Page 136 of Wicked Promises
I slip in through the back door, careful to shut it soundlessly behind me. I creep through the kitchen and realize that everything in me has gone quiet. My hands aren’t shaking, my heart has slowed.
The sound of sirens is faint, but it raises goosebumps along my arms.
I duck down next to the fridge when Claire appears in the window.
“Get over here,” she snaps. “Who the hell called the police?”
“Oh, maybe anyone who walked by and saw you waving a gun around,” Caleb answers. “Not your brightest move.”
Holy shit. Grateful for that piece of information, but also—where the fuck did Claire get a gun? I wouldn’t know the first place to look for one, or how to use it.
She pivots. “Whatwasmy brightest move?”
“Hmm… probably using my mother the way you did. I can only assume you pushed her into this.”
“Me?” She laughs. “I waselatedwhen I discovered whose house we were going to. David and Iris Asher. They have pictures of the family on the wall, you know. David caught me staring at your photo one day and asked if I knew you. The whole story just poured out?—”
“Whole story? What, that you saw me once, a few weeks prior?”
My heart goes into my throat.
What am I doing, just crouching here? I came in to make a difference. To save Caleb from the evil bitch I thought was my foster sister.
“Claire,” I call, rising. I shove through the swinging doors. “Don’t shoot me.”
She’s behind the counter, just where I thought. And Caleb, between us, is on the floor. He leans against the wall, his wrists duct taped.
His eyebrows go up, but other than that, his face stays blank.
I hate that she’s made him put the mask back up.
“Well, well, well.” She sounds like she’s quoting a bad movie. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“Apt analogy, since apparently you like to think of me as a bird.”
She grins. “I knew you’d understand.”
“You wrote about it,” I continue. “Where you thought we wouldn’t find it.”
Her expression drops. “You went in my room?”
Always so possessive.
Any feeling of sisterly love I was holding on to drains away. Claire will kill us all if she’s allowed to continue.
“I did. Found your newspaper shrine, the picture…”
Am I purposefully instigating her?
Yep. Anything to get her away from Caleb.
She stalks toward me, shoving the gun into my chest. “Sit down.”
Cold fear pulses through me for the first time. There’s a gleam in her eyes that I haven’t seen before. It makes me think she’s been dreaming about this moment for a long time.
I start to sit next to Caleb, and she screams, lashing out. She shoves me away, still shrieking.
“You don’t get it! He’s not yours anymore!”