“I think so too.” My stomach churned. Another few feet and my trembling hands would be wrapped around the statue. I inched sideways toward the mantle.
Her face twisted into an ugly scowl and her knuckles stretched white over the handle of the knife. I inhaled sharply and lunged for the statue. Before I could swing it, I heard a loud pop then a red spot spread over Rena’s chest. Her eyes rolled, her head tilted and she crumpled to the floor.
“You okay?” Chait shoved his gun in his pocket, grasped my shoulders and studied my face.
“I guess so,” I choked out. “I may not be so good though when she wakes up. She wants to kill me.”
“She’s not going to wake up.” He gently rubbed the tops of my arms.
“You only shot her once.” My shaky voice rose in pitch. “That doesn’t kill us. Right?”
He grinned. “Ye of little faith. I trained with an eight-hundred-year-old weapons master who’d had centuries to invent weird weapons.” Chait reached into another pocket and pulled out what looked like a regular bullet. “The lead part here? It’s actually pretty thin. See this hollow tip?” Chait touched the end with his finger. “It spreads on impact, like shrapnel, and releases a nasty poison.” Chait’s words took on a reverent tone. “You get a nice, even distribution.”
“It kills them instantly?” I asked, a bit unnerved by his bluntness.
“No.” He slipped the bullet back into his pocket. “It paralyzes them right away though. The poison keeps working and within a few minutes, death.”
I crept closer to Rena and stood where I could see her staring eyes, then I turned to Chait. “Just like that? But you killed your own partner.”
He grunted. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”
“Why?” I had to keep talking. Anything to distract myself from Rena and her dead eyes at my feet.
“She was about to kill you.” He gave me a look that told me he couldn’t believe I’d ask such a stupid question.
“Rena was on your side and I haven’t announced my choice yet.” Spent and wobbly from the strain of the last few minutes, I dropped to the cushy arm of the sofa.
His mouth fell open, then he shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that. I want what’s right. The thing is, Rena was only in it for Rena. I got tired of having to watch my back when she was supposed to be looking out for me. Not a very good partner if you think about it. You never know when someone like that will decide they’re done with you.”
I kept my gaze trained up and away from Rena. “As I found out today. Now what do we do? We can’t leave her here. My parents could come home any second.”
He scratched the sparse stubble on his chin. “I have something in my car. Be right back.”
As if roots anchored me in place, I stared at Rena and her glazed, down-cast eyes. Maybe it would be less gross if her eyes eyelids were closed. Leaving the support of the couch, I reached down. She inhaled and I leaped away yelping, my heart pounding.
“What happened?” Chait was by my side in a flash, dropping a tarp next to Rena.
I threw myself at him and buried my face in his chest. “She made a noise, like air whooshing in.”
He wrapped himself around me, his chin resting on my head. “She wasn’t coming back to life. That was her dying breath. Literally.”
“Oh, that’s great. I just watched the exact moment of her death.” I whimpered.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Yeah, how did you sneak in here without us hearing?” His heartbeat in my ear soothed me.
“Like I said, I trained with a really old guy. He couldn’t stay alive that long unless he knew how to go stealth.”
“Rena should’ve sensed you,” I said.
“She was distracted, you know, with trying to murder you and all.”
“Things might’ve ended differently if you’d knocked first and waited for me to let you in.” So many other things could’ve changed the outcome. If I hadn’t thought to stall her or if I’d said something different and pissed her off, she might have moved faster and… What if Chait hadn’t arrived in time to save me? If he had arrived ten minutes later, could I have fended off Rena by myself? Or would I be dead now? So many what ifs. But I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on them. “How’d you know you needed to go stealth?”
“Because we never leave without informing someone and we never go out alone. I couldn’t think of any reason Rena would go AWOL unless she was up to no good. When I saw her car parked out front—”
“Right in front of my house?” I asked. “That’s so obvious.”
“She probably thought parking further away and hiding the car would give her less time to kill you.” Chait sighed. “I thought it was suspicious that she knew about your sister while no one else did. I had this nagging feeling she’d been involved in that somehow.”
“You were right. Rena was jealous and admitted she killed my sister. She was in love with David and thought he liked Zoe. Same reason she wanted to get rid of me.” A strange sound rose from my throat. I shuddered and lifted my face to his. “Why didn’t I sense her, Chait? I should’ve known she was there. I’m a terrible witch. Useless.” My heart felt heavy. “If I joined Boris, I’d probably be doing you guys a favor.”
“She’s a Blocker. You couldn’t have known.” He brushed a hand over my hair and I dropped my head to his chest again.
“What’s going on here?”
I’d been too absorbed in myself to notice Hayden’s arrival. Relief filled me and I ran from Chait’s arms and into Hayden’s.
“Whoa, baby, what happened?” He held me firmly, his arms crossing behind me. Then he saw her. “Is that Rena?”
“Yeah. While you were busy doing whatever, I saved your girlfriend from becoming dead, like her.” Chait’s tone held a bitter edge.
Hayden tensed against me and I wiggled out of his embrace. The last thing I wanted was to referee another pissing contest between them. “Can you guys bicker later? Maybe after we get rid of the body?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hayden
Chait couldn’t have known that Tessa belonged to me now, but I didn’t care whether or not he was innocent. He’d saved Tessa’s life, but I felt like he’d gone beyond and used it to his advantage.
I wanted to kill him.
He stood near the bushes outside Tessa’s bedroom, waiting to catch the body from the window as I shoved it through to him. He’d already moved his car into the driveway, so we could carry the lump of tarp-wrapped Rena to the wooden gate, then lug her several yards down the driveway and drop the murdering bitch into his trunk.
Holding one end of the load, I stopped. “I find it interesting how you pretended not to sense me when I got here,” I growled. “You knew I’d arrived but you didn’t bother telling Tessa. No, you kept holding her. Nice, Chait.”
“Why would I need to tell her that you were there? She could sense you as well as I could,” Chait scoffed. “Didn’t it occur to you that she might want you to catch us?”
I dropped my end of Rena and pounced, got him in a chokehold and pinned him to the ground.
“Hayden, what are you doing?” Tessa whispered as loudly as she could without alerting the neighbors.
That only pissed me off more. If I hadn’t been so distracted by fury, I would’ve known she’d come outside. I’d bet anything Chait had known. Again. Son of a bitch.
Tessa swatted my back. “Let him go.”
I did — reluctantly — and resumed my hold on Rena. In silence we dumped her in the trunk.
Chait closed it, then turned to face me. He blew out a breath and met my eyes. “It’s not his fault.” He switched to Tessa. “That was a crappy stunt I pulled. If someone was holding my girl like that, I would’ve tried to beat his ass too. Worse probably.” He rounded to the side of the car and opened the door.