Emory stood there as if ripped from a dream. His chest heaved with something between exhaustion and exhilarated relief. Pain tore across his face smeared with blood. Eyes to the sky, he mumbled something to the moon before his hands went to his knees and he doubled over.
Amelia closed her eyes. Maybe it really was just a cruel dream, and she’d wake staring at that cinder block wall with a shadow bearing down on top of her.
Another crunch of gravel came, though.
Then another.
More still, faster, almost running.
Amelia opened her eyes as Emory rushed toward her.
She set her legs in motion too. Where her steps staggered, Emory’s were forceful and determined, and the distance between them melted away until they collided. Face buried against Emory’s chest, Amelia breathed him in; dirt, sweat, blood, and, somewhere beneath, his familiar scent. His heart thrummed a frenzied rhythm against her cheek as he wrapped her in his arms.
“You came,” she whispered, dizzy as her fingertips lightly clawed at his chest. “You came for me.”
Amelia lifted her head to meet his astounded gaze. Emory cradled her face, his palms warm and sticky with blood. Hisbottom lip was busted open, and blood smeared his cheek and stained his white t-shirt.
He exhaled a baffled breath as he searched her face. “Of course, I did. I was never gonna leave you. Not now, not then, not ever.”
Emory dipped his head just as Amelia rolled to her toes. The kiss they shared tasted of blood and home and everything she craved. He must’ve craved it too and pulled her deeper into the embrace. One hand pressed to the small of her back, and the other cradled her head, his fingers sinking into her hair.
A car approached at the end of the building, its headlights cutting a path across the dirt. Jack climbed out, and another vehicle pulled up with more Moriarty men spilling out.
“We need to get out of here,” Emory said and scooped her up.
He carried her to a car where Liam climbed into the back. Amelia studied him up close—the slope of his nose and cut of his jaw. If she looked away or let him go, he might vanish, so she kept her eyes on him. As he moved to lower her into the car, Amelia snaked her arms around his neck.
“You have to let go of me long enough to get in,” he laughed, warm and deep, the sound like being submerged in hot water after having been out in the cold for so long. The sensation tingled up Amelia’s spine. She unwound her arms as he placed her in the passenger seat.
Emory sped away from the warehouse and onto a back road that eventually dumped them onto the highway. The moon hovered outside the window, a silver chariot racing alongside and granting safe passage home.
Amelia held Emory’s hand and watched the movements he made—the way his left wrist draped over the steering wheel and right arm leaned into the center console; the way he’d periodically narrow his eyes at the rearview mirror.
“You look at me like it’s been lifetimes since we saw each other last,” he remarked as highway lights spilled into the car.
Hadn’t it been? Their first encounters were a distant shore of strange memories. That past life of fear and frustration bent theknee to the unexpected and indescribable. They’d crossed oceans of fear, mistrust, and uncertainty to reach this place with one another.
“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Amelia said but tucked away the rest. She’d come close to a brutal end, and the what-ifs would gladly devour her if she let them.
Emory watched the road, his face impassive as ever, but raised her hand to his lips and kissed her knuckles.
“Here I am,” he said. “Here we are.”
When he glanced at her, Amelia glimpsed in Emory what he must’ve seen in her too—the rapture of reunion after a veritable lifetime apart. She scooted against the center console, and Emory draped his arm around her, as close as they could get.
Here we are.
FORTY-FOUR
EMORY
Empty roads led the way back home. Halfway there, the night rescinded its light as low clouds crowded out the moon. Emory punched the gas on a charcoal stretch of highway and eyed the clock.11:33.They’d be on the wrong side of midnight soon.
The superstition had started after his mother died. Emory’s father kept the peace in their household well enough for a widower. After work, he’d scrounge up dinner and shoo Mirabelle and Emory to bed after dessert and a little TV. For the rest of the night, the radio would croon in the living room until Ivan came home. The fights started then, always after midnight.
Huddled against his bedroom door, Emory would listen to the chaos unfold. He’d heard all sorts of ugliness—arguments, accusations, threats. Somehow, his old man always sensed his presence.
“You’re on the wrong side of midnight, boy,” he’d holler down the hall. It sent Emory back to bed but never to sleep.
