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Bo came into the living room and stood right inside. He didn’t say anything, but Gia sensed him—and heard him—come in. He’d been doing that for more than a day now, so worried about her that he couldn’t make himself leave the house, in case she might need him, but so afraid to disturb her that he couldn’t simply be company for her.
Getting shot had put her back in the family home, at least for a week or two. She couldn’t manage steps, and her parents wanted her closer so they could help out, so she’d planted a flag in the living room of the main house. Already, not even two days since the whole mess had happened, barely more than one since she’d gotten home, the living room was like a well-used hospital room. The sofa was made up in perfect sick-day fluffiness. Bo had fashioned an over-sofa table, at exactly the right height, from a rolling cart and a freshly sanded piece of very nice wood. She had beverages and snacks. She had two stacks of books—one for research, if she wanted to work, and the other for fun, some of Dad’s old science fiction novels, her own thrillers and crime fiction, and a few of Bo’s romances. Laptop, tablet, phone, remote for the television, earbuds. She was set.
Once the shock of getting shot had worn off, and then the bolus of Novocain Tasha had filled her leg with to stitch it up, she’d discovered that a bullet tearing through one’s thigh, even when it entirely missed bone, hurt like the proverbial motherfucker. Stairs were impossible; walking on flat surfaces was possible but extremely unpleasant, even with crutches. When Tasha had told her she needed to stay off her leg for at least a week, probably more like two, Gia had nodded and planned to blow her off. She’d thought she’d felt fine, considering. Then the good drugs left her system. Now Tasha had nothing to worry about; Gia planned to be a model patient.
Propped comfortably on the sofa, she set her tablet on her lap and smiled at her brother. Otto sat at his side, glued as usual to his boy.
“Hey, brother.”
“Hi, sister. Do you need anything? It’s twenty-eight minutes before you can have medicine again, but I made sure your ice packs are all frozen, and Mom bought three boxes of Peanut Butter Crunch at Price Chopper, and a half-gallon of the oat milk you like even though it’s not actually milk. Also there’s a quart of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy ice cream, a twelve-pack of Coke Zero, and half a pound of the deli ham you like and a wedge of extra sharp cheddar cheese. I also just made a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice.”
Gia grinned. “Wow. That’s a lot. Thank you. I’m not hungry right now, and I’ve got my water bottle for thirst, so I’m set for now. Could use some company, though.”
Finally, her brother came all the way into the living room, Otto trailing happily. “Okay. When you’re hungry, tell me, and I’ll bring you everything you want. Would you like me to sit and talk? Or we could play a game—I can go up and get the trivia cards—or we could watch a movie.”
“Bo.” She reached out, offering her hand. He took it and held it awkwardly until she closed her hand around his. Then his grip tightened, too, and he relaxed a little. “I’m gonna be okay, you know. I didn’t get badly hurt.”
He frowned down at her. “You were shot. With a bullet. In your body.”
“In my thigh, and it didn’t hit the bone. I got shot in about the best way possible to get shot.”
“That is a nonsensical statement.”
Gia laughed. Bo did not.
“Okay, you’re right,” she conceded. “Nothing about getting shot is the best possible anything, but what I mean is I’m going to heal fine. It could have been a lot worse.”
Apparently appeased, if not satisfied, by that answer, Bo shook his hand free and pulled an armchair close. He sat down. “Do you want to play a game?”
“Let’s just talk.”
“Okay. May I ask you a question?”
“Of course. Anything.”
“How does it feel that you killed people?”
Gia flinched internally. She had not expected that question, though probably she should have, from Bo. He was relentlessly curious and equally impatient with the insignificant chatter most people used to build up to a question like that.
How did she feel after killing two people? She had no fucking idea.
Actually, that wasn’t entirely true; she knew what she felt. What she didn’t know was whether her current feeling would change, or whether it was normal, or if it wasn’t, what it meant about the kind of person she was.
The answer to Bo’s question was that she didn’t care. Those men had done terrible things to Zelda. They’d been lurking in Zaxx’s house to do terrible things to him, they’d slit his poor dog’s throat, and if she hadn’t killed them, they would have done terrible things to her and more terrible things to Zelda.
All the proof she needed had been in Doofus’s body on the floor of that house, and had gone through her leg. She did not care that those men were dead, and she was glad—no, she was proud—that she’d killed them.
Being an outlaw was apparently an inherited trait.
Another answer was that she did care, and maybe was even a little sorry, but not for the reason most might expect. The reason she cared a little was that those two terrible men had been cops—one active, one former—and there would certainly be fallout of some kind for her and for the Horde. As far as she knew, that fallout hadn’t dropped yet. Dad was being pretty good, so far, about keeping her informed, but undoubtedly there was shit under the seal of the Keep. For instance, she didn’t know what the club had done with the bodies she’d made, and she figured she’d never know. But she worried that killing those men would hurt her family, and if so, it would be her fault.
So that was the other thing she felt: guilt. More guilt. It was becoming a significant feature of her personality, and it sucked.
Bo watched her with intense focus, waiting for her answer. She didn’t lie to her brother, but there were things in her true answer he’d struggle to understand. Bo’s world contained very little grey. Gia’s world was full of it.
“I’m still figuring out how I feel about it,” she began. “They were bad men. They hurt Zaxx’s sister really bad, they killed his dog, and they meant to hurt Zaxx, too.”
“And one of them shot you.”
