Page 67 of Hunter or Hunted

But I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I landed on, “Mm.”

Sniffling, Evan swatted a hand across his cheek. “Where’s your girl at?”

“Went for a walk. Wanted to clear her head before all this.” The bartender set my drink in front of me. I gave him a nod of thanks and took a sip. “Funerals are tough.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice.” Glass at his mouth, Evan tilted it back. He drained it all, then clacked it to the cherry bar top. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe she’s really gone.”

Between glances at his profile and a survey of his reflection in the mirror behind the shelves of bottles, I tried to discern his expression. He hadn’t looked directly at me once. That look, though—that swell in his lips, the pale, bleak color of his skin—suggested some real emotion. Whether it be grief or guilt, I couldn’t say.

“It’s crazy, isn’t it? Death.” Evan rubbed a hand over his mouth, wiping up the liquid at the corners of his lips. “Just here one second and gone the next.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, unsure what else to say, but certain of one thing. Evan was drunk, and he was chatty. If that was guilt in his eyes, it’d slip from his lips eventually.

“Everyone’s a mess, you know,” he said. “Even Ava was bawling upstairs.”

As most siblings would the day they laid their sister to her final resting place. “Grief’s a bitch like that.”

“She’s young though.” Slurring again, he raised his glass in the bartender’s direction, motioning for another. “They weren’t that close anyway.”

Was that where the guilt came from? The fact that he’d killed his girlfriend and was now grooming her little sister to take her place? “Yeah, she’ll get through it.”

“I just don’t want her to wind up like that, you know?” He finally looked my way, forehead wrinkled. “She’s a lot smarter than Allie was. She knows better.”

Knew better than to... what? Leave him? Kill herself? What the hell did that mean? “Right.”

“I mean, that’s how it was, you know?” Straightening up, he lifted a shoulder. “Allie needed me. She didn’t know what she was doing. She didn’t know how the world worked. She wasn’t—Well, you know. The brightest bulb. She needed help, and I helped her. I always helped her.”

It took a lot of willpower to maintain my poker face. “You protected her.”

“Exactly.” A hard nod, posture soothing. “I protected her. I took care of her.”

My dad always said that. Mom was too emotional. Too unstable. Too airheaded. She needed guidance. She needed to be led by a strong, manly man like himself.

But he was no leader. He was an insecure addict hiding behind a heroic god complex. Bossing her around, smacking her around, made him feel big and strong and important. Godly. Powerful.

Evan was the same guy in a different suit.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I lost my sister when I was a little older than her. Never really been the same since.”

Most people would feel a twinge of grief at that. Go silent and sip their drink, or swat a tear away. But not Evan.

His shoulders squared and something sparkled in those baby blues. Relief? Pride?

Joy?

Joyful at the never-ending grief Ava would feel for the loss of her sister?

“She’ll need me.” He nodded, eyes on his own in the mirror. “She won’t be able to get through this alone.”

Joy that he’d get to fill that strong-and-mighty role again. Happy at her fragile emotional state. That he could manipulate her into caring for his precious feelings through their shared grief.

If you could call this grief. He would. I’d call it exploitation of a child’s trauma.

“It doesn’t hurt that they look alike either.” Barely turning my way, he flashed a quick smirk and wiggled a brow.

Disgust roiled in my gut and adrenaline pulsed to my hands. No matter how hard I tried to contain the grimace on my face, I couldn’t stop the clench of my fists. My knuckles turned white, flashing the bone beneath.

When it took me too long to respond, his glance morphed to a gaze. His head swiveled to face me, waiting. Testing. Seeing how far he could push. If I would break and put those knuckles to use, or if I’d laugh along.