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No one can let go like Harper can. She carries so much life inside her, so much wildness along with such perfect wholesomeness, it’s easy to forget everything and everyone else when I’m with her. She’s enough. Even if we were the last two people in the world, she’d be more than enough.
When I’m with her even all the things, all the dark and nasty things I’ve done, that were done to me, lose their bite, become as inconsequential as that slight breeze you barely feel against your arm. She’s all the home I’ve ever needed and more.
If I thought I could ever give even a fraction of that back to her, I’d never let her go. But I know I can’t. I know that all I can do is take, take, take all that from her, until eventually I take it all. That’s not fair. She deserves more.
And the way she’d give herself to me, so completely, so seamlessly, so fully…
No, I can’t think about that or I’ll truly go mad. Every time I do, all my objections just go out the window and I start planning the escape Gene came up with.
But the last thing, the very last thing that Harper needs is an escaped convict by her side. It’d mean a lifetime of looking over our shoulders and the end of her singing dreams.
Her father would kill me if I did that to her. And I’d let him do it.
The loud rap of a baton against the open cage door of my cell rattles me out of my thoughts. Smith is standing there, the grin on his face reminding me of a child who just got done opening all his Christmas presents and they were all exactly what he wanted.
“You’re late for dinner, Moore Junior,” he says in a strangely sweet voice. “You don’t want to go to sleep hungry, now do you? Although I get it. The sight of that pretty woman walking away took my appetite too.”
If I were any closer, I’d punch him for talking about Harper. So it’s a good thing I’m cramped up on my tiny bunk.
“What would you know about pretty women?” I mutter as I climb down because that’s how bad I’m itching for a fight. Even with a guard. But Smith’s the type of guard that likes to bark, but don’t got a lot of bite to them. He’s also one of those guards who like to break the inmates down, especially the younger ones. At least that’s how my father explained it to me right before telling me to keep my head down and go along. I’ve never been good at either, I responded, and he called me a fool and refused to speak to me for the rest of the day.
Smith scoffs then grins even wider. “It’s a big day for you tomorrow. They’re talking about unplugging that poor guy you beat up from the machines keeping him alive. And I probably don’t have to explain what that means for you, now do I?”
I look down at the floor so I don’t have to look at the glee that’s now filling his beady eyes. It means at least fifteen years added to my sentence. And right now, I have no idea how I lasted fifteen minutes away from Harper.
“Better go enjoy your last meal now,” Smith says, chuckles at his own little joke and walks on. I let him get a head start, because one more taunt from him could land me in solitary for the next week and the last thing I want is to be alone with my thoughts for one minute longer.
Eating’s not high on my list of priorities right now. But finding out what other damage Harper’s visit today caused is. The visit coupled with the arrival of the two Riders earlier today could actually mean I don’t even have to worry about the man I killed.
Maybe I’ll even beat him to the other side.
4
Harper
I had no gig scheduled for tonight, but here I am, sitting on a rickety barstool in the middle of a small stage, the men and women at the tables around it all turned to me as I sing. After we left the prison, I stopped at the first bar that had anOpen Mikesign in the window, and this is my third set in here.
Singing and playing my songs is the only thing that can chase Jax from my mind. Which is ironic, because most of the songs I’m performing came to exist with him as my inspiration. Him and the love we had for each other.
Love that I thought would last forever and beyond.
Until the end of time, when the sun scorches the earth and pulls it into its warm embrace.
Beyond time. Beyond space. Beyond sorrow’s thorns and heartache’s bite.
Beyond forever.
And even as I sing those words, even as I see several women, and some of the men too, wipe at their eyes, I know it’s all a lie, all a fraud.
Love like that doesn’t exist. Love like that is too fragile to last. Love like that is always just a fraud, a pretense, a lie. Something that is only imagined, never real.
So before the last echoes of the last notes and my voice fade, and the applause and shouts for more start, I’m already putting away my guitar.
I smile and bow and wave and thank them for their time. Saying a clever thing or two by way of an excuse as to why the set has to be over. The words barely register in my mind.
Then I join Hunter at the edge of the bar counter and drink the rest of his beer in a couple of long swigs. Once that’s done, I ask the bartender for something stronger.
Hunter just looks at me, not saying anything until after I take the first sip of my whiskey neat.
