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“What the fuck are you doing, Ash?” Knox asks, sounding exasperated. “Don’t just pile the shit up like that. Have you never packed a car before?”
“Well excuse the fuck out of me for not having played dead body Tetris in a trunk before, Knox. If it all gets there, what does it matter?” I can hear the eye roll in Ash’s voice.
Knox huffs with exasperation. “We gotta have room for the rest of it, dumb-ass. River’s shit, Gage’s shit. All this shit still next to the car.”
“You do it, then.”
“I will. Move.”
Priest sighs as he walks outside with his own bag and seems to contemplate loading it himself before just putting it down next to the car for Knox to deal with.
Knox grumbles under his breath as he starts rearranging things in the trunk, and Priest is rolling his eyes when Gage and I come out.
“It’s too early for this much bickering,” he mutters.
“With those two?” Gage says. “It’s never too early for them.”
“Too early for the rest of us, then.” Priest smiles at me, a small smile that actually reaches his eyes, and I lean up to kiss him on the cheek before approaching Knox with my bag.
“If I try to put this in the trunk will you have a fit?” I ask him, half teasing.
He rolls his eyes. “It’s not a fit. I’m just saying it makes more sense to do it this way. Easier to unload, more space for shit.”
It’s funny because I never would have pegged Knox as the one to be the best at organizing, not when Gage is right there, but considering how orderly he keeps his ‘tools of the trade’ it makes a certain kind of sense.
Once everything is loaded to Knox’s specifications, we pile into the car and hit the road.
It’s weird to drive away and not see Hippo (the current name for the dog, given to him by Knox after he ate all of Knox’s take out, right from the container) in the window, barking to send us off. But since we’ll be gone for a bit, the bartender from Sin and Salvation is watching him.
I like that none of the guys even suggested putting the dog back on the street or doing anything but making sure he was taken care of. I’m pretty sure I even saw Ash sneaking some dog toys in the bag of stuff we brought over to the bartender’s house when we dropped Hippo off.
It feels weirdly domestic to be going on a road trip with these guys, and I settle in the backseat with Ash and Priest.
Gage is driving, and as soon as we back out of the driveway and get onto the road, Ash puts on a whiny voice and asks “Are we there yet?”
Gage sighs, long and with feeling, and Knox laughs.
“Ash, I swear to fuck,” Gage says.
“What, you’ll turn this car around?” Ash quips back. “You won’t stop at McDonald’s and you’ll make me eat the food we have at home?”
Knox just cackles, and Priest rests a hand on my leg, rubbing his thumb lightly over my knee. It’s a small point of connection between us, but it feels nice.
“Let’s focus for a bit, okay?” Gage says. “And go over what we know.”
That makes Ash get serious, for the moment at least, and we all sit up a little bit straighter in our seats to go over the plan. We know that Julian is expecting a big shipment of drugs. We know the route.
“When do we expect the drug runner to reach the spot where we’ll be intercepting him?”
“Four days, give or take,” Knox says.
“Which gives us two days to reach the place, and a buffer of two days in case the runner is ahead of schedule,” Gage adds.
I nod, fixing that in my mind. We have a plan, and it’s a good plan. Gage is known for making good plans, and so far, everything has been going the way we want it to.
I gaze out the window, watching the buildings and houses of the city give way to the open highway. The signs start signaling exits for leaving Detroit, and I take a deep breath and then let it out.
In my mind, I can picture Julian’s smug fucking smile when he saw me. I think of the razor I dragged over my skin afterward.
It’s his turn now, to feel what it’s like to die by a million cuts. This will be one more deep slice.
One step closer to our goal.
