No.
About many other things he’d yet to confess?
Without doubt.
“Why are you carrying broken sticks?”
“You have your assassins, Vik. I have mine.”
A joke I did not get, to be sure. But even days later, it hit close to home, and agitation rolled through me again, a stronger wave.
I pushed past him and out of the room. “Get dressed.”
Ranger appeared in my eyeline again. Unbuttoning his jeans and stepping out of them.
I made myself turn away and duck into my room, opening the safe.
Keys.
Weapons.
I picked up both, sensing Ranger’s presence in the doorway. “You like heavier guns, no?”
“For what?”
“For protection.”
“Fromwhat?”
“From whatever waits for us out there.” I stood, ignoring that sharp pain in my hip. The zap that radiated down my leg. “You did not think I would stay home forever?”
Ranger filled the doorway, widening his stance to make up for his narrow frame. “I figured the first time I held a strap, it would be the one you pointed in my face.”
Strap.Gun. “Why?”
“Cos you know I won’t do it back.”
“You think I would shoot you to get high?”
“I don’t know what you’d do to get high. You’re not there yet.”
I held out the weapon I’d selected for him. “How do you know?”
“Feel it, don’t I?” He tapped his chest, ignoring the gun. “Also, there’s a difference between physical and psychological dependence, and it takes longer for the mental shit to manifest.”
“Did you read that in a book?”
“No. Finch told me when I didn’t get why Folk was still rocking in the corner when he’d been clean for a month.”
Finch. The girl he loved.
Folk . . . was her brother?
Interesting. “I knew this already about Folk, but he still does not seem the type to be an addict.”
“Neither do you. Cos it wasn’t your fault any more than it was his, or any other fucker that gets sick from thisdisease.”
“I am not sick.” I pushed the gun at his chest. “Do not give me more compassion than I deserve.”
