“Just a few more steps,” Adam said. He guided her over a piece of fallen debris. Steadying her from behind, he dropped his hands from her eyes down to her shoulders.
“You can open your eyes now,” he whispered in her ear.
She opened her eyes, lifting her lids like they were heavy.
Across the old lot Adam had lined up hundreds of red and blue bottles, which now sparkled under the pale moonlight and covered everything in a sea of colors. They were in every tree, every fallen block of brick, every leftover table, all of them coating the sky in a soft glow, as if thousands of red and blue gems sparkled in the sky.
He could feel the tension squeeze from her shoulders with his grip, the gentle night wind rolling over his skin.
She’d been silent for a long time...
“Wow,” she finally said, wriggling from his grip and turning to face him. He huffed in relief when he saw the look in her eyes.
“So here’s the challenge: red bottles are good to shoot. Blue bottles are off limits,” he said, handing her the M19. “Let’s see how you do.”
“Please. I think I can handle it.”
He took the Beretta, and together they moved through the course, simulating a real fight. They ducked behind cover and jumped out to shoot. Dove behind pillars and rolled along the ground in advance. Feigned breathlessness and defeat when they sheltered together. Acting as if this was the fight of their lives. Which come morning, given what T.B. and Antonio had discovered, it very well might be.
Each smashing bottle sprinkled refracted showers, creating a glow like they were falling stars. They hadn’t lost their touch, perfectly timing their shots into the red bottles while avoiding the blue ones.
Just about to win the game, Adam fired into a red bottle that caused it to drop to the side, knocking a blue bottle over in the process. He cringed as he caught her looking from across the field, smugness spread into her smile.
“Look at that,” Mercedes laughed, approaching him. “Broke your own rule!”
“Hey,” he said, holding his hands up in surrender. “That doesn’t count. The bottle’s not shot, it’s just fallen down.”
“Still,” she said, advancing too close. “The bottle is injured. It’s down. It may as well be dead.”
He cocked his head and rolled his eyes. “The bottle lives,” he said as he picked it up off the dirt.
“Let me see.” She took the bottle from his hands and examined it closely, her eyes squinting as they scanned. Suddenly, a devious grin met her lips and she smashed the bottle at her feet. “It’s dead.”
“Because you killed it!”
“Just finishing what you started…putting it out of its misery,” she laughed, flipping her hair and turning her back on him.
She reloaded her gun and lifted to aim, keeping her eye on the sight and taking out the remaining red bottles. She won the game, but he watched closely over her shoulder as she did, until his breath brushed off her neck and back at him. So close he could smell her lavender perfume. It gouged at his heart strings, reminding him of the last time he’d been so close. Reminding him of everything he’d lost…that they’d lost.
As if she noticed his nose lingering at her neck, his lips inching ahead, she said, “I think we need to watch Dorian more carefully.”
The words were a sharp knife slitting through his affection. He took a startled step back.
“He asked me if I remembered Adam Vandemilio and thefiveguys on his crew.”
Adam stepped farther away from her and rubbed at his neck, but she was already looking at him with narrowed eyes. He just wanted this night, one night with the love of his life, before it all went to hell. Before he had to face the fact that they could be dead by morning.
“What is it?”
He couldn’t look at her long enough to say it. But he had to. “Yesterday, Paul and I followed Antonio and T.B. to the cemetery.”
“Were they up to something?”
“You could say that,” Adam said, pausing to take a breath. “They were digging up my grave.”
“What?! They wer–”
“They had shovels, at my tombstone, dug right down to the coffin.”
