7. Beth
BETH
Flint moves across the courtyard with his pistol held low beside his thigh. I remain in the office with the control tablet and radio, watching him through three camera angles as he approaches Room Twelve.
“West walkway is clear,” I say through his earpiece. “Sixteen's curtain moved.”
“Wind?”
“Window is closed.”
He pauses at the corner between the rooms. The black cord near the rear gate remains taut, its purpose hidden beneath Sixteen's window. Whoever entered wants our attention split between a visible trap and something we haven't seen yet.
I bring up the maintenance screen. I installed electronic deadbolts inside the old locks when I renovated. Twelve shows locked from inside. Sixteen is open.
“Twelve is locked from inside,” I tell Flint. “Sixteen is open.”
“He wants me in Sixteen.”
“Yes.”
Flint angles toward Twelve instead. He draws a narrow pry bar from behind the ice machine, sets it near the door and looks toward the camera.
“Can you release the deadbolt?”
“On my count.”
On the room feed, Twelve's air conditioner is working too hard for an empty room. The thermostat is set to sixty, the smoke detector has dropped off the network and a second load is pulling power from the bathroom circuit. A faint chemical haze curls beneath the door.
“Wait. It's rigged.”
Flint backs away.
“Opening the door will kill the AC. If that second load is tied to the thermostat, it could ignite whatever is inside.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I rewired these rooms. Get the hell away from the western wing.”
A figure appears behind Flint at the end of the walkway.
The shaved-headed driver raises a pistol.
“Behind you.”
Flint turns as the first shot breaks the office window. He fires toward the walkway and dives beside the ice alcove. The gunman retreats behind Sixteen. Flint is pinned between the wired room and the courtyard with no cover beyond a stucco partition.
I hit the master blackout. Every exterior light dies. The gunman fires twice into the darkness, aiming where Flint had been.
“Move west,” I tell Flint. “Three feet.”
“Room Twelve.”
“I know where it fucking is.” I kill power to Twelve. Both loads vanish from my screen before anything can ignite.
Then I unlock the linen room's exterior steel door across from Flint and turn its interior light on. A bright rectangle opens in the dark courtyard.
“Come to me.”
He runs. The gunman shoots toward the moving silhouette.
Flint returns fire once, forcing him behind the building, and reaches the linen room as I release the security shutter between the western walkway and the airstrip gate.
Heavy slats drop from the canopy. The barrier seals with a metallic crash.
I lock the linen room behind Flint. Blood darkens his right shoulder.
“Where?” I ask.
“Graze.”
“Sit down.”
He starts to object, sees my face and sits on a folded-sheet bin. I cut his T-shirt sleeve with the first-aid scissors. The bullet carved a shallow channel through the outer shoulder. It bleeds freely, and his arm stays strong when I ask him to lift it.
“You saved my ass,” he says.
“I saved my west wing from catching fire. You happened to be attached.”
“There's the Beth I remember.”
My hands start shaking after I finish the pressure bandage. Flint notices and covers them with his uninjured hand.
“I'm here,” he says.
“You were in the fucking open.”
“You got me out.”
The radio crackles. Dare reports the gunman has reached a motorcycle hidden near the wash and fled south. Vandal finds the cord beneath Sixteen tied to a flash charge—noise and distraction, not demolition.
Knell sent one man early to prepare the motel and test us. If he gets back, he knows Flint is here, but he still doesn't know where the rest of Dead Lucky is.
“Let him report,” I say. “He saw Flint here Monday anyway. Don't chase him and expose positions.”
Vandal checks Twelve through the bathroom window and confirms a crude fire trap: space heater, paint thinner and a relay tied to the air-conditioning circuit. My blackout killed it before it could ignite.
Flint looks at the monitor. “He would've burned your motel to kill me.”
“He would've tried.”
“Because you knew the circuits.”
“Because I maintain them.”
Dare finds the hidden motorcycle's tracks but stops at County Nine as Flint ordered. The gunman reaches the highway. We don't know whether he reports failure immediately or waits until he can explain the shot Flint put into the stucco beside him.
“Knell may cancel,” I say.
Flint shakes his head. “He sold the weapons twice. If he cancels, both buyers start looking for him. He's too proud to admit we found the trap.”
“Then he comes angry.”
“Yeah.”
I open the linen-room door only after Vandal confirms the room is safe. Flint follows me across the courtyard despite my instruction to rest his shoulder. I don't argue. I want to see the damage too.
Room Twelve smells of chemical fumes. The bedspread and walls are intact. My motel has survived somebody trying to turn one of its rooms into a bomb.
Flint studies the heater. “Knell knew enough about the rooms to know the AC shuts off when the door opens.”
“He may have asked a former employee. The old system worked that way too.”
“Who still knows the service layout?”
“Ash did. Three former desk clerks. The old owner. None of them would help Knell knowingly.”
“He didn't need to tell them why he was asking.”
I think of the questions people answer over drinks because they sound like small-town nostalgia. What changed? Which rooms still connect? Does the old shutter work? Knell could've collected that kind of information for months without raising a flag.
“We don't chase that tonight,” I say. “We fix what we know is weak.”
Flint nods.
We spend the next hour stripping out anything Knell's man could still use.
I put the western rooms on manual power, change the service code and disable the old lock cylinders while Dare and Vandal sweep the property.
By ten, Twelve is safe, the gate trap is gone and Sundown Court looks closed and quiet again.
Flint sways slightly when we reach the office. Pain and blood loss have taken more from him than he'll admit.
“Apartment,” I say.
“I can stay in Fifteen.”
“Your shirt is stuck to the bandage. My shower has better light.”
“That sounds like an order.”
“It is.”
He gives me the answer I need. “Yes.”
Before we leave the office, he says, “You're pissed about the room.”
“I'm pissed about you.”
His attention snaps to me.
“I spent years imagining what I'd say if you got hurt,” I continue. “Turns out none of it helps when I see blood.”
“This doesn't change the plan.”
“I know. It changes me.”
I take the radio from my belt and tell Dare we're moving inside. Then I guide Flint through the internal laundry passage so he doesn't cross the courtyard. He lets me support his injured side even though he barely needs it.
In the bathroom, I wash the dust and dried blood from his skin beneath a warm shower. He stands facing the tile while water runs pink over his back. The graze looks less frightening now, a narrow torn line already sealed beneath clotting gel.
“Tell me if it hurts,” I say.
“It stings.”
“I'm talking about your arm.”
“So am I.”
I turn off the water and dry around the bandage. Flint catches my hand before I step away.
“Beth. Look at me.”
He turns. Water runs over his chest. The hard calm he wore with a gun in his hand is gone.
“You don't have to do this because I got hit,” he says.
“I know.”
“Adrenaline makes people do shit they'll regret.”
“I wanted you before anybody fired a gun.”
His thumb moves across my wet knuckles. “Yeah. You did.”
I remove my shirt and drop it outside the shower. His gaze travels over my breasts as I strip the rest of my clothes. Then I step beneath the water again and press him back gently against the tile.
“Right arm stays down,” I say.
“Bossy.”
“Injured.”
“Fair.”
I kiss him. There's no desk, no cuffs and no need to prove anything. Flint keeps his right arm low while his left hand cups my breast, his thumb brushing the nipple until it hardens. I slide my palm down his stomach and close it around his cock.
“Condoms are in the bedroom,” he says.
“We're not fucking.”
His eyes heat. “What are we doing?”
I kiss along his jaw, avoiding the bandaged shoulder. “This.”
I stroke him slowly while his fingers find my clit. Water slicks our bodies as we stand beneath the spray. Flint changes the pressure according to my breath, using two fingers in steady circles that weaken my knees.
“Turn around,” he says softly.
I do. He moves behind me and supports my hips with his good arm. His mouth travels along my shoulder while his fingers return between my legs. I brace both hands against the tile. He slides one finger inside me, then a second, and curls them as his thumb works over my clit.
Pleasure builds slowly. I push back against his hand, asking with my body, and Flint gives me more. His erection presses against my lower back. I reach behind and stroke him in time with the rhythm he sets.
“I love you,” I say.
The words come out before I can decide whether tonight is too soon.
His fingers pause for half a second, then move again.
“Say it again when we're dressed,” he says. His voice has gone rough. “I need to hear it when nobody's shooting at us.”
“I love you, Flint.”
“I love you too.”
That does it. Emotion and pleasure hit together, and my orgasm builds fast. I keep my hand around him, changing the angle until his breathing breaks. We come seconds apart, my body pulsing around his fingers while his release spills across my back and washes away beneath the water.
Flint rests his cheek against my damp hair, careful of his shoulder. We stand there until the spray begins to cool.
Afterward, I replace his dressing and put on clean clothes. He chooses a black button-down so he doesn't have to lift his arm.
We sit at the kitchen table with the radio between us.
“I love you,” I say again.
Relief hits his face so fast he can't hide it. “Fuck, Beth.”
“That isn't forgiveness for leaving.”
“I know. You can love me and still be pissed.”
“They're sharing a motel.”
His mouth curves. “Higher rates.”
I reach across the table and take his hand. “Tomorrow we finish Knell. After that, you keep proving you can stay.”
“I've already started.”
“You have.”
It's the first credit I've given him. He takes it without asking for more.