The phone glowed 12:17 a.m., its dim light bleeding across the ceiling. I lay flat on the thin mattress, staring at the water-stained plaster while my head pounded in time with my heartbeat.
Three days. Three days of running. Three days of replaying Luke’s voice—Run. Get clear before anyone else sees you.
I’d done exactly that. Different towns. Cash-only motels. The engine of my bike was still hot from the last hundred-mile sprint. I should have been invisible.
But my mind refused to quiet.
Every time I closed my eyes I saw Karl’s face, the crooked cop’s badge glinting under the alley light, the blood on the pavement. I smelled the cordite from my own gun.
I didn’t regret it. I told myself that over and over. I’d pulled the trigger for Trixie. For every girl who’d ever been cornered b
