“An emergency…” His stare doesn’t leave my eyes, the hard look in his one that worries me. He is mad. Doesn’t believe me. Doesn’t, from the suspicion on his face, even trust me. It figures that my relationship would have an emotional breaking point today, at a moment when—at any second—my adversary could come striding across the parking lot.

I look into his face and say the only thing I can, a sentence that we may never recover from, but that I hope will get through.

“If you do love me, you need to let me go right now. Trust in me, in us, and go home.”

I push the giant “START” button and let the roar of the engine drown out his response. I can’t listen. Can’t know. Can’t allow him to be in danger and me to be emotional. Love is weakness. And right now, I need every bit of strength I have.

I carefully pull forward, out of the space and out of the lot, leaving Jeremy standing alone, in a sea of cheap cars.

Damn. I suck as a girlfriend.

CHAPTER 81

WITH MYSTERYBARBIE’S CALL, everything changed. Those fantasies that I hide from, that I push out the door with every ounce of my underdeveloped muscles? I suddenly need them. I need to embrace that evil, need to go back down that path. I am not afraid, I am not worried about that part of myself stepping up. I know, without hesitation, what will be in my heart when I fully unlock that door. The darkness has not disappeared. It, like that tree in Florida, has flourished despite my best attempts at starvation. My struggle over the last two months has only fed this monster’s need. Fed its appetite with juicy giblets of freedom. It has, despite my best attempts, strengthened.

FtypeBaby and I break each other in well. We hit Bass Pro, Lowe’s, and Home Depot, before a curious store associate is kind enough to point me in the direction of an army-surplus pawnshop. I put the top down and head north, reaching the destination far too quickly for my newly freed tastes. I leave her in a front spot and push open the pawnshop’s door, the weight of it enough to work my arm muscles. For a girl with a steel-reinforced apartment door, that says a lot.

I know, the minute my tennis shoe hits the concrete floor, that I have come to the wrong place. The right place for a gas mask, the wrong for every single aspect of my twisted personality.

Knives.

Guns.

Machine guns.

Handcuffs.

Nunchakus.

Fighting stars.

Things I don’t even know what they’re called but they look badass awesome.

My hands shake slightly and I shove them in my pockets, which puts them in close proximity to my knife. Like, bumping up against close proximity. I take a deep breath and try to focus on the man behind the counter. Sixties, bald, with enough wrinkles and character for me to know that he has killed before. Probably served enough tours to make my future death count look like a paint-our-toenails Tupperware party.

His eyes glance at my car, the gleam of the hood loud, even in this dark pit of death. “You need directions?”

I meet his eyes. “I need a gas mask. I was told you carry them.” I don’t look around. I can’t. I will go apeshit crazy if given the chance. Fill up a shopping cart like those contestants from Supermarket Sweep. Shriek with glee while I stuff samurai swords and grenades in FtypeBaby’s trunk.

He sticks a toothpick in his mouth, leans one liver-spotted arm on the glass case before him. “A gas mask? You a survivalist?”

“And fentanyl. If you have it.” I shrug as if certain he doesn’t, a challenge in the gesture. He probably doesn’t have it, fentanyl in chemical form more common in a terrorist cell than a pawn shop. My eyes catch on the low display rack beside the counter, and I bend, snag a Taser, one that advertises enough volts to put down a thousand-pound cow, and set it on the counter.

“And fentanyl. A gas mask and fentanyl and…” His eyes drop. “A Taser.” He walks around the counter until he is crossing before me, and my muscles tighten. He is close enough to touch, my hand knocking against the switchblade in my pocket. I shouldn’t have brought it. But, knowing that FingerCutter was coming—it would have been stupid to leave the house without some sort of protection. He walks on, toward the door, his eyes on my car. “That your car?”

“I drove it here, didn’t I?”

He turns, faces me, a frown stretching and pulling the wrinkles on his face. “I didn’t ask you that.”

“It’s none of your damn business. Do you have what I need?” He’d better. He has to. The town isn’t big enough for a fourth possibility. Unless I knock off a family of survivalists, this is my only and last hope. Me and ToothpickDick need to sort this hierarchy shit out so I can get on my way.