Page 79 of Bound in Ashes

But later.

Hayes bristled and I remembered this wasn’t a tit-for-tat game. Our lives, the lives of the people we cared about were on the line, and I needed to focus on that.

“So how have you managed to keep the town relatively intact?” I asked the sheriff. I hated the phrasing of the question, but knew that stroking Hayes’s ego was always the right move.

“Well, you know me, Asia. Don’t tolerate nonsense. Keep a strong hand. People will generally fall into line,” he said. “But more importantly, what’s going on out there?”

“Nothing. Nothing good,” Jack responded.

“You sound like it’s permanent,” the sheriff said.

“You think something different?” Jack asked.

“Just a little blip,” he said.

“Sheriff.” I met his eyes.

“Asia.” He stared back at me.

“This isn’t just a blip,” I said, shaking my head.

“Do tell,” he said.

“It’s gone,” I said. I realized then I hadn’t said those words out loud, but it was true.

“Gone for you. Whatever life you were living out there in your big city is gone. But this town? It’s still here. You see it yourself,” Hayes said. He spoke with the conviction of a man who’d never seen anything else, and any hope that I had that this might be okay died at that very moment.

Hayes didn’t listen to reason on the best day. And now was far from the best day. He was holding on by a thread.

“But the question is, am I going to have any trouble from you?”

I was such an asshole.

I’d known what Hayes was like, what he was up to, but had let myself forget. And now it was here—him trying to feel me out. Because this wasn’t about getting information. Not about the outside world.

This had been Hayes reminding me that I wasn’t shit and never would be.

I also wasn’t a preteen anymore.

“I guess I could ask the same, Sheriff,” I said.

“You might know how to behave yourself finally, after all this time. But the company you keep,” he said, looking at Jack.

Jack was practically vibrating. And if Hayes wasn’t such a fucking moron, he would have tread lightly. But this was Hayes we were dealing with, so he pushed on.

“This place is about law and order, and I won’t have any outsiders destroying it. Is that clear?” he said.

Jack said nothing, and the tension ratcheted.

“You hard of hearing, Mr. Thorne?”

“What do you think?” Jack said, his voice low, lethal, and a reminder that the circumstances were spiraling out of control.

“We got the message, Sheriff,” I said.

“You got that, but does he? Or do you speak for him?” the sheriff said.

“She—”