“You okay, baby?” His eyes glint, inches from mine.
“Yeah,” I whisper.
“Mommy,” Landis says, staring up at Jensen. He’s just realizing he doesn’t know him.
I touch his face. “This is Mommy’s friend. He’s going to keep us safe, okay?”
He stares at Jensen, hard. Jensen’s looking right back at him, but I can’t tell what he’s feeling at all. His eyes are wide, lips parted. He could be astonished or devastated. It’s impossible to know with him.
“Jensen,” I whisper.
He swings his eyes to mine. “Where’s Leland?”
I open my mouth, but I can’t get the words out for a second. All I can do is shake my head.
“Talk to me, baby.” His whisper is low and urgent.
“He’s dead,” I mouth. “Upstairs.”
His brows rise. “You kill him?”
I can’t speak.I don’t want to say the words in front of Landis. Someday,I might tell my son what I did to gain our freedom. Or I might let him live in blissful ignorance. I don’t know yet.
“Take Landis,” he says hoarsely. “I need to find a way out of here.”
“What about Kayleigh and Brothers?”
He eases Landis back into my arms and ducks out. “Brothers knows what he’s doing. Stay put, baby.”
The way he calls me baby is so soft this time. Heart in my throat, I watch him move among the shelves. There’s a flicker of orange as he opens the door to scan the yard. Then, he’s back, holding out his hand.
“We have a window of time right now,” he says. “Give Landis to me.”
I slide from beneath the stairs and put my son in his arms. This time, Landis grips his shirt, holding on. Jensen takes my hand for the second time tonight and pulls us through the back door into the side yard. It’s empty, sheltered by the porch. The hydrangea bushes wall off the back area where the commotion still rages.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
He shifts Landis to his left side and pulls his AK out of the way, reaching to the small of his back to remove his pistol. It glints in the firelight, and Landis makes a muffled sound,like it frightens him. Jensen turns to him, pulling the pistol down and out of sight.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, voice dropping. “I got you, kid.”
Landis opens his eyes. “What’s your name?” he whispers.
“Jensen,” he says, voice cracking.
Landis sniffs. “My name is Landis. It’s nice to meet you,” he whispers, hiswordsrehearsed the way I taught him. “I’m four years old.”
“That’s good. That’s the best age,” Jensen says, eyes glittering.
The fighting fades into nothingness,and I’m back in my bed in Harlan, my daddy sitting on the edge of the mattress. He’s using that voice he’d use to calm me down after a bad dream, and it sounds so damn much like the one Jensen is using right now.
Footsteps hammer, snapping me out of it.
“We need to go,” Jensen says. “Stay close, baby.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
JENSEN
