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“Ruby.”
She exhaled like she’d been holding her breath for a long time. “Oh my god, Roman.” She took his face in her hands, rested her forehead against his. “Thank god.”
There was a lot to think about: what had happened to land him in the hospital? How badly was he injured? When could he get out of here?
But one question rose above the rest: what had Ruby meant when she’d said it was time to fight?
And when could he start?
3
OLIVIA
This place smelled funny. Like the laundry when her dad let it sit in the washer too long.
Her dad had told her what it was called, but it was hard to pronounce and when she asked him again he’d said, “Don’t worry about it, Olivia,” but not in the nice way her mom did when she was trying to make Olivia feel better.
When her dad saiddon’t worry about itwhat he meant was that he wanted Olivia to be quiet, or even toshut up. They weren’t supposed to sayshut up. Her mom said it was mean and rude and there were nicer ways to ask someone to please be quiet.
But when Olivia tried to tell her dad about theshut uprule, he’d just said the thing he always said: “Mommyisn’t here, is she?”
And that made Olivia sad all over again because no, her Mommy definitely wasn’t here. Nobody was. Not Auntie Brooke or Grampa or even Ms. Moretti from her kindergarten class.
It was just Olivia and her dad in this motel that her dad said was a vacation. Olivia didn’t know a lot about vacations — she’d only had one, to Disney World, a present from Grampa for her fifth birthday — but she knew they were supposed to be fun, and this one wasn’t fun.
“Did you hear me, Olivia?” her dad asked from the bed next to hers. “Get me another beer.”
She scooted off the scratchy floral comforter on the bed that was hers on their vacation and walked to the cooler against the wall. The TV was on — her mom didn’t like her to watch too much TV but she got to watch a lot with her dad, the only good part about their vacation, even if her dad always got to choose the show — and playing one of her dad’s favorite shows,Naked and Afraid.
Right now a man was trying to build a fire with two rocks but it was raining and the rain was getting the wood wet and even Olivia knew you couldn’t make a fire with wet wood.
“Speed it up,” her dad said.
She opened the cooler and dug through the ice — past the milk she used for her cereal and the string cheese her dad had bought her as a snack — for one of the beers.
There were only two left, and she closed her hand around one of the bobbing cans and lifted it, dripping, out of the cooler.
“There’s only one left,” she said, handing her dad the beer, because one time she hadn’t told him he was out and he’d been super mad. Then he’d left her alone in the motel room at night so he could buy more and Olivia didn’t like that even more than she didn’t like the vacation with her dad.
“Fucking great,” he muttered, taking the beer.
It made a popping sound when he opened it, like the can of Coke she sometimes shared with her grampa when he took her to Billy’s for their favorite hot dogs. She wasn’t supposed to drink soda but her mom just rolled her eyes and smiled when Olivia told her about the Cokes with Grampa.
She missed her mom’s smile. And her Grampa. And Billy’s hot dogs.
“When are we going home?” It was the question that had lived on Olivia’s tongue ever since they’d gotten to the motel after a long ride in her dad’s car — not the police car he used for work but his actual car — but she hadn’t dared ask until now.
Her questions made her dad mad a lot, not like before, when she’d seen him on Wednesdays and on Friday nights and he’d bought her all her favorite things and smiled the whole time.
“I don’t know,” her dad said, staring at the TV. “I kind of like it here. Maybe we should stay.”
Olivia scooted onto the bed. Her heart sounded loud again, like it did whenever she was scared. Her mom hadn’t called in a long time and her dad had said it was because her mom was too busy.
If Olivia stayed here with her dad, her mom might forget about her. She might never call again.
Olivia swallowed and tried not to cry. Her dad got mad when she cried because only babies cried and Olivia wasn’t a baby.
She looked at the nightstand next to her dad’s bed. His phone was right there. She didn’t know her mom’s phone number, but she thought it was inside the phone because when her mom let Olivia call her grampa or Aunt Brooke the numbers were inside the phone.
