17. Bram #2
She squinted at the horizon, lips pressed flat. Her arms never moved. For a second, I thought she might spit, just to punctuate the silence.
“He’s never going to stop,” she said.
“That’s how it works with fathers,” I told her. “You know that better than I do.”
She smiled, if you could call it that. “You’re wrong. I know how it works with men like him.”
There was something in her eyes then—a flash of green shot through with black. You could tell she was playing a tape in her head, running through every conversation she’d ever had with the Colonel, every threat, every impossible demand.
“He’ll go around you,” she said. “He always does.”
“He can try,” I said.
Her gaze flicked to Rusty, then back to me, then to the gate. “Emma’s asleep,” she said. “She woke up three times in the night. Doesn’t remember half of it, and the other half is all screaming.”
I didn’t have anything for that. I just nodded. Rusty’s jaw ticked. The Colonel and I needed to finish this thing and soon.
Julie started down the steps, bare feet finding the cool cracks between the sunbaked planks. “If you want to keep her safe, you need to end it,” she said. “Don’t wait for him to bring the war here.”
“I’m not waiting,” I said. “I’m baiting.”
She was almost to me now, close enough to smell her sweat and the cheap soap from the shower. She stopped, looked up at me with those impossible eyes.
“You think I’m broken,” she said, flat and direct.
I didn’t answer.
“Maybe I am,” she said. “But I’ll kill him before I let him touch Emma again. You understand me?”
I looked at her. She wasn’t bluffing.
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
She didn’t blink, didn’t soften. “Then let’s finish this.”
Behind us, a new sound—engine, rough, old, coming fast. We all turned to the gate just in time to see a battered red pickup, frame two inches lower on the driver’s side, blast through the opening like the brakes had been ripped out years ago.
It fishtailed once, corrected, then skidded to a perfect stop ten feet from the porch.
The kid on gate duty had been too green or too terrified to block it, but I made a note to break his balls later. If you can’t stop a pickup, you can’t stop anything.
The door of the truck opened, and Sally Sparta slid out.
She wore a denim shirt buttoned to the wrist and black jeans, her short silver hair combed straight back, eyes shielded by aviators.
She closed the door with more force than needed, then stood there for a second, taking in the compound, the clubhouse, the two of us.
Then she walked. Not rushed, not slow, just a straight and level line from truck to porch. She walked past Julie, past Rusty, and stopped directly in front of me.
She peeled off her sunglasses and tucked them into her pocket. Her eyes were as gray as wet cement, and you could feel her weighing everything in the yard—me, the house, the sky, maybe the past forty years of decisions.
“You got a minute?” she said.
“Take it,” I said.
She jerked her chin at the door. “Inside.”
I led the way, feeling Julie’s stare hot on my back.
“I told you,” she whispered over my shoulder. “Just like the fucking Jaws movie.”
“I can handle her.”
Julie giggled.
In the entryway, Sally waited for the door to shut. She didn’t waste time.
“He’s going to hit tonight,” she said. “He’s got shooters coming from L.A., six of them, maybe eight. They’ll go for the main building first, then the outbuildings.”
I nodded, already filing away the details. “How do you know?”
“I know,” she said, and there was no space for argument.
“How the fuck did you get away from the Desert Scorpions?” Rusty said.
Sally smirked. “Show a man your pussy and tits, and he’ll make a dozen mistakes before he realizes he ain’t getting squat.” She smiled and moved her hand against Julie’s cheek. “I’m sorry.”
I could see Julie fighting the temptation to let her Mom know how fucked up she’d made her daughters. But she took a deep breath and nodded.
“Is Emma safe?” she said, softer.
“For now,” I said. “But she’ll be safer in the storm shelter. We’ll move her.”
“Good,” Sally said. She looked at me, really looked, and for a second the lines on her face deepened, like she was adding up everything I was and finding the total just short of what she needed.
“You ever done this before?” she asked. Now she was just being an asshole. Rusty smirked behind her, and I wanted to tell him to fuck off.
“Defend a compound? Only three or four times.”
She didn’t smile. “This one’s different.”
“I know,” I said. She thought she was my mother.
She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the old scar under her left ear, the place where some man a lifetime ago had tried to take her apart.
“You protect my girls,” she said. “You don’t let that bastard get his hands on them.”
I nodded. “I won’t.”
Her hand hovered for a second, then gripped my forearm. It was dry and strong.
“I mean it,” she said.
“I know you do.”
She let go, then turned to Rusty. “Dick, now.”
Rusty laughed and walked Sally past Julie and me. Moments later, we could hear the two fucking down the hall in Rusty’s room. Julie covered her ears, but I think the image of Rusty banging her mother was stuck in her head.
Everyone was happy, albeit temporarily.