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Brigit had gone ahead ofopen "We’ll ne she has!"

"I’rab my purse?" she called from the foyer "I want to check the street before you couard job, I had to give her props for that "I’rab a sweater," I announced to it was a va a sweater for so nor, I’d decided the yellow sundress cra to wear Now I didn’t want to waste ti, but I knew I’d freeze half to death if I went outside without soit must have left both doors wide open if I’d been able to hear it in the bedroo on a black cardigan, I jogged through the living roo the apart the street door was ajar, as I’d expected Brigit was standing on the sidewalk outside, her back to me

"Nice job with the doors, sweetie No one would suspect I’d leave the welcome mat out"

She didn’t move

"Bri? Did you hear ed up the first two steps

When I was halfway to the top, she turned towards h to knock her off balance Her red shirt glittered in the ht How had I not noticed the sequins before? I was about to compliment her on how pretty the effect was until I saw her face

As a va in her expression Her ri her a ghastly raccoonlike expression

Brigit lifted her hand and touched the front of her shirt When she pulled it away, she stared down at her own chest That’s when I re a pink shirt With no sequins

Our purses dropped from my hands as I jumped the top two stairs and reached her the moment she buckled over I wasn’t in ti her knees on the pave face-first back down the stairs

When Brigit opened her mouth to speak, there was a burble noise, followed by a streaave off no heat, her blood felt shockingly hot on ainstwith the effort to form words "S-so s-sorry"

"Shhh, shhh" I stroked her hair, trying to be cal the street It had been only seconds since I’d stepped through the door I still didn’t knohat had happened, but I didn’t need to be a detective to figure out a plausible explanation I knehat a silver-bullet wound looked like on a vaht had been a backfiring car, theher

Moveit closer to ht have been the one in danger, but there was no fucking way I would use my injured friend as a shield

My purse was a few steps away, gun stashed inside Too far to get to easily

I didn’t care

Brigit gasped for a breath, a weirdly huen to live Her mouth opened and closed like a fish thrown into a boat, waiting for the club to fall She continued to gasp in hoarse, ragged breaths, like the air was just out of reach and if she kept trying, she’d be able to catch it finally

"Show yourself," I croaked, barely able to get the co incoward"

I expected the shooter to be Hank Or any one of my mother’s other lackeys What I didn’t expect was Mercy McQueen herself to step out froht have had for someone else vanished the moment I saw her

Mercy was still lovely now that she was forty, though I’d never seen anything rese happiness on my mother’s face Probably because every ti at me, and no one alive hated me as much as she did