41. Mandy
MANDY
I'm on the back porch when the guilt about not contacting Lily finally catches up to me.
Growing up, Lily was my person. My little shadow. My best friend. We spent eighteen years laughing, fighting, stealing each other’s clothes, and believing we’d always have tomorrow.
After we were taken, I helped her escape, but I was told she was killed. I carried that grief for thirteen years—until five weeks ago when I found out she was still alive.
I'm not the same person I was then. I'm a killer—a hunter. Lily found peace. She found Mason, started a new life at Blackthorn, and learned how to be normal again.
There's a gap between us now—not in love, but in understanding.
She looks at me and sees her sister. I look at her and see everything I couldn't protect, everything I failed to save.
She's proof that survival can lead to something good.
I'm proof that it can also lead to something sharp and unforgiving.
I look at the phone in my hand. It sits there like a live grenade.
I could call. It’d be nice to hear her voice, except it’d mean hearing the worry in it, the questions I can't answer, the way she'd know immediately that something's wrong. Lily's always been able to read me, even when I don't want to be read.
Texting is safer.
I open the message thread and stare at the last text she sent me two days ago.
Lily
Stay safe. Love you.
I hadn't responded.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard. What do I even say? Hey, remember Hendricks, that mercenary I met at your place before Turner's raid? Yeah, I'm living with him now. But just for a few days, until we find a girl I’m trying to help like I couldn’t help you. It's fine. Totally fine.
Shaking my head, I start typing before I can overthink it.
I’m in Iron Ridge, at Hendrick’s place. Though I guess you already know that.
I hit send and immediately regret it.
The read receipt appears in an instant. She's seen it. But the typing indicator doesn't show up.
A minute passes.
Then two.
The silence is worse than anything she could say.
I know what she's thinking—I know because I'd be thinking the same thing if our positions were reversed. Why are you in Iron Ridge? Why didn’t you tell me? What are you doing with Hendricks? And underneath all of that: Are you okay?
I type again, faster this time, trying to fill the silence before it swallows me whole.
He and I have an arrangement.
He's helping me with some information I need.
Not that kind of arrangement. It doesn't involve sex.
Although I wouldn't mind if it did.
The typing indicator appears right away this time.
Lily
Sex with HENDRICKS?
Wouldn't that be like having sex with a machine?
I laugh—actually laugh—and it feels good, like inhaling oxygen after holding your breath too long. “Oh, Lily. If only you knew.”
I think about Hendricks in the kitchen last night, shirtless and hard, telling me he doesn't make promises he can't keep.
I think about him watching me in the chair, his control fracturing with every second.
I think about the way his hands flexed when he walked away, like it cost him everything not to touch me.
Machine. Yeah, right.
Trust me. He's all flesh and blood. Very warm flesh. Very solid blood flow.
Lily
Luke told Harper you guys were together but I didn’t believe it.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying we’re “together.”
Lily
What would you say? That you’re fuck buddies?
I blink in shock—the Lily I knew thirteen years ago wouldn’t have known that term. Then I have to stifle the urge to reply, you have to fuck in order to be fuck buddies.
Lily
I don’t get it. Hendricks came over earlier this week looking for you. So he found you?
Are you in trouble?
I stare at the screen, my thumb hovering over the keyboard.
I wonder what her definition of trouble is.
Because I'm being hunted by one of the richest men in the country, I'm using myself as bait to draw out whoever ransacked Turner's house, and I'm about two seconds away from begging Hendricks to fuck me against the nearest flat surface.
So yeah. Trouble might be an understatement.
Define trouble.
Lily
Mandy.
I close my eyes and lean back against the porch railing. I can’t give her the whole truth, but I feel like she deserves something.
I’m looking for someone and Hendricks is helping me.
And before you ask, yes, everything is fine. I'm being careful.
No, I'm not going to do anything stupid.
And yes, Hendricks knows what he's doing.
Lily
I’m glad Hendricks is helping you. Mason, Jake, and Luke really respect him.
Hendricks isn't helping me out of the goodness of his heart. He's helping me because I pushed him to when he wanted to back out of his contract. He thinks he can control the situation while keeping me safe.
I won’t let a thing like safety keep me from my goal. Even if I have to run, I will get Ashford.
But he also doesn't know that every time he looks at me, I feel something shift inside me—something that makes running feel less like survival and more like cowardice.
It's complicated.
Lily
Everything with you is complicated.
Pot, meet kettle.
But I'll be careful. Promise.
Lily
You better be. Because if something happens to you, I'm coming after Hendricks myself.
I love you, Lil.
Lily
Love you too.
And Mandy?
Yeah?
Lily
If you need me, I'm here. Always.
I stare at the message until my vision blurs.
I close the thread and pocket my phone, then stand there on the porch, staring out at the trees surrounding the safe house.
Lily's right. Everything with me is complicated. But this—whatever this is with Hendricks—is more than complicated. It's dangerous. Not just because of Ashford or the people looking for me, but because I'm starting to care. Starting to want things I have no business wanting.
And when this is over, when I leave, it's going to hurt.
“No regrets,” I try to remind myself, but I’m having a hard time buying my own bullshit, because I’m already starting to regret the day I walk away.