GUN IN MY HAND

CHAPTER 68: MOST POWERFUL WEAPON

'This town's too small

You run around like you do

You're taking things

Just don't belong to you'

"Did you tell him?"

"Tell me what?"

I swallowed harshly, even if I doubted it would help me get rid of the knots in my guts as my eyes traveled from nervous chocolate ones, fixing me expectantly, to large crystalline, also staring at me expectantly. As each of them was sitting on an armchair, it left me cornered on the couch, with the fireplace worsening the cold sweat in my back.

"Shooting star?"

Here we were... to the talk, the talk about Grandpa's investigation.

If for an instant, I'd imagined something else, forgetting about the matter in the whirlwind of fires and disasters, the second we'd stepped into the living room, the many papers spread on the coffee table had taken the forefront of my mind and twisting guts.

I had the feeling nothing would be the same after this 'talk'... Good or bad, that I couldn't know, and that was surely the reason why my heart was hesitating between accelerating or just crumbling down with each beat.

"Dorothy?"

My gaze lifted from the plate of untouched toasts, which my fingers were playing with on my lap, to Blade's eyes, growing more impatient with each variation of my name, and we hadn't even reached the 'Dorothea'.

Though what I dreaded more than the sound of my full name that announced nothing good was sparking off another devastating fire.

The crystalline expanse in his eyes had barely calmed, and the tensions in the air had dissipated. Spencer and Blade had even prepared the meal together, after Spencer had refused my help to peel off the hard-boiled eggs and had asked Blade instead, and even if I could have been offended at first, seeing the appetizing toasts with slices of eggs and toppings of herbs was filling my chest with happiness. They'd made the meal with care together, and I hoped to not mess it up once again as I resigned myself to take a deep breath.

"There wasn't only your mom's pic in Grandpa's binder." My eyes stayed on Blade's, even from under my lashes, trying to prevent a tempest in the crystalline shades with my anxious electric green as I wetted my dry lips and continued, "Spencer found the mayor Thornton's, and he could be linked to Carrion's drug traffic."

'Carrion', 'drug', 'Thornton', 'your mom'... Even I could tell how bad it sounded. I wasn't the best with words, and in two sentences, I'd combined all the possible triggers of his outburst.

My heart was already thumping the countdown to the first blow, yet nothing came out, no punch, no curse, not even a chuckle, and only a shadow darkened the blue expanse with his creasing eyebrows as he seemed to slowly connect the dots, along with the freckles on my cheeks.

When he slowly nodded, Spencer surely took it as a sign to drop the bomb because he added, "Not 'could', he is, and deeply involved. From the pieces of evidence here, I think he's the one behind the whole traffic."

"What?!" Finally, I was the one threatening to explode as my gaze followed Spencer's pointed finger on the coffee table, and everything started to spin: photos, texts, graphs, the bangs of my heart, the new questions in my head, and the shivers to my guts.

"There is evidence of money laundering under the city hall, photos and testimonies describing him," Spencer explained slowly, and I tried to hold on to the familiar sound of his smooth voice like to the last thread of my sanity as everything appeared so surreal.