Page 70 of Dreadful

Her gaze drifts slowly across the garage—the stained concrete, the couch pushed against the far wall—before settling back on me. Her eyes are flat, cold. The kind of look that used to make my stomach drop when I was eleven.

I don’t drop anything now. I just lift a brow.

A faint tremor moves through her left eyelid. Her mouth turns down at the corners as if pulled by strings. “Fine. How much?”

I turn toward the door, my boots scuffing against the floor. “I’ll bill you,” I say without looking back. “Tell your boyfriend to meet me in the driveway in five.”

TWENTY-FOUR

RAFE

The first sound Troy makes is a low groan.

I look up from my phone as his head lifts, blinking slowly against the dim motel light. His gaze starts moving before the rest of him does.

Bed, dresser, closed curtains, down, and finally—me.

His chin dips toward the zip ties securing his wrists to the chair, then the plastic sheeting spread across the carpet beneath his feet. He gives each one a little tug, testing my work before his eyes come back to mine.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he snaps, but it’s all annoyance instead of fear.

How curious.

“I wish.” I slip my phone into my pocket and stand. The movement pulls at my ribs, but by the time I'm upright, the ache settles back into something I can ignore.

Bellamy has been waiting in my bed for hours, and I'm stuck in a motel room with Coco's boyfriend.

There are a select few ways tonight could've gone worse.

“I'm gonna be honest with you, man. I'm tired, and I have somewhere I'd really fucking like to be right now.” I pick my gun up from the dresser and check the magazine before sliding it back into place. “So I'd appreciate it if we could make this quick.”

Troy’s gaze follows the gun. “Make what quick?”

“The part where you tell me what the fuck you’ve been doing in our house for the last two weeks.”

His forehead creases. “Spending time with your mother?”

“Yeah.” I nod once, raising the gun and pointing it at his head. “That answer’s gonna make this take longer.”

Troy lets his head fall back with a long exhale. “What the fuck do you want to know?”

“That’s better.”

I set the second chair down directly in front of him, close enough that our knees almost touch. The vinyl seat creaks under my weight as I settle in, the gun a familiar, heavy presence across my thigh.

“What’s your favorite color, Troy?”

His eyes narrow as his gaze darts around the room. “Blue. Why?”

“Be more specific.”

He rears back a little. “Light blue.”

“Favorite food?”

Troy’s brow furrowed, a slow, deliberate crease forming between his eyebrows. “I don’t know. Pasta.”

I hum a little under my breath in response.