Page 62 of Queen of Nothing

His voice is a soft murmur, “Call when you are ready to come home.”

That’s all he says before he pulls back and schools the pain on his face.

And he leaves.

Just goes through the door, back into the lane, and leaves me in the stairwell.

I look down at the watch in my hand.

I stare at it for a moment too long—time that I should be using to get out of here, to get a head start.

But it takes everything in me to not run out there and chase my brother down.

It takes every scrap of will to focus on Sal in my arms—and getting him to Serena.

I turn on my heels and race for the back door.

I run all the way to the filling station on the edge of town. The car is parked there, a brown station wagon next to the pumps.

Holding onto Sal, I throw myself into the backseat and slam the door shut after us.

“Go,” I shout at the trembling, tense Serena in the driver’s seat. “Go, go, go!”

She does.

She speeds out of town—and we leave behind everything we own in the apartment, including the bags of money hidden under the bed.

But the cold touch of the watch in my hand might just be a lifetime of funds.

11

Serena watches the rearview mirror more than she watches the road ahead.

Even when she calls Sofía and updates her on loudspeaker, her eyes swerve back to the rearview every other second.

But no one is following us.

Sofía confirms it.

Says our shield is restored.

I don’t heave the same breath of relief that Serena does in the driver’s seat. I don’t sob a happy cry, choke on it, like she does.

Crammed in the back, the door pressing into my side and the kid’s car seat digging into my hip, and Sal squirming on my lap, I just stare at the middle console, all the scuffs and scratches and juice stains on it.

I can still smell him.

Oliver’s cologne lingers in my nostrils.

‘I miss you. We all do.’

My fist tightens around the Jacob & Co timepiece. Not the one I bought for his New Year gift—but it makes me think about the watch that I accidently sent to Eric Harling instead of Dray Sinclair.

It’s not like I haven’t thought about everything that went down back home. But it was years ago. And I haven’t seen them in all that time.

I blended into this new life on the run. Unwillingly. And I had thoughts of home here and there, but when I did, it was more like living in echo.

Then Oliver appeared in front of me, real enough to touch my cheek, real enough to smell his cologne, and it burst the bubble around me.