Page 5 of Havoc

When the shaking quit, I rinsed every drawer in the utility sink, ran every machine empty on hot, twice, and turned the sign back to OPEN and kept going. What choice did I have?

I locked up after dark.

My car was where I always left it, behind the building under the one working light. It was sitting lower than it should have. I walked around it to be sure. All four tires, cut clean through the sidewall.

I stood there with my keys in my fist, fighting back tears. My house was four blocks away and had a deadbolt and I needed to be home, because suddenly nothing felt safe.

I started walking.

Half a block along, headlights swung onto the street behind me. They stayed back. When I walked faster, the engine picked up. When I slowed, it slowed.

I’d had enough of being stubborn. I got my phone out with my left hand and kept my right on the shears I’d put in my jacket pocket. My thumb kept missing Brynn’s name because I was shaking so much.

Two blocks to go. I kept telling myself it was fine, that I was imagining someone following me.

From the far end of Main, I heard a bike. I’d have known that engine in my sleep.

It turned onto my street.

CHAPTER 2

HAVOC

There was a car following Ava-Rose home.

I saw it from the end of Main. I’d ridden by her shop at closing every night since the window got smashed, even if she didn’t know it. Her shop was dark, and one block over a set of headlights was crawling along at walking speed. Out in front of them a woman was hurrying up the sidewalk with her head down and a phone in her hand.

I’d have known the silhouette of her anywhere.

I opened the throttle.

The car was a dark Charger with the passenger window down. I came around her on the wrong side of the road and stopped the bike sideways across the front of it, close enough that the driver had to hit his brakes.

I killed the engine and got off.

There were two men in it. The driver was big, with a shaved head and both hands on the wheel. He looked at my cut and read the patch, slowly.

“You’re lost,” I said. “Deming’s back that way.”

He held my eyes a second longer. Then he put the car in reverse, backed up to the corner and turned it around. I stood in the road and watched until it was gone. The plate frame said Desert Star Motors, Deming.

I turned around.

Ava-Rose was standing under the streetlight with her phone in her fist. She was shaking all over.

“You hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“They touch you?”

“No. They just followed me.” She was fighting to keep her voice level. “My tires are slashed though. All four of them, so I was walking home.”

“Go on, then,” I said. “Tell me that was kids too.”

Her eyes filled. She was scared, and she was mad as hell about being scared, and she lifted her chin at me anyway.

“It wasn’t kids.”