Nineteen
JENNA
She looks like him. Same dark hair and same piercing eyes. But I guess Molly has her mother’s nose, rounded and button-like. She stands on a wooden stool next to Jezabel to help make pumpkin soup for everyone. I hear it’s her favorite.
I’m just here for a glass of water.
“Would you like me to add some cream?” Jezabel asks. “I think it always makes vegetable soups better.”
“No, thank you.”
Maybe she gets more from her mother than I gave credit, because I haven’t heard manners like that out of Nibbles.
I gulp the last mouthful and then refill the glass before heading out of the kitchen.
I can feel the damn judgment every time I pass one of these patched fuckers.
Chaos left with their VP and Loki a few hours ago, not long after Fang and the inked guy.
The only remaining officer I’ve seen is Darko, perched on a stool at the kitchen counter with his laptop.
I don’t know exactly what he does for the club, but he hasn’t been without an electronic device all that often.
“Hey.” I greet Kathy as I approach the crackling fireplace. “How are you feeling?” She slept away most of the afternoon, from what I understand.
The redhead shrugs. Gorgeous in a whimsical cottage-core kind of way. Wherever she might have ended up, I can guarantee they would have eaten her alive.
“What’s on your mind?” I gently coax, noting the way her gaze is softly fixed on the flames. “Anything I can help with?” Anything that’ll detract from my own goddamn issues.
She sighs, readjusting how she sits with her legs tucked to one side. “I don’t know where to go, Jenna.”
“After this?”
Kathy nods.
“Can you not go home?”
“I don’t want to.” Her face crumples briefly. “My home isn’t very… typical.”
I lower myself to settle beside her, placing the glass of water on the hearth. “Neither.”
She looks up at my admission, eyes bright with a spark of hope. “How so?”
“I live with my dad. My mom died a few years ago. It’s not—how would you say—a very supportive environment. A lot of questionable stuff. A lot of neglect.”
“Oh.” She closes up again, like a flower losing the sun. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I take it yours isn’t the same as mine, then?”
“No.” She fidgets with the hem of her skirt. “Not like that.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She shakes her head and looks away, toward The Kid. “Darla said the police can’t find emergency placement for her in a home.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I muse.
“How?” She frowns my way.
“Then she can stay here, with people she knows. At least… people she knows a little bit. Familiar people.” And I can keep watch on what she says when she finally decides to talk.
I study my small adversary as she flicks through a tattered book, seemingly dug up from somewhere that hasn’t seen sunlight in some time. Her fingers linger on the moisture-wrinkled edges before she flicks the page over, lips moving every so often to sound out words silently.
Why didn’t she react when Mary-Beth’s body was taken? Why hasn’t she shown any distress?
“When are you leaving?” Kathy asks, breaking me from my spell.
“I’m not.” I offer her a weak smile. “Can’t decide where I want to go yet, like you.”
She seems comforted by the idea.
I look around the room and find Darla in the corner with Darko’s iPad. “What are you doing over there?”
She lifts her head and smiles. “Playing games.”
“Nice.” I double-check the room again before asking Kathy, “Where are the other two?”
“Nandi’s keeping Mila company on the porch. She wanted to wait out there until they’re picked up.”
“They’re going tonight?” My chest tightens a little, taking me by surprise.
I thought they’d have a couple of days to catch their breath, until the morning, at least. I feel strangely attached to Mila, to her welfare. I’m not ready to let go of her just yet.
“After dinner,” Kathy answers. “I guess you weren’t in the room when the deputy told them.”
Nope. I was too busy upstairs, arguing with Nibbles. A fresh wave of anxiety clutches at my chest. “I’m glad for them.” I push off the floor, swallowing my nerves, and rise to my feet. “I’m going to take a walk in some fresh air before it’s too cold and dark outside.” Not that anyone cares.
Kathy nods and resumes watching the flames.
I exit through to the foyer, and when I hear muted voices, promptly change direction to avoid walking past Nandi and Mila.
The off-set hall leads through to the rear of the house, past the laundry room.
Nobody stops me, let alone notices me, as I slip out the back door and take a full, cleansing deep breath.
This is getting too messed up, too fast. I don’t owe my father anything.
I could walk away, right now, and there’d be nothing he could say that would be valid enough to bring me back.
Except, I should have walked away earlier—when I had the chance.
It’s too late now. Too late for me to retain my innocence.
I’m no saint. And it’s that crushing guilt which turns my gut to acid as I climb the fence into the adjacent field.
Who do I try to fool? I’m no hero. No protector of the innocent. No goddamn martyr.
I’m a charlatan. A killer. One moment of selfish need forever encapsulated in the metaphorical blood that stains my hands.
Shit. Everything’s too much of a mess. Too complicated. I barrel toward the imminent shutdown of the one thin thread of mental clarity that remains, my brain trying to protect itself from the impossibility of it all.
Who’ll believe me when it’s my word against a dead girl’s?
The dead grass scratches at my shins as I push my way deeper into the field, shoes sliding in the mud.
A fresh flurry fell shortly after we returned, not long enough to settle, but enough to turn the dirt to mush.
The vague outline of people in the distance must be the Amish still hard at work.
Confident that I’m safe from curious eyes, I collapse amidst the grasses and promptly fall to one side, curling myself into a ball. Dirt be damned.
You can do hard things, Jenna. I was raised by hard things.
The day fades, small black insects crawling along the woody stalks in the twilight. Motorbikes arrive, and at least one leaves. Life goes on around me.
But I don’t want to move.
It’s safe here. Secluded. I can pretend life isn’t one giant fuck up and delay the inevitable for a while.
There’s nothing wrong with that, right? Who goddamn knows?
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be dead. Maybe the Kings of Anarchy will figure out who I phoned and put me in the ground, as they have every right to.
I’m a snake, lying here in this grass. A slimy, untrustworthy serpent.
A pained giggle erupts from my throat, startling me with its brash noise in the darkening night.
The grass swishes to my right. The noise grows louder.
What the hell? Boot steps. Undeniable squishy footfalls that stride my way thanks to my outburst.
“There you fucking are.” Fang crashes into view. A shadowy omen of pain and suffering looming over me in the near-dark. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for you?”
“Nobody asked you to.” I nestle tighter into my ball of messy comfort.
He scoffs a garbled laugh and then strides into my little clearing. “Stand up.”
“No.”
“I said get your ass up.”
“And I said no.”
“You’re filthy.”
“And that’s a problem? How?”
“Jesus fuck,” he mutters under his breath. “Good to see your shitty attitude hasn’t changed. Even my daughter ain’t this stubborn.”
“She looks like you.” Why that matters right now, I don’t know. But I felt he needed to know.
“No shit.” Nibbles wraps a hand around my upper arm and gives a gentle tug. “Come on. Don’t make me force you to move.”
“I don’t want to.”
He swipes the side of his hand at my ribs, and I realize he knocked a curious bug off me. “Plan to spend the whole night out here to see how many new friends you wake up with in your ears, do you?”
Ew, the fuck no. The threat of unwanted tenants has me move. I bolt up to a seated position, rubbing at the phantom tickle in my ear canal.
He huffs a laugh, moving back a step. “Women are so predictable.”
Of course a guy like him would say that. I scowl up at his stupidly handsome face. “Like you wouldn’t squeal if something made a house out of your eardrum.”
“I wouldn’t be stupid enough to sleep in a harvested grain field.”
So that’s what this scratchy shit is. I shift, folding my legs, and knock mud off the hem of my jeans. “I know you found it.”
“Found what?”
“Don’t be a dick.”
“According to you, that’s all I am.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Really? “The phone.”
Asshole smirks, still towering over me, close enough to touch. “I didn’t, actually. But I knew you had it. Yeah.”
“Is this the part where you use those on me and hide my body out here amongst the withered crops?” I jerk my chin toward his pistols.
He rolls his goddamn eyes. “Like I’d be that careless.”
The insinuation that he might kill me, just not here, isn’t lost.
“You coming inside, or what?” He asks. “I’ve got a coffee that’s probably cold by now.”
“Sorry to be an inconvenience.”
He huffs, jaw hardening while he studies me for a brief, tense moment. “You know what? Yeah. You are an inconvenience. A poorly timed responsibility in what is the absolute shitshow called my life. But you know what else?”
I don’t look at him, grinding my teeth hard against each other to stave off any poorly timed tears.
“None of that is your fault. So maybe if you dropped this whole woe-is-me thing you’ve got going on and engaged with the people around you, you’d find things would go a little easier.”
He started so well, but true to form, he finished with yet another insult. “You know,” I snap. “It’s called a compliment sandwich, not an insult sandwich.”
“The fuck are you on about?”
“You need to work on your people skills.” I push unsteadily to my feet and stride past the jerk.
He catches me by the arm.
At completely the wrong time.
“Get your fucking hands off me.” I spin in his hold, simultaneously attempting to pull my arm free while I bat at him with my other. “Let me go.” I sound panicked, and I know it.
As does he. “Hey.” Hands drawn back, Fang takes a step away from where I stand, chest heaving. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Yeah?” The word falls from my mouth as a manic chuckle. I lift my eyebrows in disbelief. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” he assures, slowly lowering his arms. “I wanted to apologize. About earlier. I could have said those things better.”
“You think?”
He frowns. Swallows. “I still stand by what I said.” Awesome. “You need to quit isolating yourself, Jenna. I get that it’s hard to trust people right—”
“Do you?” I snap. “Do you understand, do you? What it’s like to have men choose the course of your life for you.
To have men force you into situations you’d otherwise avoid through sheer dominance alone because they’re physically and mentally stronger and they know it.
Do you get how that feels, do you? To be so helpless for no other reason than genetics. ”
He presses his lips together, jaw hard.
“I didn’t think so.”
“I wasn’t trying to force you to do anything,” Fang states quietly.
“Sure sounded like you were when you ordered me to stand.”
“Because it’s fucking cold out here,” he explodes, punching his arms across his chest. “It’s fucking winter and, I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have this fucking argument inside.”
“Then why stop me?” I yell, equally as loud. “When I tried to do just that—go inside?”
“Because you weren’t listening!”
“Neither were you!”
“Fuck!” Fang roars, spinning to face away. His shoulders rise with quickened breaths. “Why do you have to be so difficult?” The look in his eye when he turns back toward me is nothing short of livid. “Why can’t you just trust me?”
“Because trusting people got me here,” I tell him. “And because I’m still fucking paranoid that you’ll goddamn shoot me—especially when you look at me like that.”
“Like what?” He seems genuinely taken aback. “Why do you think I’m so hell-bent on putting a bullet in you?”
“Because of the phone. Duh,” I holler, tossing my hands in the air. “Because of who I called. Who I am. The things I’ve done.” My internal monologue screams for me to shut the hell up, but I can’t stop the outpour once it’s started.
This shit has ached to get free for too long. I’m tired of keeping secrets.
I’m tired of being a secret.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Fang says carefully. “I don’t know about anything other than you had the phone.”
“Are you sure?” I’m full-out sobbing at the man. Such a wreck, Jenna.
“I’m sure.” He stares down at me, and I don’t have any urge to look away.
His eyes are dark. Maybe green. Maybe more of a gray.
It’s impossible to tell in this half-light.
I just know the way he’s looking at me right now makes my chest full in ways I haven’t felt in years.
It’s as though he genuinely wants to figure me out. Wants to know more.
It’s almost like I matter.
It’s dangerous.
“I’ll make you a new coffee,” I murmur, desperate to break the rising tension.
“I don’t need one anymore.” He hasn’t moved.
“Why?” My word is but a whisper in the night.
“Because you make me feel more awake than I have in a long time.”