The hotel room threatens to surface again, and so does the woman after, but I force it back.
I’ve got the fucking gun, and he doesn’t.
Rain pounds on the windows, over my head, all around us, and Lynx stares at me with dark eyes and pale skin and his lips pressed together in a scowl.
I’ve seen him look happy though. It was on the other end of him breaking a woman’s fingers.
“Why would you fuck with someone like that?”
“Did you see how she didn’t move? She lets him. It’s training.”
I don’t let myself think of those words. Dad’s excuse.
Lynx can’t see my weapon and he doesn’t move.
He thinks I won’t do anything.
But he grew up with my dad, both of them from that thin line between Virginia and DC. Between mountains and the federal government. Politics and lawbreaking.
Good and evil, none ever really knowing which side is which.
I know what side he’s on though.
Some people break the law. Other people toe the line and leave far more wreckage in their wake than a criminal ever could.
Lynx is the worst of both.
Then there’s his niece and the things I’m sure he did to her…
It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t matter. And she isn’t here.
I’ve learned to forget her well. At least in the daylight.
I lower the gun to the cup holder.
I put both hands on the fucking wheel.
My foot shifts from the brake and the Jeep holds steady, unmoving.
Then I find the gas.
Lynx dips his chin.
The hotel room.
My dad’s tears.
I’ve never seen him cry before that night.
Isthisthe person who has been sending me these fucking texts?
I take a breath.
Then I inch the vehicle forward.
He steps back.
Lynx might want to pretend he’s brave, but he doesn’t want to die. Something me and him don’t always have in common.
