39 Seven
When I pulled up to the location, Kimmy sat on the porch of the battered brick-clad cottage, staring at her phone. Scrolling. Probably looking at pictures of puppies or something equally pointless.
Engine idling, I rolled down the Mustang's passenger window for a clear view of her and waited. My mind slowly retraced how I'd ended up here.
Viper had pinged in the afternoon while I was near Club Dionisius, looking for ways in that wouldn't involve Kimmy.
Someone matching your girl's description showed up on the security feed at the intersection two blocks away from the safe house. A couple of hours ago. Looks like she's on the move. So much for keeping her contained, boss.
He'd tacked on some other dumb joke right after, which I didn't care to hear. My heart had gone to my throat for some unknown reason.
When I'd tried calling her, there was no answer. The safe house was empty when I'd gotten there. Burner left on the counter. Viper had already been working on pulling her location and tracking her Uber activities.
By the time we figured out where she'd gone, it was the middle of rush hour and I'd just dropped off my Ducati at the compound to swap it for a less conspicuous vehicle.
Now that I watched her from the Mustang, the odd tightness in my throat was gone. Knowing she was safe, even though she pretended she hadn't seen me pull up and flash the headlights once, still overrode the madness in my head I'd been drowning in all afternoon.
Several long moments passed before Kimmy finally looked up from her phone. She stood up and walked toward the car. Her movements were sluggish, like she was waddling through water.
She slid into the passenger seat without a word and shut the door with more enthusiasm that I expected.
"Don't do this again," I said, pulling away from the curb.
"Do what?" She looked straight ahead.
"Leave without telling me. Without the burner. Without a plan."
The streetlights flickered across her face as we drove, illuminating the exhaustion etched into her features. "My foster sister needed help."
"You call me. You tell me what's happening. You don't just disappear." I gripped the wheel tighter, keeping my eyes forward even though they wanted to be on her and not on the road.
"How does it feel? To get a taste of your own medicine?" There was a strange edgy quality to her voice that I hadn't heard before.
"Getting emotional right now is not going to keep you safe."
"How do you propose to keep the rest of my family safe? First, these people attacked my mom, now they are targeting my sister."
"I'm here. I can help."
"And what? You tell me to stay put? To wait in that safe house while people I care about are getting hurt?"
"Yes. That's exactly what you do. You stay out of my way."
She shifted in her seat, her knee bumping against mine. "Fine. Stop the car."
"No."
"Stop the car, Seven," she demanded.
"I'm not stopping the car. You should calm down. You had an eventful day. Just let it go for tonight."
"Mini-therapy session isn't what I need right now."
"That's not what I'm offering. You are clearly being followed." I turned onto the ramp, accelerating smoothly. "If Valmont's people find you when I'm not around, it won't end well."
She didn't respond to that. Just slumped into her seat and stared at the cars on the freeway. The weight of it settled between us—the danger, the impossible situation, all of it unspoken.
We drove in silence for a few miles. I noticed her hand move to her temple, fingers pressing against her skin. Then pinching the bridge of her nose.
"Are you okay?" I asked, changing lanes toward the K-Town exit. I planned to circle around for a while, shake off anyone who might be tailing us.
"Just a headache," she muttered.
I kept one eye on her peripherally as we cruised through the streets, watching the way her chest rose and fell too quickly, the way she pressed her forehead against the window.
"Kimmy?" I checked a little later.
She didn't answer. Her skin had turned grayish in the dashboard glow.
I touched her shoulder gently.
"Pull over," she said quietly, bringing her hand to her mouth.
I turned into the next available lot. It was a car wash, the bay entrance dark and shuttered for the day. She had the door open before I'd fully stopped. She made it to the curb and bent over, hands on her knees.
Not vomiting. But close.
I stayed in the car. Waited. Kept the engine running. When she came back after five minutes, she looked worse. She slumped into the seat like the walk back had cost her everything.
We drove through the neon-lit streets of K-Town without saying a word. I kept checking my mirrors, watching for anything that didn't fit. She had her forehead pressed against the window, her eyes closed.
"When was the last time you ate?" I asked.
"This morning," she managed. "Maybe. I don't remember."
My brain told me to keep driving to the safe house, but my gut screamed to get some food into Kimmy before she passed out.
I steered the Mustang into the parking lot of the first shopping center I saw.
Its neon signs bled across multiple storefronts in Korean and English—pinks and blues and sickly greens that reflected off the glass.
People moved between shops with the kind of energy that came with late-night crowds.
It was both the perfect and the most dangerous place to be at.
"Why are we stopping?" She swiveled her head to look around.
"I'm hungry," I said and killed the engine.
We walked into a small diner wedged between a laundromat and a vintage clothing store. The interior was dim and simple. A hostess side-eyed my bandana as she seated us in a booth near the back.
"He's got the flu," Kimmy supplied. To me she whispered tartly, "You could at least swap that for a medical mask when you're in public. That way people would think you're immunosuppressed instead of about to rob the place."
"Do I need to open a suggestion box?"
She shot me an irritating stare. "Go right ahead. I'm sure most of the recommendations will be about the quality of your customer service."
I sighed but didn't respond.
I ordered for both of us. Sandwiches. Water. Coffee. Pulled the visor of my baseball cap low and stayed out of the security camera's view as much as possible.
When the food came, Kimmy ate methodically, not tasting it, just consuming. One small bite after another. I watched her, making sure she kept it down. Her hands were still slightly unsteady as she held the sandwich, but the color was slowly returning to her face.
"Drink," I said, pushing the water toward her.
She did, tilting her head back. Water dribbled down her chin and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. Then she saw the coffee the waitress brought.
"No," I said before she reached for it.
"Seven—"
"You're dehydrated. Exhausted. You nearly lost consciousness back there. Coffee isn't happening right now."
"Then why order it?"
"It's for me."
She stared. Then laughed.
"What's so funny about it?"
She leaned forward, closing the space between us. "I'd like to see you drink it in front of me and all these people here." She jerked her head at a random direction, one eyebrow pinched.
My pulse stuttered.
"That's right," she mouthed at me, dropping back into her bench. "You can't." She offered me a biting grin, then waved at the waitress and asked for something that apparently contained a fruit.
When the waitress returned with Kimmy's drink, it arrived in a tall glass with an umbrella and a color that screamed not juice.
"No," I said flatly, reaching for it.
"Yes," she countered, already sucking the straw into her mouth.
My blood was boiling. Why was she making me this mad? "You nearly threw up twenty minutes ago. Your blood sugar is probably shot. Alcohol is the last thing—"
"I'm aware of what I'm doing." That same defiant edge I'd been noticing lately crept back into her voice. The one that said she was done listening to reason. "Besides, it's basically fruit punch."
"It's basically one more headache I don't need."
But she was already taking a long pull, her eyes locked on mine over the rim of the glass like she was making a point.
The smirk that followed—and that I'd never seen before—told me she knew exactly what she was doing—testing me, pushing boundaries, doing the opposite of what I'd said simply because I'd said it.
I watched her take another sip. Then another. The color in her cheeks deepened. Her shoulders seemed to loosen incrementally with each ounce consumed.
"You're going to regret that," I said quietly.
"Probably." She set the glass down and picked at the remains of her sandwich. "But at least I'll regret it feeling something other than terrified."
The diner hummed around us. A couple arguing softly in a booth two tables over. The clink of dishes from the kitchen. The waitress moving past with practiced efficiency, pretending not to notice the drunk guy who was trying to grab her skirt.
"You know what happened last time I got drunk?" Kimmy asked all of a sudden.
I shook my head.
"I ended up hiring you," she whispered.
I said nothing.
"See, sometimes good things happen when you least expect them," she added.
"And meeting me is a good thing?"
She took another sip of her drink and waved at the waitress to order another one. I knew better than to argue. I also liked this version of Kimmy—relaxed, smiley, and a little chaotic. I'd never seen her this way and I wondered if that's what she'd been like before the incident.
"You know what happened the time I got drunk before the last?" Her brown eyes darkened, turned almost black.
I swallowed.
"The men who raped me happened," she uttered. Her voice was low, a half-whisper. But there was something in her tone, a kind of acceptance you didn't hear often from victims of assault. No, not victim. I couldn't think of her this way anymore.