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I kept my gaze trained up and away from Rena. “As I found out today. Now what do we do? We can’t leave her here. My parents could come home any second.”
He scratched the sparse stubble on his chin. “I have something in my car. Be right back.”
As if roots anchored me in place, I stared at Rena and her glazed, down-cast eyes. Maybe it would be less gross if her eyes eyelids were closed. Leaving the support of the couch, I reached down. She inhaled and I leaped away yelping, my heart pounding.
“What happened?” Chait was by my side in a flash, dropping a tarp next to Rena.
I threw myself at him and buried my face in his chest. “She made a noise, like air whooshing in.”
He wrapped himself around me, his chin resting on my head. “She wasn’t coming back to life. That was her dying breath. Literally.”
“Oh, that’s great. I just watched the exact moment of her death.” I whimpered.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
“Yeah, how did you sneak in here without us hearing?” His heartbeat in my ear soothed me.
“Like I said, I trained with a really old guy. He couldn’t stay alive that long unless he knew how to go stealth.”
“Rena should’ve sensed you,” I said.
“She was distracted, you know, with trying to murder you and all.”
“Things might’ve ended differently if you’d knocked first and waited for me to let you in.” So many other things could’ve changed the outcome. If I hadn’t thought to stall her or if I’d said something different and pissed her off, she might have moved faster and… What if Chait hadn’t arrived in time to save me? If he had arrived ten minutes later, could I have fended off Rena by myself? Or would I be dead now? So many what ifs. But I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on them. “How’d you know you needed to go stealth?”
“Because we never leave without informing someone and we never go out alone. I couldn’t think of any reason Rena would go AWOL unless she was up to no good. When I saw her car parked out front—”
“Right in front of my house?” I asked. “That’s so obvious.”
“She probably thought parking further away and hiding the car would give her less time to kill you.” Chait sighed. “I thought it was suspicious that she knew about your sister while no one else did. I had this nagging feeling she’d been involved in that somehow.”
“You were right. Rena was jealous and admitted she killed my sister. She was in love with David and thought he liked Zoe. Same reason she wanted to get rid of me.” A strange sound rose from my throat. I shuddered and lifted my face to his. “Why didn’t I sense her, Chait? I should’ve known she was there. I’m a terrible witch. Useless.” My heart felt heavy. “If I joined Boris, I’d probably be doing you guys a favor.”
“She’s a Blocker. You couldn’t have known.” He brushed a hand over my hair and I dropped my head to his chest again.
“What’s going on here?”
I’d been too absorbed in myself to notice Hayden’s arrival. Relief filled me and I ran from Chait’s arms and into Hayden’s.
“Whoa, baby, what happened?” He held me firmly, his arms crossing behind me. Then he saw her. “Is that Rena?”
“Yeah. While you were busy doing whatever, I saved your girlfriend from becoming dead, like her.” Chait’s tone held a bitter edge.
Hayden tensed against me and I wiggled out of his embrace. The last thing I wanted was to referee another pissing contest between them. “Can you guys bicker later? Maybe after we get rid of the body?”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Hayden
Chait couldn’t have known that Tessa belonged to me now, but I didn’t care whether or not he was i
I wanted to kill him.
He stood near the bushes outside Tessa’s bedroom, waiting to catch the body from the window as I shoved it through to him. He’d already moved his car into the driveway, so we could carry the lump of tarp-wrapped Rena to the wooden gate, then lug her several yards down the driveway and drop the murdering bitch into his trunk.
Holding one end of the load, I stopped. “I find it interesting how you pretended not to sense me when I got here,” I growled. “You knew I’d arrived but you didn’t bother telling Tessa. No, you kept holding her. Nice, Chait.”
“Why would I need to tell her that you were there? She could sense you as well as I could,” Chait scoffed. “Didn’t it occur to you that she might want you to catch us?”
I dropped my end of Rena and pounced, got him in a chokehold and pi
“Hayden, what are you doing?” Tessa whispered as loudly as she could without alerting the neighbors.
That only pissed me off more. If I hadn’t been so distracted by fury, I would’ve known she’d come outside. I’d bet anything Chait had known. Again. Son of a bitch.
Tessa swatted my back. “Let him go.”
I did — reluctantly — and resumed my hold on Rena. In silence we dumped her in the trunk.
Chait closed it, then turned to face me. He blew out a breath and met my eyes. “It’s not his fault.” He switched to Tessa. “That was a crappy stunt I pulled. If someone was holding my girl like that, I would’ve tried to beat his ass too. Worse probably.” He rounded to the side of the car and opened the door.
“I wish you two would grow up.” Tessa lowered her voice to a whisper. “Hey, what do you do with the bodies? Do you cremate them?”
Chait sca
“Why avoid an autopsy?” I asked. “Are we different inside or something?”
“Not in a freakish way, no. They’d notice the abnormal lack of disease and perfect organs though. In Rena’s case, they’d also discover the poison. Not good.”
“What would they have done with Zoe’s body? Same thing?” Tessa asked.
Losing her sister was awful and I felt bad for her, but Tessa’s growing obsession worried me. Rena had confessed, but we don’t know whether it really was over jealously or if someone gave the order. If Tessa insisted on prying further into Zoe’s death, it could mean her own.
But would I behave the same if I’d remembered a brother or sister and lost them? Probably.
Chait nodded. “Yeah, there’s a good chance they would’ve taken the body, did a switch or something. There’s always a way to get around the authorities. And that cemetery is the only place we dump ’em.”
“I’m going with you,” she said. “I want to see this place.”
He put his hands up as if to say he hadn’t pla
I opened my mouth to speak and she turned to me. “Hey, huge favor? If I’m not back in an hour, will you pick up Bree? She’s only across the street. I’ll let them know you’re coming.” She took a deep breath and forged on before I formed an answer. “I feel like I never got a chance to say goodbye to Zoe. I’ll come back soon though. I’ll get Bree to bed and we’ll have the rest of the night to ourselves. Please?”
Let her go off with Chait? My instincts said no. But my other option was to refuse and look like a callous, jealous ass. “Sure. Call me when you get there, okay?”
Tessa stretched up on her tiptoes and draped her arms around my neck. She smiled and whispered, “Thank you.”
I leaned in and closed my eyes to lose myself in her. Our lips met and Chait cleared his throat, reminding me of his presence. I released her.
“I save her life and you get the kiss. So unfair.” He shook his head.