“Yeah, either that or she’s doing herself. Amber!” I unlock the door and go inside ready to fight, but all the air is sucked from my lungs. The first thing I see is my roommate sitting on the floor, opposite the door, with a bullet hole in her head. Blood flows from the wound and trails between her eyes. My feet won’t move. I can’t make them. Sean pushes me inside and utters a slew of swear words, but all I can think is that I wanted her dead and now she is.
My hands fly to my mouth as I try to swallow a sob. That’s when I turn slowly and glance at Sean. He’s looking around the room, and taking in the pile of crap on Amber’s bed. My bedding is half on the floor and half covering my mattress. It’s lumpy, like someone is under the sheets. A pink splotch is spreading across my white linens. Sean reaches for the blanket and pulls it back.
Naked Guy is lying in my bed. He was shot several times, but the places that stand out are his shoulders and between his legs. It’s like someone wanted to torture him before he died.
That’s when I start stuttering, “But that was supposed to be me. That’s my bed. Someone wanted to… to do that to me. That was supposed to be me.” My body is frigid and I feel like I’m going to hurl.
Sean doesn’t wait. He rushes me out of the room and down the stairs and into a car that’s waiting. Gabe sounds annoyed, “No box again? Black is going to be—”
“Get her the fuck out of here and don’t let her come back. He was already here and mistook her roommate for Avery.”
THE ARRANGEMENT VOL 15
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~DAMAGED~
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~STRIPPED
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COLLIDE
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Table of Contents
COPYRIGHT
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
THE ARRANGEMENT VOL 15
COMING SOON
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COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by H.M. Ward
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
H.M. WARD PRESS
First Edition: June 2014
ISBN: 9781630350284
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
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COMING SOON
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CHAPTER 1
I stagger backward and mutter things that make no sense before my hands fly over my mouth. Images flash before my eyes of things I've said to Amber and how Naked Guy tried to hurt me. The memories dance like restless ghosts, conjuring an eruption of emotions. Now they're both dead. Gone. Amber sits there staring blankly with her eyes open. I turn and vomit on the hallway floor. Sean grabs my arm and pulls me away, all the while he's talking to Gabe, who's nodding. The old guy closes the door.
"That was supposed to be me." I swallow hard, not realizing I spoke aloud. My eyes are too wide, and my heart is racing too fast. My legs twitch like I need to run but they won't move.
Sean has a tight grip on my wrist. He tugs, so I look up at him. "Nothing will happen to you." He speaks with such certainty, as if he knows he can protect me, but how can he know that? How can he be sure?
Stomach churning, my eyes cut to him as we race down the stairwell. My voice quivers when I speak, "He knows me. This is personal and it's about me." I don't really think about what I'm saying, it's just a gut impression that's taken hold of my heart. Something about this makes me think it, and the thought won't shake. I feel it in my bones and I just know it's true.
Sean shoves through the metal door, out of the dorm, and into the parking lot. Before I know it, we're in his car and lost in traffic. That's when he speaks. "Why do you think he knows you?"
My eyes fixate on nothing and scan every car, every tree, and every person as the car crawls through the gridlock. "It looked angry, not random. Amber saw him, but the guy under the bedding didn't. Those shots, the places where he put the bullets." I stop speaking and cringe. The shots to the groin and shoulders didn't kill him. The murderer made him suffer before putting the final bullet in his body. "It just didn't seem impersonal to me. If that was you…"
I suck in a shaky breath and bite my tongue. I couldn't bare it. We were supposed to be in that room, the dead couple should have been us. Amber wasn't supposed to be there. But, that means this isn't some insane vigilante doing a moral cleansing of Black's hookers, not if it left two of my acquaintances dead. "What did I do? I don't even know what I did to deserve this? Sean?" I'm panicking, pleading, looking over at him.
Sean swallows hard and those big blue eyes are filled with fear. He's going to lose me. Either I'm going to walk out or someone is going to put a bullet in my head. I ramble about the mistaken identity of the call girl in the hotel room, how everyone thought it was one of Black's girls. The whole thing seems like a scattered mess, but it's not. I just don't see the common thread. There has to be one. I have to find it before he makes another attempt, before more people die.
Numbly, I tell him, "Take me to Henry Thomas."
Sean glances over at me like I'm crazy. "No." His voice is firm and sounds more like a scold than a response. There's no way he'll let me near Henry, but he's the only common thread I see.
I explain my thoughts to Sean. "He's the only connection. We have to confront him. We can't wait for him to come for me. Go there, now."
Sean shakes his head. "Avery, you're not thinking."
"Sean, I can't take this anymore!" My hands are balled and slam into my lap. They're clenched so tightly that my nails bite into the soft flesh of my palms.
Suddenly, Sean slams down the accelerator pedal and I'm thrown back into my seat. He cuts across traffic like a race car driver, and gets off the parkway before turning around. We were headed toward the strip club, but now we aren't. I glance over at him. "Where are we going?"
His features are stoic and the mask is in place, the one that I tried so hard to shatter so the real Sean would shine through. He grips the wheel tightly, making his knuckles pale. "I need to speak with someone."
"Who? Everyone is at the club."
"No, not everyone." He works his jaw and takes a moment to reveal the rest of his thoughts to me. He darts through traffic, cutting in and out with ease. He knows this car and how to handle her as well as he knows every inch of my body. When he glances over at me, he adds, "The most sly, cunning person is at the mansion. I need to speak with my mother."
CHAPTER 2
When we walk inside the Ferro residence, it's quiet. Sean paces the grand foyer like a school boy with a bad grade. He taps his fingers to his palms over and over again, while he waits for his mother to accept his arrival. I can't imagine it. How is this a home? How is Constance a mother if she makes her son wait at the door—but those were the directions. No one is to be admitted into the residence this afternoon without her permission.
A butler returns with a grave expression on his face, and bows to Sean. "Mrs. Ferro states that you may wait for her in her favorite room." The man turns and starts to walk away. We follow him down opulent hallways and past shiny marble statues. Priceless paintings line the walls from various artists that haven't walked the earth for ages.
