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Sweet looks at her. “You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am. That’s why I’m telling you to go with the meanest man here who is not currently pregnant or holding poultry.”
Mourning Adams hollers from the fortune booth, “Pregnant women and poultry can be plenty mean.”
Vesper adds, “But Bitter digs faster.”
Sweet closes her eyes. “This town cannot be real.”
“It gets worse after dark,” Mercy says.
“I believe that.”
I hold out my hand for her bag.
Sweet looks at it. “Ask.”
The word scrapes over my nerves, not because I don’t want to, but because I do. Some part of me likes that she is making me use manners when every instinct says take control, lock doors, bare teeth, and put my body between her and the world.
She isn’t letting me be Razor with better reasons.
She isn’t letting me confuse protection with ownership.
And damn her, I respect it.
“Let me carry your bag, Sweet.”
Her expression softens at the edges.
Then she hands it over.
The bag weighs almost nothing, and that pisses me off too. A woman on the run packs light because she’s been taught everything can disappear. Her life fits into one worn leather bag, a pale blue car, and whatever secrets she keeps locked behind that sunny mouth.
I look over her head. “Ghoul.”
He appears from beside the cider booth like trouble summoned him. “Yeah?”
“We’re going to her motel. You ride behind us. Nevermore rides ahead.”
Sweet stiffens. “I didn’t say motel.”
“You said Ronnie.”
She opens her mouth, closes it, then points at me. “I do not appreciate deductive reasoning when it is used against me.”
“I’ll add it to the list.”
“There’s a list?”
“Growing by the minute.”
She turns toward the school, but I catch her elbow lightly. Not holding. Just stopping.
The difference matters.
Her gaze drops to my hand.
I let go immediately.
