A Harmless Little Plan (Harmless #3)(22)

For me.

It’s Drew.

I’m covered in blood, all over my belly and thighs. I look like I got my period but it’s too far north, congealed in my navel, stroked along my lower ribs like warpaint, like feathers dragged through holiday paint.

I’m bleeding.

But I don’t feel like I’m bleeding.

John and Stellan are screaming. John has a gun at Drew’s head, pressed right against his temple, while Stellan’s holding his knife to Jane’s throat.

There’s a huge, human-sized hole in the wall, pipes in the way, tufts of pink insulation poking out like cotton candy, begging to be eaten.

Nothing makes sense. There are too many sounds, too many movements, so much motion and light and dark and space. The air’s scent is rife with blood and fear, all our musks mingling to make for sour promises and tangy loose ends. I don’t move because I don’t have a framework for what it means to move. I don’t speak because I’m not certain what words are.

I just look at Drew.

And he stares right back, unreadable.

Has he given up, too?

No. Impossible. He can’t have given up, because he wouldn’t have crashed through the wall. Wouldn’t have killed Blaine. Wouldn’t be standing there, chin jutting up, facing off with John and Stellan.

I know backup is coming. Mark and Silas? Someone else? Drew wouldn’t do this rogue.

“Hello!” A high-pitched, fake voice comes through the hole in the wall. “Is there a party in there? I just love -- ”

“We’ll be right there, Tiffany. Stay in your apartment. Go to the living room,” Drew yells.

“Fine,” she says, never coming into view, her voice full of bitter acceptance.

Stellan glances at Blaine’s body. A giant dark stain is pooling under him, right where his head is. The room’s turned into a dark tunnel, with two points of vision for me, so I’m not sure what I see. I reach up to rub my eyes and my hand is gooey.

Blood.

Blaine’s blood.

“What a good idea,” Stellan says slowly as John taps on his phone with one hand. “Let’s go over to Tiffany’s place.” He shoves Jane through the hole in the wall before she realizes it, her head whacking the wallboard, a long, angry scratch forming on her neck. I see it in slow motion.

Time is distorted.

Drew looks at my naked body with an expression of chilly evaluation. I search his eyes, needing any form of emotion to show. A twitch, a blink, a micro-expression that tells me he cares.

He’s a robot.

John and Stellan make us huddle in the other apartment’s living room, where Tiffany gives me a horrified shriek and screams, “Pete! What the fuck? I’m trying to get out of porn. I don’t do this torture shit!”

“Shut up!” John screams, the gun on Drew the entire time. “Say one more word, bitch, and I splatter his brains all over your couch.”

“But that couch isn’t paid for yet!” she wails, dissolving into a puddle on the floor.

Who is Pete? My brain isn’t working with all cylinders. I look at Drew, who looks at Tiffany.

Who winks at him.

Winks.

A wave of ice-cold nausea pours over me like someone’s dumped a bucket full of slush on my head. Is this a set-up? Is Drew in on this somehow? Is that why he came crashing through the wall – because he knew damn well that the guys took me to his apartment?

Because he let them?

How far does this game go?

All the tension in my body drains out and I sit on the couch.

“Hey! Blood!” Tiffany squeals.

I ignore her, grabbing a pillow and hugging it, wanting a tiny sliver of modesty. Of warmth.

Of something.

“This isn’t a snuff film, is it?” Alarm fills Tiffany’s wide eyes. “Because I didn’t sign on for anything like that.”

Her voice goes to a whisper as Stellan glares at her. “Shut up or I’ll shut you up,” he says.

She complies.

“I can’t believe he fucking killed Blaine,” John says to Stellan, clearly unraveling, his hair soaked with sweat, face oily, left eye twitching.

“You think he won’t kill us both if he gets the chance? We can’t give him that chance, John,” Stellan replies, dropping the knife from Jane’s throat. He shoves her toward me. She sits on the couch.

I move away.

“Lindsay, I swear I’m not in on this,” she says under her breath. “They threatened me once they figured out I was your Island contact. My mom had no choice because they -- ”

A loud popping sound, like a wet bag of sugar being tossed from a moving car, makes me jolt. Jane’s head rockets into my lap, a big indent in her forehead directly over her right eye. I didn’t know that bones could dent.

I reach up and touch my own eye socket, the one they reconstructed four years ago.

I guess I do know.

I didn’t see my own beating, though.

As Jane moans, the vibration from her throat makes my thighs tingle. Her head is on the pillow and she’s making this bizarre gagging sound. Her breathing speeds up, from zero to sixty, and then she starts to choke-scream, like she’s drowning.

It’s all happening in my lap and I can’t do anything but stare dumbly.

And then she passes out.