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This pub is tiny, with long shared tables lit by flickering lanterns and a fire blazing from the hearth. Wait staff bustle from a busy kitchen, carrying enormous plates of sausages and schnitzel. At any moment, I expect a hobbit to leap onto a table as the whole place erupts into medieval song. We head up to the bar. Gabriel pushes ahead and orders steins of beer and pommes frites for all of us.
As the waitress pours our beers, George leans over the counter, holding out her phone. “Hey, this might sound really weird, but we’re looking for a girl who—”
The woman looks up at George. I’m standing right behind her with my hood pulled up. She catches my eye over George’s head. Her entire face goes pale. She spins on her heel and grabs the guy serving the other end of the bar. He’s carrying two full steins in his hands. He starts to snap at her in German but then he catches sight of me.
“You.” His fists shake. He slams the steins on the counter and stalks over. “How dare you show your face here.”
“Excuse me?”
I’m aware that the hum of conversation behind me has dried up. My back itches from the weight of eyes stabbing into my back. The bar is so silent I can hear Gabriel slide his stein off the bar and sip at the foam.
“You were told never to return.” The man turns to Gabriel. “I feel sorry for you. You are handsome and you seem nice, so I think you will be her next victim. Consider this your warning. This bitch worked in my bar for six months. She stole money. She spat in food. She blackmailed my sister. She is evil, I tell you. Take her away from this place.”
Gabriel looks at me like he’s trying not to laugh. But it’s not funny, not at all.
I open my mouth, but I can’t find the words. Whatever Mackenzie did to him, I’m not going to be able to fix it.
“Leave,” he hisses. “Schnell, schnell! Or I call the polizei.”
Noah grabs my arm and drags me outside. The others follow. Gabriel tosses back his head and swallows as much of his beer as he can in one gulp before slamming the glass on the counter and running after us.
We huddle together in the square, bracing ourselves against the icy wind. George rubs her hands together. Two red spots appear on her cheeks. “That guy was so angry.”
Gabriel cracks up laughing. “I think we can safely assume that the Malloys have made their mark on Rothenburg.”
“I don’t think we should be out here anymore.” George looks over her shoulder. I follow her gaze. The guy from the bar storms over to a nearby restaurant, yelling angrily in German at the maître d and pointing toward us.
I shiver. “Agreed.”
I don’t know what I expected to find in Germany. But it certainly wasn’t a dead body and the fact that an entire medieval village wants me to die in a fire.
Word of Mackenzie’s arrival spreads through the tiny village like the bubonic plague. By the time we’ve trudged back to our pension, a cruel-looking woman blocks the doorway, slapping her heavy rolling pin against her palm.
“Not welcome,” she growls.
“But we paid for the night. It’s all booked—”
“Not welcome.” She slams the door in our face.
It’s the same story at every pension and hotel we try. We even attempt to buy tickets for a moonlit historical walking tour to kill an hour, but a jolly man dressed in a medieval cloak waves a sword at us until we run away.
Antony and George manage to get a couple of rooms at a motel, but no one will give Mackenzie Malloy a bed and the boys refuse to sleep anywhere without me. In the end, we leave George and Antony to get a decent night’s sleep, and Noah drives the van around the outskirts of the city until we find a secluded spot nestled beneath one of the ancient watchtowers.
We fold down the seats in the back of the van. Always keen to avoid discomfort, Gabriel heads out to the market and returns with some blankets and pillows and a bag bursting with German candy and beer. The boys spread out the blankets and lay out Gabriel’s feast, and by the time I crawl inside between Noah and Eli, we’ve made a cozy nest for ourselves.
“This isn’t so bad.” I lean back into Noah’s arms. “It’s a bit like camping. At least, how I imagine camping can be.”
“I take it crime boss fathers aren’t big on the great outdoors?” Eli digs through Gabriel’s bag and pulls out a box of chocolates. “Dad used to take me camping and hunting all the time when we lived in Tennessee. I loved it – listening to the wind in the trees, roasting s’mores over an open fire, getting dirt under your nails, sleeping under the stars in layers of warm clothing—”
“Sounds like hell on earth,” Gabriel grabs the chocolates off Eli and pops one in his mouth. “Give me 400-count Egyptian sheets and room service any day.”
“—not having anyone looking over your shoulder or expecting anything from you,” Eli finishes.
“Now that I can get behind. Touring is one long-ass expectation train that occasionally stops at hedonism station. Try these chocolates, Claws. I used to live off these things on tour.”
It occurs to me as I slide a chocolate onto my tongue that this is one of the first times I’ve been alone with all three of them since I was shot. Malloy Manor is crowded with people, which is so strange and welcome after being on my own for so long. But we haven’t really talked about what happened, about what we are now that Eli’s here.
I swallow. Their scents swirl around me, and the van seems to shrink into this tiny space they fill with their bodies. I’m hyper-aware of Eli’s thigh pressed against mine, Noah’s arm behind my shoulders, Gabe’s fingers lightly tugging my lip as he places another chocolate on my tongue. My chest caves as I catch the look passing between Gabriel and Noah. Eli’s breath rasps on my neck. Hunger gnaws at my belly, even though I’ve had more than enough to eat.
