Page 91 of Hunter or Hunted

“No,” Edwards said, pushing past us to Simone. “No one invited you, Angela. You need to leave.”

Something between a scoff and a laugh escaped her. She gave Edwards a once-over. “And who are you?”

“It doesn’t really matter,” Edwards snapped. “The owner of this home wants you to leave, so you need to leave, Miss⁠—”

Shock ripped Angela’s mouth open. A humorless laugh escaped her as she looked over Simone, then Edwards. “You’ve gotta be shitting me. That’s how you’re getting away with it. This is so like you, Jess.”

“Stop,” Simone said, voice low, still bouncing the crying girl in her arms. “Just stop, Angela. Go.”

“Why, because you don’t want your friends to know who you really are?” Angela waved Simone off. “Your name’s Jess. Jessica Lowry. You’re the same little junkie whore you were ten years ago. But now you’re sleeping with the pigs to get off a murder charge, aren’t you?”

Mallory’s eyes widened. She looked at Edwards, then Simone, then me.

“Alright, let’s go.” Edwards started past us and reached out for Angela’s wrist.

Angela jerked it away, backpedaling. “I’m leaving.”

Edwards started to say, “Then go⁠—”

“But everybody’s gonna know, Jess!” Angela called, walking backward down the path that framed the house. “I’ll make sure everybody knows. You killed my son. Did you hear that, Junie? Mommy killed your daddy. And she’s gonna pay for it. No matter how many cops she sleeps with, she’s gonna pay for what she did!”

Angela kept yelling, but the farther she went, the less audible it became.

“I’m so sorry,” Simone kept saying to Mallory.

Wide eyed, hand hesitant, Mallory reached out to comfort her, but Simone was already turning toward us. Teary-eyed, almost inaudible, she said to Gwen, “Can we go?”

“I’ll meet you guys out at the car,” I said, running a hand over Gwen’s back.

She nodded in thanks, and the two of them started down the path, opposite of the one Angela took.

“She’s batshit,” Edwards said to Mallory. The music kicked back on, but Mallory still stood there in silent shock. “Nothing she said was true, alright? I’ll explain everything later, but⁠—”

“Go with them,” I told him. “I gotta talk to Liz.”

Apparently agreeing, he jogged after Gwen and Simone.

Just as I turned around to find Lizzie, Mallory caught my elbow. “Okay, somebody has to fill me in here.”

“Edwards did,” I said. “You know Simone’s story. You know how it is for all the women at the ranch.”

“The ranch is supposed to be safe,” Mallory said, a hint of judgment in her tone. “If that woman is telling the truth⁠—”

“Her drug-dealing son turned up here trying to kidnap Junie, beat the shit out of Simone, and ran,” I said. “The way guys like him always do. You know Simone, alright? Believe her. Not her ex’s crazy mother. You want the whole story, ask her for it, but god damn, dude. You’re not the victim here. I don’t have time for this.”

29

GWEN

“It’s okay, baby,” Simone kept saying to the little girl in her arms. Junie wasn’t crying anymore, but she’d opened her eyes a few times, only for the tears to start again, before she squeezed them shut, and I saw it all. I saw myself.

While I’d never stood in those precise shoes, I remembered the dynamic. An adult dragging a child into a situation they never should’ve been in, a situation they couldn’t begin to understand.

Sometimes because my mom had so much on her plate, bits of it spilled onto mine. Other times, because an outside source dropped it on me, purely because hurting me hurt my mom even more.

My mom’s boyfriends did that the most. They’d say the same things. That she was a junkie. A whore. A slut, a bitch. Any of it, all of it.

Before I even understood what the words meant, I knew the intent. To hurt her, insult her.