As if summoned, Mr. Laughlin walked through the front door and let it slam behind him. There was mud on his boots.

From the woods?

“Something’s happened,” Mrs. Laughlin told her husband calmly.

Mr. Laughlin looked at Oren, Jameson, and me—in that order, the same order in which his wife had taken in our presence—and then poured himself a glass of whiskey. “Security protocols?” he asked Oren gruffly.

Oren gave a brisk nod. “In full force.”

He turned back to his wife. “Where’s Rebecca?” he asked.

Jameson looked up from his own cup of tea. “Rebecca’s here?”

“She’s a good girl,” Mr. Laughlin grunted. “Comes to visit, the way she should.”

So where is she? I thought.

Mrs. Laughlin rested a hand on my shoulder. “There’s a bathroom through there, dear,” she told me quietly, “if you want to clean up.”





CHAPTER 54


The door Mrs. Laughlin had sent me through didn’t lead directly to a bathroom. It led to a bedroom that held two twin beds and little else. The walls were painted a light purple; the twin comforters were quilted from squares of fabric in lavender and violet.

The bathroom door was slightly ajar.

I walked toward it, so painfully aware of my surroundings that I felt like I could have heard a pin drop a mile away. There’s no one here. I’m safe. It’s okay. I’m okay.

Inside the bathroom, I checked behind the shower curtain. There’s no one here, I told myself again. I’m okay. I managed to get my cell phone out of my pocket and called Max. I needed her to answer. I needed not to be alone with this. What I got was voicemail.

I called seven times, and she didn’t pick up.

Maybe she couldn’t. Or maybe she doesn’t want to. That hit me almost as hard as looking in the mirror and seeing my blood-streaked, dirt-smeared face. I stared at myself.

I could hear the echo of gunfire.

Stop. I needed to wash—my hands, my face, the streaks of blood on my chest. Turn on the water, I told myself sternly. Pick up the washcloth. I willed my body to move.

I couldn’t.

Hands reached past me to turn on the faucet. I should have jumped. I should have panicked. But somehow, my body relaxed into the person behind me.

“It’s okay, Heiress,” Jameson murmured. “I’ve got you.”

I hadn’t heard Jameson come in. I wasn’t entirely sure how long I’d been standing there, frozen.