Whiskey’s pacing.Derby sits stiff-backed, watching the door like something’s coming for us.Oaks keeps glancing toward the hallway where Becki’s locked up, like he expects someone to come crawling out of it.
Royal’s missing.
That’s what worries me most.
The man is a shadow by nature.Knowing him better than anyone, I get that, but tonight there’s something else in the air.Something like grief wearing skin.
I go to Becki’s door.No answer.I unlock it with my master key.
She’s curled on the mattress, chain taut, face turned toward the wall.Breathing slow, steady.She looks small like this.Tired.
Not dangerous.I shouldn’t care.
But the knot in my gut tightens anyway before I slam the door shut.
Royal finally appears an hour later, jaw ticking, eyes dark enough to swallow whatever light dared exist in him.
“What happened?”I ask.
“Something’s coming.”
“You mean more girls going missing?”
“Yeah.”He shakes his head once, slow.“But no, I mean something worse.”
The silence stretches, thick and suffocating.
“She ain’t just punishment,” I say finally.
His jaw flexes.“No.She ain’t.”
“You think the Reverend’s using her?”
“Yes.”
And I know he’s right.I’ve known since I found out they tried to blackmail Sophie.There was desperation behind her threats.Rage, yes, but fear too.Fear so sharp it tasted like truth.
“She’s safer here,” Royal says.
“I know that,” I say.“Try telling Sophie.”
He doesn’t answer.
His eyes flick to me.Searching.Weighing.Asking questions he won’t voice.Until he does.
“Do you still want her?”he asks.
It punches the air out of me.He means Becki.Not Sophie.I don’t respond.Because I remember that candlelit night.Her whisper.Her fire.Her body under mine.Too easy to remember since Sophie’s gone cold.
I remember the way Becki saw what I was long before the gavel, the patch, the violence.
“You were born for fire, Hudson,” she’d say.
And the fucked-up thing is, she wasn’t wrong.
What’s worse is seeing Royal want Becki.No, he always has.Becki wanting him.If she truly does, makes me pause.I won’t answer.Not just because he’d take it as permission.
Later that night, I dream again.
