Page 67 of Justice

“Huh?”

“Girl, I just told you that my husband wants to go to Brazil by himself and you ain’t even react.”

“Oh hell no. Chase is on some bullshit.

“Exactly. If he goes… I don’t know, we might need to talk to a lawyer. But what is up with you?! You’ve been out of it.”

“That little girl knows.”

“Knows what?”

“Who I am. Or enough of it to be dangerous.” I dropped my voice anyway, even though nobody was within twenty feet of us. “She keeps saying slick shit about court, about being a lawyer, dropping little hints just to watch my face do something. It’s a matter of time before she tells Justice.”

That got her attention. Aubrey set the shirt back on the rack and turned to face me full on.

“Okay, wait. Back up. You’re worried about Storie outing you, and that’s a real thing to be worried about. But that’s not actually what’s got you looking like this right now.” She studied me a second too long. “You’re falling for him.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” She looped her arm through mine and steered us toward the food court, lowering her voice to match mine. “Skye. Listen to me. I love you, and I’m about to say something you don’t want to hear.”

“Here we go.”

“Play the long game. That’s it. That’s the plan you already made before any of this happened. Lay low, get your money together, get Keenan, get out the country. You don’t get to fall in love in the middle of an escape plan. That’s how people get caught.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? Because right now you’re worried about a fifteen year old’s feelings toward you, and baby, that girl is not thinking about your feelings at all. She’s thinking about her daddy, and how she doesn’t want to share him, and she’s acting like a brat because that’s what girls that age do when somebody new shows up looking like they might actually stick around.”

I wanted to argue that. I wanted to tell her it was more complicated than jealousy, that there was something colder sitting behind Storie’s eyes than a kid just missing her father’s attention. But saying that out loud meant explaining things I didn’t have the energy to explain. And the real issue is her telling him before I got my money together.

“You’re probably right,” I said instead, which wasn’t a lie so much as it was the easier truth to hand somebody who loved me and wanted me safe.

We headed to the food court where we got our pretzels. Speak of the devil. I saw little Nightmare in the mall on a Wednesday. She was standing outside the food court, near the escalators, next to a man who had to be in his late 20s. That was not some damn high schooler. What is with this little girl?

He had his hand on the small of her back, guiding her toward a bench like they’d done this before, comfortable enough about it that my stomach dropped straight through the floor. She was supposed to be in school. And then on top of it she was on punishment. She didn’t care about consequences or getting in trouble at all.

“Aubrey.” My voice came out flat, urgent. “Don’t look right away, but look—that’s Storie right there.”

She followed my eyes and spoke through gritted teeth, “Oh, hell no. Who is that nigga?”

“Exactly! I can’t just walk past this and not say anything.”

I quickly pulled out my phone and called Justice.

“Come here.” I grabbed Aubrey’s hand and pulled her sideways into the shadow of a kiosk selling phone cases, both of us folding ourselves out of Storie’s eyeline just as Justice picked up on the other end.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Justice.” I kept my voice down to almost nothing, watching Storie over Aubrey’s shoulder through a gap in the kiosk’s phone case display. “You need to get to the Pentagon City right now. Storie’s here. She is with a grown ass man.”

Silence on the line for a second, long enough that I could hear his breathing change.

“I’m on my way.”

The call ended, and I ushered Aubrey into a department store so that we could get out of her line of sight. I could not have her know that I was the one that snitched on her. That little demon would give me hell to pay.

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