Gingerly, I cross the room, hesitating as I put my hand on the doorknob.Here goes.I open the door, expecting to find myself face to face with… well, I have no idea who. Someone who’s bad news, that’s for sure.
Instead, I take in Logan’s hanger-on friend Everest. He blinks at me tiredly from the chair in the corner of the room, a few feet away from the bed.
“Hey, Lia,” he smiles. “How’s it going?”
Uhm… how do you fucking think?
“Can I help you?” he adds, as if his friend didn’t just hunt me down with a gun for the purpose of what I can only assume is to kill me.
“Everest,” I breathe, “hi.”
If anyone hates me, it must be this guy. I’ve never had a realproblem with him, and yet, he was the only one in Logan’s crew who couldn’t fight back. I guess I took out all my frustration with Logan on him. I may have started a rumor or two that he was gay, and in a shitty place like Oakley, if anyone finds out you’re gay, you’re pretty much dead.
He probably would be, if Logan and the others hadn’t looked out for him.
I don’t know what exactly he is—gay, or asexual, or aromantic, or some combination of all three—but I’ve never seen him spare so much as a glance at a girl. For some reason, as I stare at him, those thoughts hurtle through my mind, and I suddenly realize with disgust that I’m wondering what exactly I need to do to convince him to let me go.
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m not a fucking whore.
It’s pointless anyway. Everest is literally a Ken Doll. Dickless. Spineless. Uninterested. He looks at me like I’m a fucking hole in the drywall. A bland, unfortunate problem that he feels passingly bad about having helped to create, but that he definitely is not planning to fix.
“Can I help you?” he repeats. “Do you need anything?”
Yes. To get the hell away from here, from Logan, and from Carmelo Moretti.
Instead, I mumble, “My daughter’s hungry.”
“Of course she is.” Everest looks the picture of contrition, exactly like a guy who decides to apply a thin layer of paint to his fucked-up wall and call it a day. “Hold on, I’ll see what I can scrounge up. Or, wait. I’m not supposed to leave this room. Sorry. I’ll see if one of the guys is around.”
He gives me an apologetic grin, then stands up, running a hand through his Ken-doll hair, before popping open the door that leads to the hallway.
“Hey, man,” he says. “Can you see about getting some food for Lia and her kid?”
I hadn’t even thought about myself, but as he speaks, I realize how famished I am.
There’s a grunt on the other side of the door, and then I see a thug’s blunt profile as he leans in to say a few words.
Moments later Everest returns to his seat, once again smiling apologetically as he closes the door behind him. “Someone will be along with something soon. Sorry about that.”
“Sorry about what?” I ask, sitting down on the bed opposite him. I have no idea why the hell I’m not returning to my room. That would probably be the smart thing to do. But it feels good to talk tosomeone.
“Sorry about the food, of course,” he smiles. “I should have known you were hungry.”
“Hunger is probably the least of my problems right now,” I try to joke. “It doesn’t exactly matter in the afterlife, right?”
“Uhm.” He stares at me with an expression I can’t quite make out. Pity? Guilt?Confusion?
Yes, that’s the one. But I guess it tracks. There’s no way Logan would ever let him in on whatever he’s planning. The only reason they’re friends in the first place is so Logan can protect him… from people like me.
It’s an odd thing to realize your future executioner has more integrity than you.
“Mama,” says Aurora insistently. “Hungry.Milk, mama! Milk!”
Clearly she feels calm around Everest. I lower my mouth to her ear and whisper, “Wait, baby. You’re going to eat very—”
But before I have time to finish my sentence, the door opens again, and I let out an audible gasp. It’s Logan, and he spares me a single glance before looking at Everest furiously.
“What the fuck isshedoing here?”
