Page 84 of Trigger Happy

Once the makeshift sling is ready to go, I say, “I’ve had this done before. It’s gonna hurt like hell.”

She gulps. “I know.”

“You want something to bite down on?”

She shakes her head. “Just get it over with.”

I don’t want to hurt her like this, but if I don’t do this, no one will. She grits her teeth, bracing herself as I angle her shoulder into the right position.

“Ready?” I say, trying to keep my voice calm and confident, but my heart is hammering against my ribs. I hate this.

She digs her nails into my thigh. “Do it.”

“All right, on three. One, two—” I don’t wait for three to pop in the joint.

The scream she lets out is worse than anything I’ve heard in my life. That time a drug lord pounded a nail into my big toe’s got nothing on this. My stomach churns. I think I’m going to pass out or puke or both. Then, the screaming stops and she slumps into my arms. I hold her tight against my chest, rubbing her back.

“There, it’s over,” I scrape out. “You did so good.”

“You sound like that hurt you as much as it hurt me,” she pants, every breath tickling the hair on my chest.

I grunt. It did, maybe worse, but I don’t say anything. We need to go, but neither one of us moves, and I decide that if Bobbi or Arch find us now, I’ll just shoot them.

“Lawton?”

I jolt. It still sends an electric current through me every time she says my name. “Yeah?”

She lets out a shaky breath. “I’m still mad at you, but thanks. For coming.”

Something starts pulsing in my chest. It’s difficult to speak, so I kiss the top of her head. “You got it, darlin’.”

41Sabrina

We have to get out of here,” I say to Lawton.

Now that he’s popped my shoulder back in, my body doesn’t feel like it’s screaming at me. The pain settles into the crevices of my mind, and I’m able to think again.

After he puts my arm into a makeshift sling, I check Bobbi and Arch’s locations before leaving. There’s a text from Bobbi.

BOBBI

Left the soup on the counter! Feel better! Meeting Arch at Sprouts & Stouts so we won’t be back for a while

How long is a while?

They are currently still at Sprouts & Stouts, which sounds like a microbrewery that offers microgreens with their craft beers, but it’s actually a plant nursery. We have time, but it’s dwindling fast.

I grab Lawton’s wrist with my good hand. “Let’s go. Smear the bleach over our footprints.”

We do our best to cover up our traces, but it’s killing me that I can’t use a UV light to double-check we didn’t leave any DNA traces. I guess the bleach will do its job.

Lawton nods at our half-assed work. “Good enough. Let’s go.”

I start sweating, eyeing the haphazardly smeared bleach. “Aren’t you even a little worried they’ll notice something’s off? My eye won’t stop twitching.”

He raises a bare shoulder, and the scar slicing down the side ripples with the movement. “They’ll either notice, or they won’t. And if they do, we’ll kill them. We don’t have to worry about it now.”

That reasoning makes absolutely no sense. I can hear my mom shouting, Prepare or die! in my head, but Lawton never spirals over the unknown, and right now, it’s helping me breathe easier.