"For now is all we ever get."
"True enough." He claps a hand on my shoulder. "Get some sleep. Debrief at 0900."
I nod and turn toward my unit. Then I stop.
"CJ."
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for sending me."
He's quiet for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is softer than I've ever heard it.
"You're one of us. We take care of our own." A pause. "And something tells me she's one of us now too."
I think about Evie on that cliff. In that crevice. Standing in a bedroom with a six-year-old, trusting me to hold the line.
"Yeah," I say. "She is."
EIGHTEEN
The Scar Story
EVIE
The deck isempty when I find it.
Someone—Mitzy, probably—pointed me here after dinner. "He's been out there for an hour," she said, not specifying who. She didn't need to.
The sun is sinking toward the ocean, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that seem too beautiful to be real. After everything that's happened, the world has no right to be this gorgeous. But it is anyway, indifferent to the chaos of human lives unfolding beneath it.
Riot is leaning against the railing, his back to me. He's changed clothes—dark jeans, a gray Henley that stretches across his shoulders—and his hair is damp from a shower. He looks softer like this. Less like a weapon, more like a man.
He doesn't turn when the door opens, but his shoulders shift. He knows I'm here.
"Hey," I say.
"Hey." He still doesn't turn. "Rosie get settled?"
"Out cold. Mitzy found her some pajamas with rockets on them. She was asleep before Sera finished the first chapter ofGoodnight Moon."
"Good. Kid's had a hell of a day."
"We all have."
I cross to the railing and stand beside him. The salt air fills my lungs—clean, cold, nothing like the pine and granite of the mountains.
"Debrief go okay?" I ask.
"Well enough. CJ's coordinating with SA Yates—turns out she's been building a case against Harmon for months. Your testimony is the missing piece." He pauses. "She's good people. She'll make sure this sticks."
"And the cartel?"
"Still looking for you in Sacramento. By the time they figure out you're gone, it won't matter." His jaw tightens. "Harmon's going down. The FBI agents who sold out—they'll go down too. It won't bring back Judge Castellano, but it's something."
We stand in silence for a while. The sun sinks lower, bleeding red across the water.
"You should be sleeping," he says finally. "When's the last time you actually slept?"
