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He looked as good as I remembered.
Better maybe.
But there were bags under his eyes.
Like he hadn't been sleeping.
And I guess that made sense.
"Ferryn?" he hissed as his eyes moved to me, confused for a second, likely about my new bruised and shaved look.
"Vance," I agreed, taking a deep breath.
I didn't even think about it.
I didn't hesitate.
I closed the distance between us, reaching up, snagging him by the back of the neck, dragging him down, and sealing my lips over his.
It should have been the most exciting moment of my life. It would have been had it happened a week ago.
But excitement wasn't something I was seeking anymore.
This was determination.
This was the culmination of something I had wanted for far too long without acting on it.
His body had stiffened for a moment, knowing he was supposed to pull away, but softened a second later as my lips demanded a response, then got one, as he finally took over until my body felt like it was thrumming with need.
Then and only then did I pull back, break away, finding his eyes hooded with desire but somehow also widened with shock as he looked at me.
"Just so you don't forget me," I told him, taking a steadying breath I desperately needed, turning, and running off, ignoring the stabbing in my feet, ducking in and out of backyards until I reached the convenience store a town over, taking a card out of my wallet.
My 'for emergencies' card.
Except it was simply a card to my parents' checking account.
With a lump in my belly, I withdrew eight-hundred, reminding myself that - like Iggy - I would pay them back as soon as I could.
I bought a ticket.
I climbed on a bus.
And I watched as Navesink Bank drifted into the distance.
I would be back.
When I was stronger.
When I could stand on my own.
When no one else could ever use me again.
Yeah, I would be back.
Someday.NINESummerMy daughter shot my mother.
My daughter killed my mother.
I was pretty sure that in no version of my reality that I had ever thought that those were words I could think.
But there was no other way to put it.
Because that was exactly what had happened.
I almost hadn't gotten the chance to know that fact. At least not in real time.
They weren't going to tell me.
My husband.
Our friends.
They were going to leave me at Hailstorm wringing my hands, worrying the floors, pretending to put on a brave face for the boys. Boys who were getting older. Boys who knew something was up. Boys who had a lot of questions, and disbelieving brow raises at my makeshift answers.
If I hadn't walked outside at the exact moment I saw my husband climbing into one of Lo's SUVs, I might have been left behind.
I swallowed back my undeniable bruised pride, hurt feelings at still being thought of as weaker, as someone too soft to handle all the hard in their lives, and planted my feet, steeled my spine, demanded they take me to save my daughter.
There were a lot of frightful people in the world, but there was none more terrifying, more unpredictable, more formidable than a worried mother.
Needless to say, they took me along.
I was even handed a gun.
Then we drove.
The most frustrating revelation was finding out that she wasn't that far. She could have been anywhere in the world. Indeed there were people looking for her in every damn corner of it. But she was just a few towns over.
A few towns on a big piece of property with an old, abandoned house, protected by a handful of armed guards.
A small, pitiful empire.
It must have irked V to know that, to know she had been brought so low, to know she had so high to rise still.
She was an appearances person.
She was a reputation person.
And hers had clearly not recovered as fast as she had planned.
Her contacts she had built over decades of ruling the trafficking trade on the east coast had likely moved on, aligned with other people, established new bonds, forgetting all about her existence.
If I knew the woman, and I thought I maybe had gotten to know how her brain worked over the years, analyzing what had happened with my imprisonment, listening to the stories my father told me about the conversations he had held with her, then I knew that she would have made up for her insecurities by being extra vicious, showing her men the kind of ruthless leader she was, forcing their allegiance through sheer terror rather than respect or hard-won loyalty.
And my daughter, my perfect innocent, brilliant, willful, amazing daughter had been in her grips for six days.
Six.
I wasn't sure I had slept that many hours all put together since she had gone missing, making me antsy, frazzled, sick to my stomach wondering what Ferryn was going through.
Had she met V yet?
