Page 33 of Hunter or Hunted

I plucked the piece of glass, no bigger than a splinter, from her foot. Carefully laying it on the dish towel, I said, “Sorry.”

Her grunt told me she didn’t believe that.

“But you hate blood.” I poured some rubbing alcohol over the cut. She winced. Fanning it with my hand, I dug around for the antibiotic cream and a Band-Aid. By the time I found them, the alcohol had evaporated. “So how were you planning on doing it again?”

“I haven’t planned it,” she said. Head still turned the other way, words slow and slurred, she let out a shaking breath. “That’s what I came to you for. But you don’t want to help, so don’t worry about it.”

“‘Don’t worry about it,’” I said under my breath in a mocking falsetto. Standing, I grabbed the plate of chicken off the counter and set it in front of her. “I’m always gonna worry about you. And right now, I’m worried that you’re going to pass out. You’ve barely eaten anything in days. Finish your chicken.”

“Don’t tell me what to do.” She took the chicken, and she bit into it.

Laughing, I grabbed the broom and started sweeping. “If you’re going to do it, you need a plan, don’t you?”

“Why do you care?” she managed between chews. “I thought this was—in your words—batshit crazy. You didn’t want to be involved.”

No, I didn’t. Not really.

After I killed Jason, I promised myself I would never do it again. Something had died with me that day. Taking a life meant losing a part of yourself. Just like part of me died every time I had to euthanize a pet.

More of me died when I euthanized a pet than when I’d killed Jason, honestly.

But Gwen was going to do this. She hadn’t spouted it one day in a moment of fury. She had thought, had contemplated, and she’d decided. She was going to kill Evan.

And while I wouldn’t jump up and down about it, I wanted her to get away with it.

“Because I care about you,” I said. “And the death penalty is on the table in Montana.”

All the shards now piled together next to the sink, I grabbed some paper towels from the counter and tossed them on top. Careful not to cut myself, I bound them together and tossed them into the can. “If you’re going to do it, I don’t want you to go to jail for it. So if you can’t handle the blood, how are you going to do it?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure Evan is a big guy.” She wiped the corner of her mouth, but her face was still that sickly shade of green. “So I guess I’d⁠—”

Her shoulders lurched.

She pressed a hand over her lips.

At lightning speed, too quickly for me to help her, she stood. Limping, grasping hold of the counter, the table, then the wall, she ran to the bathroom.

The door clunked shut behind her. Sounds that reminded me of Jurassic Park roared on the other side of it.

The apple juice and the glass on the floor could wait.

I headed down the hall and pulled Gwen’s bedroom door shut. Honey had run in there a while ago, so I had to assume that’s where she was now. Locking her in kept her from slicing a paw in the kitchen.

Spinning the knob on the bathroom door, I pushed it open. The smell had me swallowing gags of my own. Doubted I would ever enjoy a cup of spiked cocoa again. Doubted Gwen would either.

Gwen’s head crouched low in the bowl. She clutched the sides of the tank and coughed out, “Don’t come in here.”

“Too late.” I kneeled beside her, bundling the mess of curls behind her head. “Pretty sure it’s my job to hold your hair back.”

But I wasn’t here out of obligation. She’d already injured both of her feet. In her drunken stupor, she would make the bleeding worse when she stood. And I wanted to keep an eye on her complexion. If her color didn’t come back soon, she would need fluids.

I had some in my truck. Always carried the basics in case I needed them at the ranch. Obviously, they were for animals. Contrary to popular belief, though, humans were animals too. We liked to pretend we weren’t, but saline worked on us the same way it did on them.

Maybe that was why, on a moral level, I saw no fault in Gwen’s logic. To me, raising cattle for beef was a more trivial ideological debate than killing an abuser.

The consequences. That’s why I hadn’t jumped on the Kill-Evan train.

She made a sound, almost like she was trying to say something, but hurled again.