“I’ll fix every inch of it.”
“The windows weren’t standard size.”
“I know.”
“You’re going to have to find a guy.”
“I know a guy,” Ranger said from somewhere behind me.
I almost laughed. I didn’t quite make it, but it was close. Brutus felt it anyway because his mouth curved up at the corner, just slightly, and he pulled me back against him.
“You still mad?” he murmured against my hair.
I thought about it for exactly one second. About the arrest. About the terror of it. About watching them drag him out of my bedroom in handcuffs while I screamed myself hoarse.
Then I thought about thirty-two men in custody. About Char finally being able to breathe. About all of it being over.
“Ask me again tomorrow,” I said.
He tightened his arms around me. “Fair enough.”
Down the hallway, my brother was still on his knees with Char curled in his lap, and I watched her shoulders slowly stop shaking. Ariel had her face tucked against Cap’s neck and her fingers knotted in the front of his shirt. Amanda leaned into Wrecker’s side with her eyes closed and her chin tipped up like she was just now letting herself breathe.
All of us beat up and exhausted and standing in a police corridor in the middle of the night.
All of us still here.
I decided that was enough for tonight.
28
BRUTUS
The DOJ drove us back out to Anna's place in a convoy of black SUVs as the sun was coming up, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that had no business looking that pretty after the night we'd all had.
Anna was asleep against my shoulder before we hit the highway.
I kept my arm around her and let her stay there. She'd earned it. Every single one of them had.
Ranger sat across from me with Marla tucked under his arm, his chin resting on top of her head, his eyes closed. Smoke was curled across both their feet, dead to the world. Doc was in the vehicle behind us with Lizzy. Ghost and Jasmine had their own ride. The crew was quiet in a way that felt different from the usual quiet. Not tense, not waiting for something to go wrong. Just tired. The good kind of tired, the kind that comes after something is finally, completely over.
I pressed my mouth to the top of Anna's head and looked out the window at the trees blurring past.
Thirty-two men.
All seven installations.
Done.
The stateof Anna's house hit me harder in daylight than it had in the dark.
The windows were out. Two of the doors had deep gouges where the knobs had been forced into the plaster. Glass crunched under our boots from the entryway all the way down the hallway, and somewhere in the back of the house a curtain was blowing through a busted frame.
Anna stood in the middle of her living room and didn't say a word. Just turned in a slow circle, taking stock of it. Her jaw was set and her arms were crossed over her chest and she had the look she got when she was deciding whether to be angry or practical.
I stepped up behind her. "I meant what I said."
"I know you did."
