“You got a program for the second coming of Archie Maple?” I said, voice low and venomous.
She didn’t answer, just clicked her pen and started writing again.
“She’ll be staying with me,” Axel said.
I let her work, watching the lines of exhaustion in her face. There was something almost beautiful in how hard she fought not to look away from the truth. When she finally looked up, her eyes flicked to Axel.
Carter nodded, once. “You can go. But don’t leave town. Not unless you want to make all this for nothing.”
I stood, feeling the tremor in my legs but forcing them steady. Axel opened the door for me, but I stopped just long enough to look back at Carter.
“Thank you,” I said.
She didn’t look up from her notes. “Don’t thank me yet. There’s a long road between here and freedom.” She then looked up. “The FBI has picked up your father. He’s in custody now.”
Axel walked me out. Vin was waiting by the vending machine, hands deep in his pockets, eyes on the parking lot.
We stepped into the night, and for the first time in years, I felt something almost like safety. Axel laced his fingers through mine, rough and warm, and I squeezed back, hard.
“Where to now?” he asked.
“Anywhere but here,” I said.
23
Them
The first thing you noticed walking into the loft was the fire. It looked too grand for the space, an old stone hearth that belonged in a ski lodge or hunting cabin, not this concrete-and-exposed-brick box two stories up from the bar. Axel stared into it like he was staring at the mouth of hell, or heaven, or maybe just watching the logs burn for the hell of it. You could never tell with the man.
There was a Christmas tree in the corner, jammed between the window and a pillar covered in gang graffiti. Darla had made a big show of dragging it home herself, sap in her hair and a sarcastic Christmas sweater two sizes too small. Now the tree wore a mishmash of ornaments: black glass balls, whiskey miniatures, a candy cane shaped like a middle finger, and some antique angel she’d jacked from a thrift store and Sharpied tattoos onto. Strings of colored bulbs blinked epileptically. It looked like it was dying, but stubbornly refused to fall over.
Darla sat cross-legged on the rug, her bare feet disappearing into the shag. Her hair—unbleached since spring, the color of cheap honey—was up in a messy knot. She was wearing an old flannel shirt of Axel’s and nothing underneath. She’d lost the pants somewhere between breakfast and now. He was sprawled behind her on the couch, legs apart, boots off, but still in his battered jeans. They were both a little drunk, or maybe high on not being hunted for once.
The air had that quiet, after-the-war feeling. The kind of silence that wasn’t empty at all, just packed with things no one felt like saying yet.
Darla turned, holding up a shot glass with a painted snowman flipping the bird. “Cheers, you old bastard,” she said, and tossed it back.
Axel’s mouth twitched. In six months, she’d only seen him smile in two situations: sex and violence. Sometimes both. She wondered if she should be worried about that.
He handed her a small, square package wrapped in shiny gas-station Santa paper. The tape was all crooked. “Merry Christmas.”
Darla eyed it, then him, then tore in with all the subtlety of a raccoon at a dumpster. Under the cheap wrap was a velvet box. For a split second, her heart banged against her ribs like a caged animal. She wasn’t the ring type, but still, it hit her right in the girl-brain.
Inside was a fine silver chain, delicate but strong, and the ring, Axel’s old club ring, the one she’d slipped off his finger the night they torched her father’s office. She wore it now on a chain she bought for five bucks at a pawn shop. This new one was bright, sturdy, and made for her.
She looked up, blinking harder than she wanted to admit. “You kept this?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t figure you’d want the old hunk of steel. It’s—” He ran a hand through his hair. “This one’s real silver. For your neck. Or wherever.”
She put the ring on the chain and did the clasp with shaky fingers. Then she stood and straddled his lap on the couch, arms around his neck, face inches from his. Axel’s beard was scratchy, his lips dry, and she wanted to bite them.
She did.
The kiss went sideways, turned into an accidental headbutt, and she laughed into his mouth, but he just pulled her tighter, hands roaming under the flannel. When he grabbed her bare ass, she squeaked and bit his lip hard enough to taste copper.
He grinned at her with blood on his teeth. “Fuck,” he said reverently.
“Yeah,” she whispered, and started on his buttons.
