It was the first time in months I didn’t feel like I was running from something. It was the first time I ever let myself believe I was wanted.
We slept on the couch at first, the three of us wrapped in a tangle of skin and limbs and cheap polyester. Sometime after midnight, we dragged ourselves to the bedroom, if you could call it that. The mattress was stained and sad, the sheets thinner than gauze. We didn’t care. Seneca fell asleep on his back, one arm slung over my waist, the other curled around Jenna like she might vanish if he let go. I woke before dawn, used to the alarm of my own pulse, but this time it wasn’t fear that did it. It was something closer to hunger.
The room was cold, our breath condensing in little puffs, but the heat from our bodies kept the chill away. I lay there for a while, eyes on the ceiling, counting the cracks and water spots, feeling Jenna’s thigh pressed against mine. I’d never known what it meant to have a person, much less two.
Jenna woke next. She shifted against me, nose tucked under my jaw, and murmured, “You awake?”
“Always,” I said. It sounded trite, but it was true.
Jenna’s hand traced lazy, invisible circles over my hip. “You regret coming back?”
The old me—the pre-shootout, pre-Seneca, pre-Jenna-in-my-bed version—would have thought so hard about the answer it’d calcify behind my teeth. Now it came out clean and easy. “If I’m honest, this is the best decision I’ve made in a decade.”
She nodded against my shoulder, her lips making a damp patch just below my jaw. “Even though you know it’s doomed?”Her voice had the scared-a-child-once tone, like asking whether the monster under the bed really existed.
I considered. “Everything’s doomed. It’s just a matter of whether you bleed for something worth it.”
Jenna didn’t answer, but I could feel her smile. Her hand slid up to my breast, not sexual, just a claim stake. A little ripple of comfort passed through me. I turned my head to look at her; her eyes were open, glassy, still a little puffy from the crying she pretended never to do. I kissed her temple, tasting salt and sleep.
Seneca made a low growl, more animal than man, as he folded himself closer, his arm snaking across both our waists. Even asleep, he was territorial. His face was slack, the old rage lines softening each hour he spent out of danger. I brushed a hair off his forehead and watched the eyelid twitch. There was a time I’d have killed for a man to look at me like that. Now I wasn’t sure what the feeling was, only that it made every part of me restless and bone-deep satisfied at the same time.
I unknotted myself from the pile and padded to the kitchen. The floor, cold on my bare feet, shocked me into full wakefulness. I stepped over the empty bourbon bottle and the crumpled shirt someone had used to mop up spillage. The sun was coming up beyond the dirty window, painting the Formica counter with the kind of pink gold that belonged in a better life.I poured coffee grounds into the ancient Mr. Coffee and, for lack of filters, used a paper towel.
The first hot, bitter cup was like being resuscitated. I sipped in silence, feeling the knots in my back and legs soften, the night’s bruises blooming up to the surface. The house was still except for the rattle of the heater and a coyote yapping somewhere far off. I thought about my father, about the flight plan filed under my name, about the Bellini men waiting at some airstrip with their oh-so-professional side parts and Saint Michael tattoos. I wondered if they’d even bother looking for me, or if they’d justchalk it up to a lost asset and move on. The thought made me smile, mean and satisfied.
I was halfway through the cup when Jenna skulked in, wrapped in the sheet. Her hair was Medusa-wild, and a red bruise ringed the base of her throat, a Seneca original. She looked at me, sleepy-eyed. “You really think this is doomed?”
“I don’t, but I do think it’s something we have to work at,” I said. “My father will go back to doing what he does.”
“Will another family come after you?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The old ways are dying out.” I shrugged and nodded at the sleeping Seneca. “I think we’re safe with him.”
As we stared, we both giggled at the bulge beneath the covers.
“Should we wake him up?” Jenna crossed her arms, her as sharp.
We looked at each other. “You want his face, or his cock?” I asked.
“Face.” Jenna chuckled. “I want to see the look in his eyes when he wakes with my pussy in his face.”
I was all in and there was no turning back.
Chapter nineteen
Seneca
Freedom stung. Literally, the sun was a bastard, and the deputies at the front gate didn’t let you pause for sunglasses. They pushed you out into the light like a dog after a bath, everything dripping and awkward, every eye on the yard pretending not to watch you walk out.
Thirty days wasn’t long enough to forget the outside, but it was long enough to start missing shit you swore you’d never miss like air that didn’t smell like antiseptic, coffee with actual grit, even the faint, comforting rot of cigarettes in my own jacket. The county lockup wasn’t hell, but it was purgatory with state funding, and when the outer door banged behind me, I just stood there, blinking, waiting for the next step to be explained.
The next step, apparently, was Catherine Bellini and Jenna Smart, waiting for me on the far side of the chain-link. Both of them looked out of place on the curb, like runway models cast for a PSA about bad life decisions. Catherine in black, tailored casual, hair down for once, sunglasses that cost more than my first bike. Jenna wore a dress the color of a blood orange, cut justsharp enough to look like an apology for the last time we’d seen each other.
I took my time because I wanted to see if they’d crack first, but neither moved. They just leaned on the trunk, arms folded, sharing a single cigarette and the kind of mutual suspicion only women could perfect.
I crossed the blacktop, feeling every bruise and old injury reactivate under the gravity of their stares. I probably looked like a zombie; thirty days on a cinderblock mattress will do that. Still, when I got close enough, I could see the twitch at the corner of Catherine’s mouth, the way Jenna’s hands shook when she flicked the lighter.
“Judge,” I said.
