Chapter Twenty-Three #2
“She said if one day they call, I should remember who opened the road.”
I stare out the windshield.
I knew it.
Still hate hearing it.
“There it is,” I say.
“She didn’t demand anything.”
“Not yet.”
“They helped me.”
“Both can be true.”
Her eyes flash toward me. “You keep saying that like I don’t know.”
“I say it because I know you want the help to be clean.”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
She frowns.
I look at her. “I want it honest.”
She absorbs that in silence.
Then she says, “People will say it was The Widow.”
I go still.
The road ahead cuts through dark fields, headlights eating up the yellow lines. Behind us, Widowmaker rides tied down and silent, like even she is listening.
“People say lots of stupid shit around Hell,” I say.
“Do you think it’s stupid?”
I think about brake failure. Hot Mama’s smile. Lottie asking for pie. The crown behind Amelia’s ear. The pale shape in my mirror the night I found her on Hell Road with a blown tire and fear packed in every box she owned.
“No,” I say. “I think sometimes stories are how folks tell the truth when nobody can prove it.”
Amelia’s fingers tighten on the wheel.
“The Widow warns women,” she whispers.
“Some say.”
“And wrecks bad men.”
“Some say.”
“Maybe she did both.”
“Maybe.”
She is quiet for a long stretch.
Then she says, “Or maybe women did what ghosts get blamed for.”
That line sits between us.
Sharp.
True enough to draw blood.
I look at her profile, at the little crown, at the woman who left Kentucky running and is driving back marked.
“Both can be true,” I say.
This time, she doesn’t argue.
Another mile passes.
Then another.
“You think they killed him,” she says.
“I think Jeremy Vale had working brakes until women or ghosts got tired of him breathing.”
She flinches.
I regret it immediately.
Not enough to lie.
“I didn’t ask for that,” she says.
“I know.”
“I didn’t want him dead.”
I look at her.
She keeps her eyes on the road.
“I wanted him gone,” she says, voice breaking.
“I wanted him away from August. Away from me. Away from you. I wanted to stop feeling him in every room before he entered it. I wanted to stop explaining myself to imaginary judges in my head. I wanted my son to stop flinching when a car door shut too hard.”
Her voice shakes harder now.
“I wanted him gone, Derby. But dead is so… final. And I keep thinking there should be grief where the relief is. And there is some. Maybe. I don’t know.
There is horror. There is guilt. There is anger that I feel guilt.
There is this awful part of me that keeps breathing deeper because he can’t come anymore. Then I hate that part too.”
I listen.
Just listen.
That may be the hardest damn thing I do on the entire trip.
Because every instinct says fix it. Tell her he deserved worse. Tell her relief is allowed. Tell her I would have done it if the Queens had not. Tell her there is nothing wrong with being glad a monster stopped hunting.
But that would make her grief smaller so I can be more comfortable.
“I don’t know who I am without him being the thing I’m running from.”
“That one I know.”
She looks at me.
I keep my gaze forward.
“When you stop running, there’s a lot of space,” I say. “Feels wrong at first. Like the quiet is a trick.”
“Yes.”
“You fill it slow.”
“With what?”
I look back at August sleeping.
“Courtrooms made of cereal boxes. Bad pancakes. Whatever weird-ass dinosaur that is.”
“Princess Chomp.”
“Still weird.”
“She’s been through a lot.”
“Haven’t we all.”
Amelia smiles, and it almost stays.
Then her voice goes soft. “And you?”
“What about me?”
“Do I fill space with you?”
The question goes right through me.
I turn my head and look at her profile, the tired eyes, the mouth I still remember under mine.
“If you want.”
“That isn’t a very biker answer.”
“Fine. Yes, fill every damn room with me until I trip over your shoes and the kid’s dinosaurs and complain about it for the rest of my life.”
She laughs.
Better.
Then I add, quieter, “But only if you want.”
She hears the difference.
That matters.
Another hundred miles pass.
Then another.
Morning finds us in a cheap motel parking lot where August eats powdered donuts on the curb while I check the trailer straps on Widowmaker. Amelia watches me from near the SUV, hair wet from a quick shower, crown visible, eyes still heavy with road sleep.
I catch her staring.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
She walks over slowly, donut sugar on one thumb because August shared and she can’t say no to him any better than I can. She stops beside Widowmaker and touches the seat strap.
“You hate that she’s being towed.”
“Profoundly.”
“I know.”
“Doesn’t feel natural.”
“Thank you for doing it anyway.”
I grunt.
She steps closer. “I mean it.”
“I know.”
“For August.”
“Yeah.”
“For me too.”
I look at her then.
She reaches for my hand.
The one with the scabbed knuckles.
Holds it between both of hers.
“I didn’t want you to have blood on your hands for me.”
My chest goes tight.
“My hands were already dirty.”
“I know,” she says.
“No, Amelia. You don’t. Not all the way. I’m not a clean man. I won’t become one because you need gentle.”
“I don’t need clean.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
That honest no lands better than a yes would have.
Her fingers thread through mine.
“Then let me be the thing you don’t dirty them for.”
The words stop the whole morning.