Mirabelle noticed Scumstache at the window scrutinizing the street. There was nothing to see out there, just weeds sprouting from cracked asphalt and a Lays potato chip bag flattened in the middle of the road. With no breeze, it hadn’t moved.
“I’ll tell you a story,” Mirabelle said. “I grew up in a house that backed up to woods thick enough to get lost in. Whenever things got bad with Ivan, that’s what Emory and I did; got lost back there. Jack lived down the street, so he’d tag along too.
“One day, Ivan found us. He’d come for me, to do things a brother should never do to his sister. Jack and Emory fought him off, but I knew then the price of my freedom was Ivan’s death. I guess I’ve earned it now, but I don’t believe he’s really gone.”
Mirabelle took a heavy gulp of lemonade. The memories were chaotic—screams and grunts and Jack jamming his pocketknife into Ivan’s eye. As Ivan howled in pain, Emory had put Mirabelle on his back, and he and Jack ran like mad for home. That was Mirabelle’s last day in the woods.
Amelia stared at the uneven slab of sidewalk in front of them. Even in the heat, her skin paled. “Emory said he’s dead.”
“Emory says a lot of things.”
“And what about him and Jack? What’s the price of their freedom?”
Mirabelle had been asked the same question before by lovelorn girls with foolish dreams of luring their Moriarty man away. No pussy was phenomenal enough to break blood oaths. That wasn’t what Amelia was after, though. Her face betrayed resigned sorrow on Emory’s behalf, Jack’s too, all the lost souls trapped in the machine.
“Death,” Mirabelle said. “At the end of the day, this is the only family most of us got. It’s why the men stay. Besides, where are they going if they leave? They have nothing outside the organization. Inside, they have brotherhood, loyalty, and girls like me who’d move heaven and earth for them.”
Amelia propped her chin in the heel of her hand. A stray breeze rushed down the street. The potato chip bag puffed with air. Free to leave, it tumbled on, and Amelia watched it go.
“Don’t you want out? To live your dream, whatever it is?”
Mirabelle lifted her eyes to the clouds sailing by overhead. Was that the dream? She didn’t know. The outside world scared her more than it should. A strong, fearless girl inside the Moriartys, she didn’t know who she was on the outside.
“I never really thought about it,” she was ashamed to admit. “This is all I’ve known. It’s easy for Em to say I should get out. He doesn’t understand. I have reasons to stay.”
“Jack,” Amelia said with a dreamy smile.
Mirabelle sat up stiffly. How the hell could Amelia have seen? And if she saw, Emory must’ve too.Lie with your eyes.Mirabelle tilted her head and regarded Amelia like a class-A moron.
“Aren’t you two together?” Amelia asked.
“Why would you think that?”
“I’m sorry. I thought I noticed something. I?—”
“You didn’t. I’ve just known him a long time is all. What about you? You got a boyfriend back home who’s gonna come save you?”
Amelia shook her head and sorrow surfaced in her eyes. “No one’s gonna save me. Only me.”
“Well, what about your dreams? You’re Harvard-bound, right?”
“No. I called it off. It wasn’t my dream.”
“Cal’s dream?”
Amelia nodded and, with her fingertip, traced a deep crack in the cement step where a single dandelion grew. “I was backed into a corner and forced into the role he wanted me to play. It didn’t matter what I wanted.”
“It’s what men do. Put you in a role and cry foul if you quit.”
That was the delicate take. Small fires existed in all women. It started as sadness that kindled the rage. It burned and it burned and they called them crazy. No woman wanted to go up in flames.
“So, here I am.” Root and stem, Amelia ripped the dandelion out. “Free, I guess. Trapped again.”
Mirabelle drew a long breath of dead heat. She had no words of comfort or priceless advice but tried for Amelia’s sake.
“It won’t be like this forever. This is just a detour.”
Quiet with her thoughts, Amelia picked petals from the dandelion. She lifted her eyes to Mirabelle with fresh resolve and chucked the flower to the steps.
