It was, in its way, the kindest thing anyone had ever said to me.
I nodded. “Thanks.”
He started to leave, but then turned, looked at the cup in my hand. “You want to know a secret?”
I shrugged, not trusting myself to speak.
He grinned, all broken teeth and nostalgia. “He’ll find you again. No matter how hard you run. That’s what makes it so goddamn hard to quit him.”
The words lodged in my ribs, sharp and hard to breathe around.
Damron left without waiting for a reply. The door clicked shut, a sound like a period at the end of a sentence nobody wanted to write.
I stood, wrapped myself in the blanket, and crossed to the window. The sun had finally topped the horizon, but the world outside looked just as gray, just as unforgiving as before. I watched the movement in the lot—the bikes coming and going, the men stripping down a car for parts, the slow migration of business as usual.
I tried to see myself in it. I failed.
I looked at the bed one last time. The dent where Nitro had sat was already fading, the impression smoothing out like a wound that healed too fast, too perfect.
I didn’t want to heal. Not yet.
I stepped into the hallway. The sound of the world was louder here—curses, laughter, the clang of metal on metal, the old familiar soundtrack of men who built their lives out of nothing and expected nothing in return.
I drifted toward the front, blanket trailing behind me like a bad idea. I passed Augustine, who looked up, nodded, then returned to his work. There was no need for words. There had never been.
Near the entrance, I stopped. Nitro was there, hunched over a phone, knuckles white on the casing. He looked up, saw me, and in the span of a breath, every calculation he’d made about how to leave, how to survive, how to forget, vanished.
I stepped closer, until I could see the bruise under his eye, the line of dried blood on his cheek. I reached up, touched his face. He flinched, but didn’t pull away.
“They say you have to go,” I said, voice thin as paper.
He nodded, swallowed hard. “You could come with me.”
I almost said yes. I wanted to. But the memory of Damron’s words, the truth in them, held me back.
“This is my fault,” I whispered. “If I hadn’t called you—”
He shook his head, but I pressed on.
“You’d be free. You wouldn’t have to run. You wouldn’t have to leave the only home you’ve ever had.”
He took my hand, held it between both of his, so gentle I could barely feel the bones inside.
“I’m not leaving because of you,” he said. “I’m leaving because that’s what men like me do. It’s all we know.”
Tears came again, hot and fast, but I didn’t wipe them away.
“I can’t be with you,” I said. “Not because I don’t want to, but because I can’t bear to watch you go to prison for saving my life.”
He smiled, sad and real. “Then don’t watch.”
He kissed me, quick and clean, then turned away, walking toward the back, the exit, the endless road.
I stayed in the doorway, watching until he was gone.
18
Seraphina
