“I’d rather die than let either of them have one more child.”
Sigh.
Okay then.
I take her face in my hands, memorizing every individual feature. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s my fear. Maybe it’s just because I really love this girl. I take a mental snapshot, vowing to remember her forever.Okay, Bun.“I got you.” Until the very end.
Back Alley
Wilmington, Crest County Convention Center
CADE
You can clean the streets, but the shit smell remains. Bunny and I conceal ourselves in the shadows behind the gala’s back entrance. Hidden behind an oozing, beige industrial dumpster, we keep our gaze locked on the door, holding our breath every time it opens and someone new appears.
“Shit,” Bunny hisses.
“It sure smells like it.”
Twisting around, she glares at me with an intense scowl. “What?” Seeing she’s on edge, I resist the urge to repeat myself, not wanting to face even a shade of her wrath. Still, she notices my grin. “What! What is it, Cade?”
“Nothing,” I snicker, kissing the nape of her neck. She melts immediately—my little fleck of snow.
As time passes, we notice that the number of people coming in and out lessens, until finally, the door doesn’t open at all. “It’sgetting late, Bun,” I inform, “maybe we should call it and get some sleep. We can try some other night.”
There’s no question. “No. No, it has to be tonight,” she proclaims, intensity back between her brows. “You don’t understand. This is probably ouronlychance, Cade! When will an opportunity like this happen for us again? It’s not! It has to be now.”
“Alright. Alright,” I concede for the first time tonight. But there’s still time for her to change her mind.I really want her to change her mind…“I wasn’t trying to talk you out of this.”Liar. “We’re going to get this fucker.”Without question. “I was just… I don’t know.” I fight the urge to tell her what’s really on my mind, what I would really like to spend my night doing instead. I don’t want to feel the twist in my chest if she says no. Maybe she won’t this time. Perhaps I’ll get a yes. “Maybe we could have a normal night together. We could eat, laugh… dance. It would be nice.”
It would be perfect. I’d hold her close, swaying to soft music that beats in tune with her heart. The moon, or the lights, or whatever shines down upon us, illuminates the vibrant copper highlights running through her waves. She’ll look perfect, with not a glimmer of worry on her face.
I’ll tell her I love her.
For the first time, I’ll finally get to love someone.
Taking her hand, I inspect the wound she’s created on her finger, a split cuticle from all her worry. Bringing her into my mouth, I suck away the blood from a cut before peppering it with kisses. “Don’t you think?” Wouldn’t it be perfect?
At once, the biggest smile lights up her eyes, but in the next instant, that beam begins to fade, leaving disappointment in its wake. “I would love that,” she whispers, sprinkling kisses on my skin next. I can feel the letdown in her shaking lips, but I’m still not ready for it. “But after… once these fuckers are gone. Th-then we’d have no one to worry about… nothing tying us to this life.”
I don’t think I can hide the hurt on my face, not when it's so present in my heart. But I try. For Bunny, I’ll always try. “Okay, Bun.”
She got what she wanted, but for the moment, I can’t speak another word about it. I can’t even look at her. I just—I shouldn’t have asked. Bunny tries to lift the mood—holding onto me, kissing me soft and slow in the places she knows I like. But no matter how hard she tries, the stinging won’t stop.
At some point, she must realize that I need some space, so she drops her hold on me and waits silently, separate from my touch. Hours pass, and the night grows darker. Soon, even the lamps lighting the alley don’t seem bright enough. Every now and then, the back door opens, but it’s only an employee who emerges. I would need a smoke break, too, if I were inside with one of them.
Fuck. I think I may need one now.
While I press my blade against the edge of the brick wall, Bunny listens intently to their conversation, a sponge to their gossip.
“Did you see Mayor Williams?!” a young server excitedly whispers to her coworker as they spill from the exit, giggling back and forth with a finger in her mouth. “He was all over that young girl!” She cries, “He wouldn’t let her off his lap, even when her father, Councilman Aarons, came!”
Hm. Even in front of his peers, he’s a fucking creep.
When their break is over and they return inside, Bunny breaks away from the wall, eyes heavy.
“What is it?” I murmur my first sentence in hours.
“He’s still doing shit!” Bunny utters, perplexed. “In front of fucking all of them!”
