Page 669 of Lessons in Cruelty

It’s a joke. I should act like a human and laugh.

But I’m not in the fucking mood for people with enough joy left to joke with strangers.

“Second-degree murder,” I deadpan.

He laughs.

I don’t.

When I sit forward, grabbing the side of his headrest to hold myself steady, he flashes me some wary side-eye.

“Want to know how I did it?” I whisper. “It’s good. So good, they’ll never figure it was me.”

The driver’s smile dies. “Lady, I⁠—”

“Relax.” I sit back. “I’m just kidding.”

We drive in silence.

He asks no more questions, and for that, I tip him extra. Not like it’s my money.

The Airbnb is exactly how I left it this morning. Except for the handful of leaves that blow in through the door when I open it. Kai’s jersey—the one I wore under my hoodie yesterday—lies crumpled on the floor where I threw it.

It still smells like sex and Bastian.

I toss it in the machine with a bunch of other clothes and probably way too much laundry detergent. A leaf crunches under my boots, and that sends me into an irrational fury that has me snatching the broom out of the closet and sweeping the entire Airbnb.

Well, most of it.

I stop when a violent sweep under the bed pulls a leaf and the grocery list into the open.

Except…it’s not the grocery list.

It’s a note.

From Kai.

I sink down onto the edge of the bed to read it.

Hi!!!

Went to get breakfast!

Be back soon!

- K

Fuck.

Thatcher hadn’t been lying or setting me up.

Kai had come back.

A sob hits me so fast that if I hadn’t already been sitting, I’d be collapsing on the floor.

This is all my fault.

I sicked Bastian on Kai, and now Kai could go to jail because of me.