I was wasting my time, both here and at home.
***
Cash
Rae was gone as abruptly as he’d arrived, blurring out of sight. I waited for the side gate to bang, but it didn’t. I went to investigate and realised with a start that he’d gone over the garden wall like a fucking ninja.
Jesus.I scrubbed a shaky hand through my hair. He was every bit as intense as I remembered, and loaded with damn Semtex. And I still wasn’t sure what he’d actually wanted from me. Just that he was every bit as emerged in sab life as I had been when my world had fallen apart.
He’d left his tobacco behind. I rolled my third cigarette and lit up, not looking round when the back door opened and someone—Dom—stepped out.
He moved into my eyeline, gaze flickering from my face to the cancer stick wedged between my fingers. “Everything okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“Sure about that? You look kind of spooked.”
“What do you care?”
Dom shrugged. “Okay then. I don’t.”
He went back inside and I felt like a dick, but I knew he wouldn’t hold it against me. Being a grumpy motherfucker himself, he was good like that.
Sighing, I went back to smoking and glaring at the moon. My encounter with Rae three months ago had reset my soul—intimacy, laughter, the freedom of a stranger expecting nothing more than a good time. Learning that he was a sab, and perhaps no stranger at all, was surreal. I smoked harder, burning my lungs, but no clarity came. I knew everything I needed to know about him, and nothing at all. And it still wasn’t enough. My old life had destroyed me, but reignited by my dark-eyed stranger, the call to return was so strong I could taste it.
Damn it, Rae.
Soft rustling broke through my haze. I glanced to the bottom of the garden as a slight form eased out of the bushes.Shula. She was the reddest fox I’d ever seen, her fur shone under the urban moon like brushed lava as she crept towards the humble offering I’d left for her.
I sat like a statue as she moved around my garden, glad I’d left the lights off. I’d been feeding Shula and her mate from the day I’d moved into the house, but I still lived in fear that my neighbours would see them and call the exterminators. It kept me up some nights and I’d sit at my window, watching and waiting, as though there was anything I could do to protect them. As though the years I’d spent hurling myself in front of riders wielding whips, and dogs meant anything.
But what could it possibly mean if Rae and his gang were still losing the battle?
Shula’s mate joined her in the garden, choosing the smallest scraps for himself and leaving the biggest for her, like he always did, even though he was bigger, stronger, and needed it more. He reminded me of Dom, but humour didn’t reach me now. Rae had lit a spark in me I couldn’t ignore, and I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight.
Chapter Five
Rae
Going home empty-handed was tough, but Fletch accepted my tale of woe with resignation and wandered off to forage for wild food. Meg was more curious. She let me be for a couple of days, then came to find me at the washed-out vegetable patch.
“To be honest,” she said. “I didn’t expect you to find either of them. Ted has been out of the game a long time, and the other bloke left under a cloud.”
“What kind of cloud?”
“Nothing that would put me off having him around.”
I scowled and dug my trowel into the waterlogged earth. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.” Meg reached behind her and touched wood. “Imagine if he changes his mind only to find the whole camp knows his business?”
If only she knew I hadn’t given him the chance to even refuse my request. That I’d lost my temper and bolted without formally delivering it. Perhaps she’d understand. Then again, perhaps she wouldn’t.
Meg drifted away to find Fletch, leaving me to finish my chores, then retreat to my tent to brood, a favourite pastime of mine when things didn’t go my way, though what I’d been expecting, or even hoping for, I wasn’t quite sure. I pictured the scene as if Cash had been pleased to see me, listened to what I had to say, then returned to camp with me to live out the rest of our days in this quagmire shithole. Had I wanted that? It was hard to tell when all I could see was Cash’s face when he’d realised his evening caller was me.“The fuck are you doing here?”Hardly a welcome.
Logic reasoned that I’d caught him off guard, hammered him with the past when all he’d known of me up until that point was some fuck-hot sex, but logic had never been my strong point when it came to my love life. Perhaps it was for the best that our second encounter had fallen apart. Cash wasn’t even here and he was already proving a fucking distraction.
The next morning, Fletch handed out the Go-Pros. We had two—both battered and bruised—but they were essential for hunts. Not that the police took any notice of our footage. One camera was usually strapped to Meg as she coordinated the more peaceful side of our operation. The other went to Sprig, my wingman, for no other reason than he had older bones than me, and huntsman tended to whack people without cameras first.
