Page 26 of Under Rusted Stars

“Look at you, Olivia. You have a backbone when you are away from Jason,” he muses.

“Get the fuck out!” I scream at him.

I turn and sprint to my room, but before I can get the door shut, he kicks it. The door hits me in the head and sends me back on my ass. I try to scramble up, but he is on top of me so fast with a gun pressed against my forehead, between my eyes. “Please don’t kill me. Please,” I cry.

“Understand me when I say I will pull the fucking trigger,” he growls. “If you say my name to that fucking detective, I will blow your goddamn brains out and ship your severed head to your parents. Do you understand me, Olivia?”

“Yes,” I choke out through tears.

“You think Jason has connections?” he asks. “This is my fucking world, and I will be damned if I’m going to let some bitch take me down.”

“I won’t say anything. I swear to God, I won’t,” I cry. “Please…”

“I hear everything, bitch. Remember that,” he says. I nod rapidly, and he starts to get up. He suddenly aims the gun and fires, and I scream so loudly that my voice breaks. I quickly fall into a spiral of my sobs coming out like I’m in pain, but I’m numb. My ears are ringing, so everything sounds distant.

I am curled up on the floor, panicking so hard that I cannot breathe. I start to flail and thrash when someone touches me, but they don’t disappear. I am scooped up, and warmth envelops me.

“Shhh. I’ve got you, Liv. Just breathe,” Bodhi whispers as he holds me. We are lying on the bed, and he has me lying in front of him so I can bury my face in his chest. I am shaking so hard that I am nearly convulsing, so his grip on me never loosens. After a while, I go silent, and he makes a call.

“Hey, can you come to the house right now… No, I went to get food from the bar for Liv and me. I got back, and you could hear her down the block screaming. The place is fucking trashed, and she was on her bedroom floor screaming… No, there's a goddamn bullet hole in the floor. It was right next to her head, Rhett… No, I grabbed her some clothes and brought her over to the house… We are lying in my bed. She’s shaking like a damn leaf, but she doesn’t seem to be hurt…”

I hear Rhett say something about Jeramy, and I snap up to shake my head. “No,” I whisper. “No one.”

“No, just you first,” he says. “She is saying no, so I’m sure she has a reason… Alright, man… Bye.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t apologize,” he says softly. “What happened?”

I relay everything that was said and done. I trust Bodhi to keep quiet until this can be worked out. I know I can’t handle this alone, and I am not going to jail for Jason.

“He was probably looking for my old phone,” I say. “I… So… before I ran, I sent myself all of Jason’s files. He kept a record of everything he had me do. It’s client names, how they paid, what they paid for, how much Jason got, their feedback on me, and referrals…”

“Oh fuck, Liv,” he says. “But it's only on your phone?”

“No,” I say. “I have two backups.”

“Good. That’s good,” he says. “Do you think Jeramy is dirty? He seemed to know an awful lot about what was said, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Unless Rhett or Dan is in on it, it had to have been Jeramy.”

“Shit,” he sighs. “Okay… So, what now?”

“Now… I either risk Jeramy, risk jail, or run,” I say.

“Ah… I might have an option,” he says carefully.

“I’m listneing…”

“A woman I used to fuck semi-regularly works for the FBI…” he says slowly.

“Is she a good agent?” I ask.

“Yeah. She works for sex crimes, so she deals with trafficking,” he says. “If I call, she will automatically think I am wanting to hook up, so I don’t want you to be upset if she’s…”

“Have you seen your dick, Bodhi?” I ask. “Of course she’s hooked on you and your damn diaphragm buster over here.”

“Mhmm,” he laughs. “Are you okay with that, though?”