“Yes. Always. Ever since our parents died, I’ve been all she’s got. She doesn’t even have herself sometimes, with the kinds of choices she makes.”
“I’ll find you something, Evan.”
The words settle between us like a promise, and something cracks open in my chest — not breaking, but splitting, like a fault line that's been holding too long.
She'll find me something. She'll put her name on me, even if she won't admit it. She'll open a door into her world because I asked, because I played the sister card, because I let her see the version of me that's not entirely a lie.
And when she does, I'll walk through that door and burn everything to ashes.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Molly
The Noble Fir is crowded tonight, a weekday in name but a Friday in every other sense: the wood floors tremble with the steady march of boots, the lights behind the bar gleam, and the air hangs heavy with the scent of sweat, hops, and that particular edge of ozone that only comes before a fight. There’s talk and laughter and the pulse of classic rock — AC/DC, Skynyrd, and, because Tractor is manning the jukebox again, a run of the darkest outlaw country you can imagine. I can’t decide if the playlist is an improvement or a sign the world’s finally decaying at the roots.
I’m behind the bar with my hair up and my patience thin, wiping down the same clean spot like it owes me money. I pour a beer for Reaper without him asking, load up a double rye for Bones before he even sits, and pour a glass of red for Alessia. I do it all on muscle memory, because there’s static in my wiring. Every time I pause to catch my breath, I see Evan’s profile in the mid-morning haze, hear his voice in the humming silence of my apartment, feel the press of his palm where he cupped my jaw. It’s a trick of memory — his hands, his words, the way he spun his pain into a neat package of dry humor. I’m not used to letting someone get that close. That it was him, of all people, is a splinter I can’t shake.
I can’t stop hearing his voice.I have my sister. She needs me.
June.
The name sticks in me like a splinter. I know what I’m supposed to do with that kind of splinter: pull it out, burn it, move on. But instead, I work it deeper, thinking about him so much that he’s started to crowd out the other ghosts.
My hands pause over the cash drawer.
I hate this.
I hate that I care.
I hate that I’m considering doing the one thing I swore I wouldn’t: mix my personal life with club business.
“Molly,” Mayhem leans over the bar, grinning like he’s got a secret. “You look like you’ve got murder in your heart, Molly. Not that I mind, but it’s a little early for homicide, isn’t it?”
“You’re lucky that I’m thinking,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“That’s why you’re still alive. Because if I was acting, I would probably cut your face off with a broken bottle.”
He presses a hand to his chest like I wounded him. “Wow. Hurtful.”
“Good.”
He laughs and drifts away, immediately distracting Havoc by flicking a straw wrapper at his ear. The man flinches as if he’s been shot. Typical.
Riley breezes past, balancing a tray stacked with empties and a basket of fries. She’s got her hair in a messy bun and a baby-blue tank top that somehow makes her look like she belongs in a surf town, not here in the land of flannel and black leather. She glances at me, does a double take, and then sets her tray down.
“You good?” she asks, her voice low but insistent, as if she doesn’t trust the world to mind its own business. “You’ve been… stabby.”
“I’m always stabby.”
“Yeah, but this is, like, advanced stabby. Collegiate level. With lectures and term papers.”
“Are you saying you’d like your final exam right now?”
She grins, crunching the fry, then whirls away back to work.
“Love you too!” she calls over her shoulder.
