Chapter Twenty
Evan
“I love you.”
It’s the gentlest sentence I’ve ever heard from Molly Rogers, and it lands like a roadside bomb.
For a moment I just sit there, stunned, in the rattling hush of my junker sedan.
I register the sweet tang of sweat, the way her hair is wild and knotted from my hands, the imprint of teeth on her lower lip — mine, or hers, or both, I couldn’t say.
My heart’s thumping so hard it’s almost a physical ache, a fist grinding up under my ribs.
We’re still fused, skin on skin, knees and hips tangled, the gearshift digging into my thigh.
The windows are a steamy white-out, the world erased except for the two of us, and the words she’s unleashed.
She said it first. She said it fast, like if she didn’t get it out it would rot her from the inside.
For the first time in years, maybe the first time in my life, I want to say it too.
Not as a ploy, not just for the mission, not even because it would make her easier to use.
I want to say it because in her arms, in this car, for one splintered second, I believe it.
Molly’s breathing calms, every exhale cooled by the foggy glass.
She shudders a little, and I feel the goosebumps chase up her arms. She tucks her chin and waits for what I’ll say next.
I should tell her the truth. That I’m a weapon aimed at her world, and the moment I’m done, she’ll never trust another living soul.
But I don’t have a heart.
I have June’s face and a timer in my head. If I don’t deliver, she’s dead.
“I love you, too.” It comes out gutted, more air than sound, as if my chest has been holding it hostage since the moment I saw her last.
Her expression goes soft and open, more vulnerable than I’ve earned. Her lips part, but no sound comes out. Then she laughs, low and shaky — a noise like she’s just found the punchline to a joke.
I cup her face, and she leans in, letting her forehead drop to mine.
Her eyes are glassy — teary, not from sadness, but because her whole damn heart is trying to push its way out.
“Yeah?” she whispers.
I slide my hand up the back of her neck and pull her in again, slow this time, deliberate. “Yeah.”
She kisses me as if she’s testing whether I’ll disappear if she closes her eyes. Like she’s waiting for the moment the floor drops out. But I won’t let her pull away, won’t let this moment vanish; I make it steady; I kiss her deeply, and I make it real.
Because part of me means it.
And that part is the problem.
We break apart. She’s flushed and almost dazed, eyes rimmed with red. Then she glances to the clock on the dash.
“I should go,” she says, and this time she sounds like she’s leaving a part of herself behind.
“You sure?”
She nods, but doesn’t budge right away. For a long minute, she just runs her finger up and down my arm, tracing the burn scar on my wrist. She presses her lips to my cheek, then my jaw, then the corner of my mouth, stealing the last word and the last kiss.
“I’m sure.”
She slips off of me and into the passenger seat, grabbing her clothes and putting them back on with the kind of moves that would make a contortionist jealous.
Then she climbs out, boots crunching on gravel.
Cold air rushes into the car. I watch her walk to her truck, the taillights washing her in red.
She looks back once — just a glance — and that glance lands in my chest and stays there.
Then she’s gone, her truck rolling away from the overlook and down the dark road.
I sit there for a while, watching headlights rise and vanish on the far side of the mountain, feeling this heart do this thing in my chest — constricting in disgust, expanding in love, doing both and filling my throat with this choking sensation.
I’m going to ruin her.
My phone vibrates on the seat. Just once. That’s all it takes. It’s a single-buzz, the short alert I set for only one contact. The one that owns me.
I don’t answer. I stare at the screen, the number blocked, the caller ID just ??? like it always is. The message is the same every time: Call me.
That’s all it takes to drain the heat out of my blood.
I start the sedan and head back toward Ironwood Falls. Streetlights strobe across my windshield. The world feels thinner than paper, and just as fragile. I pass The Noble Fir — Molly’s bar, now closed, windows dark — and feel my stomach twist. I hate that she’s a target, not an escape.
Love makes you soft, and soft gets people killed.
The apartment complex waits at the end of the dead-end street, a few clumping stories of weathered brick and busted porch lights.
I park in my usual spot, the engine ticking as it cools.
For a moment I rest my head on the steering wheel, breathing the stale air, wishing I could forget what Molly smells like when she’s happy.
I want my bike. Wind. Noise. Speed. Something honest.
Instead, I get out of the car and walk upstairs with my keys in my fist like they’re a weapon. The hallway smells like old carpet and someone’s overcooked microwave dinner.
Across the hall, Molly’s door is shut.
I can still feel her mouth. Still hear her voice, that hushed, cautious ‘I love you’ ringing in my ears.
Why the fuck did she have to say those words?
I unlock my door and shoulder it open
My apartment is so dark it might as well be an unlit stage, the props cast in deep shadow: the sagging couch, the rickety TV stand, my battered toolbox squatting by the door like a sleeping dog.
It smells faintly of my last two meals — canned chili and the half-burnt pizza I’d left to crisp in the oven while I watched the logging trucks trundle past my window.
I throw the deadbolt out of habit, then check it twice, palm pressed flat to the door as if I can will it to hold.
I flick the lamp on — just the one, the cheap cylinder from Goodwill — so the yellow light makes ugly puddles in the corners and everything else stays half in the dark.
My phone vibrates in my palm, and I toss it onto the table, watch it spin, and hear it land with a slap that echoes around the empty room.
I’m halfway to the bathroom when I hear it: a sound so slight I almost mistake it for the memory of a sound.
Not footsteps, not the pop of settling drywall, not the familiar squawk of the upstairs neighbor fighting over the remote.
Metal on metal. The whisper of a lock turning with the patience of a surgeon.
The tiniest click.
My whole body locks.
The front door.
The deadbolt shouldn’t move. I checked it.
The lock turns anyway — slow, controlled — like whoever’s on the other side wants me to hear every second of it. My blood turns to ice.
The door swings open, and they file in, one by one, like actors who’ve been waiting in the wings for just this moment: Midnight, then Cyclone, then Blitz. They don’t look at each other; they don’t need to, their rhythm is so practiced.
Between them is June.
My sister.
She looks so much smaller than she did in the photograph I keep folded in my wallet, the one from her high school graduation where she’s outshining the sun in her gown.
Now she’s in a torn hoodie, knees red from being dragged, wrists bound with zip ties so tight her fingers are blanched.
Her hair’s been yanked up in a ponytail, and there are flecks of blood at the part.
Bruises color her cheeks, and there’s duct tape across her mouth, but her eyes do all the talking — wide, wet, and begging.
Cyclone keeps a bruising grip on her upper arm, his free hand permanently balled into a fist.
Blitz presses a gun to the side of her head like it’s casual.
I don’t breathe.
Midnight closes the door to my apartment behind him with his boot, slow and quiet.
The click of the latch is the loudest sound in the room, a bullet casing dropping in a church.
He looks around like he’s judging my furniture.
Then he looks back at me; he’s searching for weakness, and if he can’t find it, he’ll invent it.
“Nice place,” he says, voice low and pleasant, like he’s about to close a mortgage deal instead of committing a felony. “Do you always keep it this tidy, or are you expecting guests?”
He smiles, but it’s only a facsimile — his mouth curls up, his eyes stay cold.
No one laughs, not even Cyclone, who keeps flexing his jaw like he’s chewing through a mouthful of loose teeth.
Blitz never looks away from June. There’s a silence so thick I hear my heart stutter, then double back on itself.
I make a show of exhaling, just to move air, to keep my hands from shaking. “Let her go.”
Midnight’s smile widens like I just entertained him. “Sit down, Gator.”
My legs feel like they’re full of sand, but I lower myself onto the edge of the couch.
Every nerve in my body is screaming to fight, yet I keep my hands visible, palms splayed, the universal sign for don’t shoot.
I keep my eyes on June. Her chest is heaving, and tears spill down the corners of her eyes and vanish into the tape.
Cyclone shoves her down beside the coffee table, forcing her to her knees, his arm around her neck like a leash.
I want to tear the entire room apart.
I don’t move.
Midnight strolls closer and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees as if we’re old friends catching up. He smells of smoke and motor oil and something rotten underneath.
“We need results,” Midnight says. “Fast.” He leans forward, voice dropping to a confessional tone. “You get me inside their operation. You get me details. Anything I can use to break them open, from the inside out.”
“Do you think I’m just fucking around here?” I say, irritation rising in my voice.
He tilts his head, amused, then shakes it, slow and indulgent, like a parent humoring a tantrum. “Not fucking around. Just… distracted.” He glances at the table, at June, at the pressed line of my mouth. “Work harder. Now, sit down and watch.”
Midnight glances at Blitz, who nudges June forward.
Cyclone presses her down into the coffee table, forcing her to her knees, and a quiet, muffled whimper comes from her.
Blitz then takes a knife from his jacket and flicks it open one-handed, a glinting silver arc.
He holds it up like a magician about to perform a trick, waiting for the drumroll.
I surge an inch off the couch before I can stop myself, but Midnight’s hand is already pointed at me, two fingers raised in a little ‘V.’
“Sit,” he says.
I sit. My hands curl into fists so tight my nails bite the skin, leaving little white half-moons as proof I’m alive.
Midnight’s voice turns soft. “You’re getting attached to this bartender. You’re getting attached, and it’s making you lazy and soft. You’ve forgotten what’s at stake.”
My throat closes up. I want to scream at him, tear the room apart, but I can’t risk a twitch. I say nothing.
Midnight watches my face like it’s a screen playing my secrets. “You’re starting to think you’re a good man. That you can have her and keep your sister and walk away clean. Don’t deny it. I can see it in your eyes.”
His words slide under my skin, cold and clinging, because he’s right. I am dreaming of escape hatches, of loopholes. Of a world where Molly doesn’t hate me and June doesn’t die. But every dream is a trap, and every trap is a lesson I learned too late.
He leans in closer, voice dropping.
“You can’t.”
He gives Blitz a nod. Blitz pulls June’s hand across the table and presses it flat, palm down, fingers splayed. She’s trembling so hard she can barely hold still. Cyclone pins her opposite shoulder, his forearm across her back. The knife hovers over her pinky, the dull side pressed into the skin.
Midnight’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You know what I love about fingers, Gator?” He gestures at his own hand, flexing each digit in slow sequence. “Most people think you need all ten. You don’t. You can do just fine with seven, or even five, if you’re clever.”
I feel sick. I want to vomit, scream, anything, but I can’t move. My vision tunnels down to the point of the blade, the way the flesh on June’s knuckle tightens when Blitz leans on it. She’s sobbing now, little animal noises through her nose, her eyes never leaving mine.
Blitz lines up the knife, the blade angled to take the finger at the joint. The knife dips, and the tip cuts a thin red seam across the top of her hand. She jerks, tries to pull back, but Cyclone’s grip is unbreakable. The little cut beads up, a single perfect drop of blood.
Midnight lets the moment hang, lets the blood glisten. Then he dabs it with the tip of his finger and pops it between his grinning lips. “She’s sweet. Now, do you see, Gator? We’re patient. But patience isn’t the same as mercy.”
He leans back, satisfied, and points at me with the hand that once wore a wedding ring, now just a dented circle of pale skin.
“You have a week. Seven days. If I don’t have what I want by then, we start with the fingers, we work our way up, and I promise you — by the time I'm done, you won't be able to put her back together.”