Ready Or Not (The Hunter’s Club #2)

Chapter 24

24

Grave Half Empty - Diggy Graves

The time Riley’s gone is some of the longest of my life. She’s gagged and cuffed me, and the only comfortable spot I can find is lying on my side on the floor with my hands twisted behind me.

As I lay on the ground, smelling the old carpet, I realize that Riley is starting to make a whole lot more sense. She feels nothing, and anything she does seem like she’s feeling is fake.

I try to shift to a more comfortable position, and the smell of feet hits me so hard that I almost gag. As much as it terrifies me to be with a sociopath, there’s no more guessing here. Everything Riley does is driven by intellect or impulse, not emotion. Which means things have just become a million times simpler. It takes the guesswork out for me.

Riley wants to get back at Manson and win whatever competition they have going on. Somehow, I became a part of that, so I just have to figure out how not to become a part of it.

Time drags by painfully slowly. When I hear the rumble of the bike, I shudder in relief, and it’s quickly followed by a hollow feeling in my stomach. Was I actually excited to see her again? Do I have a self-preserving bone in my body?

When Riley breezes through the door, she releases me from my spot and then tells me to get ready and that we’re going out. She brings out a change of clothes for me and herself, and relief rushes through me. Honestly, anything other than being trapped in that tiny room.

We mount up on Riley’s bike, and she takes off again. I wrap my arms around her, ignoring the electricity I feel at our touch and reveling in the speed. The freedom.

I expect Riley to stop at another house, but we don’t. We pull into a small cemetery off the side of a country road. The lead-up is dirt, and Riley slowly rolls to a stop.

Getting off the bike, I pull my helmet off before she can help. “Where are we?”

Riley just grabs a bag out of the saddlebags and walks up to the cemetery. It’s fenced with pretty white wood, not dilapidated and falling apart like most of them. Which means that whoever owns this has money.

Riley walks to a fancy marble headstone and then stares down at it.

I follow slowly.

Pam Kennedy . The date of death reads a few years ago. We stand there, with the fall sun beating down on us and the long grass swishing around the outside of the cemetery.

“Who is this?” I ask.

“My mom.” Riley starts unbuttoning her pants.

“What are you–” I step back as Riley drops the bag, yanks her pants down, squats over the grave, and starts pissing on it.

I stare in shock. It’s silent, except for the sound of pee on the hard ground. When Riley is done, she yanks her pants up and grabs the bag. She pulls a can of spray paint out, starts shaking it up, then pops the lid off and starts spraying the headstone. I stand back until she’s done. She painted the word “whore” in red over the white marble.

I swallow.

“Rot in hell, Mom.”

I wait, unsure of what to do. Riley stands there in the hot sun, just staring at the headstone. Sweat rolls down my back.

As I’m about to say something, Riley snatches up the Walmart bag again and grabs a pack of cigarettes. She offers me one, and I shake my head.

“Suit yourself.” She hops up on the gravestone next to the one she painted and lights one up.

The smell of spray paint and cigarettes fills the air. Riley is silent. I wait while she smokes two cigarettes, then scoot away, looking at the other headstones in the area. I look at the names, curious if they’ll be useful for getting to know Riley or any of this mess. I’m careful not to step on any of them. Some of them are old—too old to read—but the grass here has been trimmed pretty well.

Again, rich.

I almost trip over a snake curled up in the shadow of one of the headstones. It’s gray, with a little bit of its orange belly peeking up at me.

“Oh shit!” I squat down.

The snake curls up, hissing at me. It’s gorgeous in person. I’ve seen them before, but never one with such a bright orange belly.

I reach out to grab it, snatching it behind the head. The snake hisses, whipping its body back and forth, the bright color of its belly flashing in the sunlight.

“You’re okay.” I carry the snake back to Riley. “Look!”

She gives me a bored look.

“It’s a ring-neck!” I admire the yellows and oranges on its belly. I love the smooth motion as it curls and tries to get away from me.

Riley raises an eyebrow.

“I have a skeleton of one of these at home.” It’s one of my favorites too. I found it by a creek bed, perfectly preserved. I must have found it right after it died because it hadn’t been eaten or crushed by anything yet.

I let the snake go. It slithers into the tall grass around the fencing.

Riley just pulls out another cigarette.

“So…” I rub the back of my neck. “Now what?”

“We wait until I can take a shit. Then we’ll go.”

I blink. Jesus. I almost ask what her mom did, but I catch myself at the last second. “She was young,” I note. Immediately after saying that, I freeze. I realize that it’s likely Riley killed her, and that’s why she was so young.

“Heart attack, few years ago.” Riley takes a long drag.

I’m silent. I don’t think ‘I’m sorry’ is the right response in this situation.

“I don’t regret much,” Riley puffs out smoke. “Anything, really. But if there was a regret in my life, it’d be that I wasn’t the one to kill her.”

“Oh.” Once again, I don’t know how to respond to that. Oddly, I feel a rush of familiarity. Papa died a few years ago, too, and it always gave me a mix of relief and anger.

Riley shakes her head. “Relax, Rachel. I don’t need your sympathy.”

“Whatever.” I glare at her. I wasn’t trying to give her sympathy.

We’re silent again for a while. I’d prefer it to be that way since this whole exchange is making me feel awkward.

“You talked in your sleep last night.”

I glance at Riley and feel my face flush. My ex told me I used to do that. I still have vivid dreams, and I guess it’s still happening.

“Yeah.” Riley blows out another breath. “You were crying. Said something about Papa.”

A horrible feeling hits my stomach, and I stiffen. I do everything I can to avoid that memory. I never told anyone about him. Well, I told my mom when I was seven. But she said I was lying and he’d never do that. When Papa found out I told her, he yelled at me and asked me why I talked about our love and if I told her my secret—that I liked it. So, I never said anything else from then on. Shame fills my body. The deep shame I feel anytime I think about that .

Blessedly, Riley doesn’t grill me. The only sound is the wind whipping around us and through the grass.

She lets out a breath, grabbing another cigarette. “He still alive?”

I swallow. “No.”

“What happened?”

“Renal failure.” I pick at the skin around my nails. I feel my pits start sweating.

Riley offers me a cigarette. I’m not sure why, but I take it. I don’t smoke, but I need something to do with my hands.

“We can stop at his grave next if you want.”

I glance up at her.

She shrugs. “I’ll schedule pissing on another grave into my day.”

I stare at the violent woman in front of me. She’s been nothing but aggressive and mean, but…in this second, she looks…kind. As I watch Riley take a draw and stare out into the desert, I get the feeling that Riley would believe me, even though I haven’t said the first two words about it.

Some odd part deep in my chest warms.

Riley glances at me, and I rub the back of my neck, suddenly self-conscious that I had left her offer hanging. I ask, “Is it a requirement to piss on it?”

Riley laughs, looking me up and down. For once, I feel her look isn’t calculated. There’s just enough of her dead eyes in it that she looks natural.

I crack a tiny smile.

She stands, brushing herself off. “Yep. We’ll rain-check it. C’mon, I’m not done raising hell.”