Sergeant seemed to understand. She licked my hand once, then planted herself at my heel, ready to follow.
I took the phone, the bag, and hustled down the hall, Dean’s voice in my ear as he mapped out the escape plan in five short sentences. I didn’t know whether to be more scared of the men outside or the way Dean had become a stranger in the blink of an eye.
In the bathroom, I huddled on the floor, phone tight in my fist, Sergeant’s body a warm, vibrating shield. Through the door, I heard Dean moving, the creak of the floorboards, the click of a gun being chambered. I heard the soft, controlled breath of a man willing to die but not willing to lose.
Time lost meaning. Every second lasted a year.
When the call finally came, I picked up before the first ring ended.
“Stay put,” he said. “They’re gone. Cops showed. I watched the whole thing from the fire escape. They’ll be looking for you tomorrow, but tonight we’re clear.”
I pressed my head to the tile, let out a sob I didn’t know was waiting.
He added, “I’m coming in. Don’t freak.”
A second later, the door opened. Dean stepped inside, face flushed, sweat cooling on his skin. He didn’t wait for permission, just knelt and gathered me up, arms wrapped tight around my shoulders. Sergeant whined, nosed in, then settled at my feet.
For a long time, we didn’t move. The only sound was our breathing, the steady drum of my heart finally slowing back to normal.
When I pulled away, I looked him straight in the eye. “You can’t save the world, Dean. But you have to save yourself, or we don’t work.”
He nodded. “I want to try.”
It wasn’t a happy ending, or even a truce. But it was something—an agreement to hold the line against the dark, at least until morning.
We slept in shifts that night, Dean on the couch, me in bed with Sergeant curled against my back. The world outside was still a threat, but inside the walls, for a few hours, there was only breath and warmth and the possibility of another day.
In the early hours, I dreamed of dog tags, and motorcycles, and the promise of a new life, if only we could survive long enough to claim it.
15
Dean
The alarm cracked through my skull at 5:14, all sharp beeps and a blue LED, nothing forgiving about it. I silenced it before the third ring. There was no point in waking her yet, but I needed to get my head right before I tried to get hers out of dreamland. The world outside the apartment was still black, just the far-off twinge of pink on the Sandias, the kind of light that makes everything look either holy or post-apocalyptic. There were messages on my phone, unread, Damron’s number repeated at the top like a drill sergeant with a vendetta against sleep. I let them stack for now.
I brushed my teeth in the kitchen sink and rinsed out my mouth. I hadn’t showered, and I could feel the grit onmy skin, the aftershock of too many nights spent waiting for the first bullet to come through the window. My cut hung on the back of the chair, and for a second, I let myself imagine a world where I left it there and took Emily somewhere nobody knew our names, where my mom was alive, where the Sultans were just a punchline at the end of a joke.
I watched her sleep for a minute, curled on her side with Sergeant’s blocky head wedged under her armpit, the dog’s chest rising and falling in a rhythm that matched hers. Emily always looked younger when she slept, the tough lines of her mouth ironed out, her face soft enough that you could almost pretend she hadn’t spent the last twenty-four hours as a target. I sat on the edge of the mattress and tapped her shoulder gently. She came out of it all at once, eyes open and sharp, before her body caught up. “We good?” she whispered, voice a low, gravelled thing.
I shook my head. “We gotta go. Now.”
She didn’t ask why. She just ran her tongue over her teeth, then pulled the sheets to her chest. Sergeant groaned, then sat up, eyes on me, waiting for the next move. The animal knew the drill better than either of us.
I dug a shirt out of my duffel and tossed it to her. “Put this on. No time for a shower.”
She pulled the shirt over her head, her hair a tangle, then stood, one hand on the dog for balance. “Where are we going?”
“Clubhouse. It’s secure. Nobody’s getting in.”
She eyed me, lips flat. “You sure about that?”
I shrugged, but kept my voice level. “Safer than here. Damron’s already there. He wants everyone locked down before sunup.”
Sergeant was up and circling, tail a low pendulum. I took the leash from the counter, clipped it to the collar, and passed it to Emily. She fished a rubber Kong from under the bed and jammed a treat into it with the violence of someone mad at the world.
She pulled on jeans, zipped them without looking, then knelt to tie her boots. Her hands shook, not from fear but from caffeine deprivation. I poured her the last mug of coffee, black, and she drank it in three burning gulps.
Sounded corny even in my own mind, but Emily was the one. Some men waited a lifetime for the right one, only to see that ship sail at death, having never experienced what I was experiencing now. Keeping her safe was priority number one. Killing the assholes who killed my Ma was priority number two. She would’ve wanted it that way.
