“I stopped by to seeEvelyn.”
I watched his face as I said this. He glanced toward the open window, but didn’t ask me how she was doing. Did he know she wasn’tthere?
“Did Frank get ahold of you? The pack’s expecting us at the Watts’swarehouse.”
“I had him on thephone.”
“Are you ready togo?”
No.I wasn’t ready, but did I have a choice? I threw open the passenger door and gotin.
Tick. Tock.The words echoed through me at the same time as a deafening deliberation. My aunt was a heavysmoker.
“Where’sLucy?”
“She’s withEverest.”
“Where?” My voice was so brusque my unclefrowned.
“I don’t know,Ness.”
Could Lucy have taken Evelyn? Forcing me to compete in a death match would be a convenient way of getting rid of me. I stuck my elbow on the door handle and cradled my poundingforehead.
“I wish you’d listened to me.” My uncle’s voice broke, and a thick sob lurched out of him. “I wish you’d never entered thiscontest.”
I pried my head off myfingertips.
My uncle wascrying.
Overme.
He was crying overme.
Surprise momentarily displaced my ragingedginess.
“I failed your mother,” he croaked, wiping hiseyes.
I didn’t think anyone besides Evelyn would ever mourn my death, but apparently I was wrong. Apparently Uncle Jebwould.
“I’m not dead yet.” My words were thin, flat. I couldn’t deal with his grief or his remorse. Not now. Maybe not ever. To each their own. “Can we please just go? I want to get this overwith…”
That set him off all over again. Hearing a grown man cry used to irk me, but as I sat there, watching the tears drip around his mouth, I wasnumb.
When he still hadn’t started driving, I repeated, “Can we pleasego?”
He inhaled deeply, stared at my stony expression, and finally…finally starteddriving.
The world smeared into one long strip of color outside the window. I hadn’t taken this road in years. It had changed. There was still the Mom and Pop ice-cream shop with the flickering neon cone and the gas station—empty at this early hour, but new buildings had sprouted on the sunburned grass. All of them carried the wordWatt.
August and his father had expanded the business. I was glad it had been so profitable even though seeing their name on those plaques instead of my father’s pinched myheart.
The flat-roofed gray warehouse—the original workshop—materialized in the distance. It looked the same as it had the dusty afternoon Mom and I had driven over to hand Nelson the keys and thedeed.
Jeb parked in front of the loading bay, which was gaping wide. I climbed out of the van and then closed thedoor.
A figure stepped out of the shadowy workshop, cutting across thelot.
Liam.Mute sunlight played over his handsome face, danced across hislips.
