saying to meet him at his house to make plans for tonight, I don’t get scattered. I just turn over to find Pixie resting on her back. Her feet are in the air as she studies them. When her gaze notices me, she smiles softly.
“Do I get you to myself today?” she asks, crawling over me.
“For a few hours, yes.”
Pixie rests her forehead against mine and stares into my eyes. As I sense her searching for something, my fingers pause on her naked body. When she finds what she’s looking for in my eyes, her lips curve into a smile. Without her even speaking, I’m certain she’s thinking about how I’m her blond bear or grand sequoia. Pixie always has warm thoughts in her head about me.
After a morning fuck and a hot shower, we join a house already awake. In the backyard, Dove sits in the grass with Future. Fairuza sweeps leaves from the pool area.
“She doesn’t need to clean. I have maids and a gardener to take care of that,” I say, pouring a cup of coffee from the pot Fairuza made earlier.
“Mama likes to care for her home. She kept the area outside our tabernacle clean, too. Sweeping is her way of saying she doesn’t view this house as a stranger’s home. She values it.”
Nodding, I smile when Pixie presses her face against the glass door and waves at her family. They smile and wave back. The four of them love easily. There’s no competition or resentment.
Sure, I notice them get on each other’s nerves at times. But those small annoyances are normal. Whenever someone is irritated with me, I assume I’m a horrible person. My mind immediately reaches for the worst-case scenario. I thought that might be normal. How would I know? People don’t tell me shit.
But now I watch Pixie and her family. Their happiness feels organic and never for show. I have the opportunity to be part of what they share. Every day, I can wake up to their happy faces.
All I need to do is survive the raid on the Village.
Bronco is already working out plans with Conor and Lowell in the basement when I arrive after lunch.
“I looked at that boy last night,” Bronco says when I join them. “He was rolling around, and I noticed his bones sticking out. We’re starving little kids while John Marks doesn’t miss a meal. I’m done waiting. Fuck the Killing Joes. Tonight, we go in, kill who needs killing, and avoid killing anyone else. If a few bullets hit unintended targets, we’ll need to remember how many kids are starving like that boy. Waiting is no longer an option.”
When Bronco decides on something, there’s no talking him out of it. His certainty is one reason I respect him. Bronco grew up treated like shit, too. He made a decision to take Elko and wage a war with the Marks family. That’s why I know he won’t change his mind about the Village.
“While I didn’t like Conor’s idea about us running shit in the Village, I now realize killing Marks and his sheep isn’t enough.”
Frowning, I glance at Conor. His dark green eyes look to Bronco for permission to answer my unasked question. His uncle gives him a head nod, and I realize the young man’s ego is back in check.
“Personenkult has come to the Village,” Conor says, and I frown darker. “Personenkult means a cult of personality. The Village never flourished, even before Marks. But they had a different kind of leadership. Basically, a committee of different factions who negotiated how to go forward. No one guy or group had all the power. But then their elders died, and Marks made promises. These kinds of leaders are always the same. He saw the people were suffering. He focused them on an enemy. He sold them on the idea of returning to a glory the Village never knew. The older Volkshalberd saw that Marks was full of shit, but the younger ones believed the lies. Those assholes will shoot at us, and they will need to die. If they survive, they’ll look for a new asshole to sell them bullshit. Then, next time, they won’t stockpile weapons. Instead, they’ll send a few martyrs out to kill us. The Volkshalberd have proven they can’t be trusted. To protect our community, we’ll need to run theirs.”
“If we get them organized, the club’s power will expand while also improving things for those people,” Bronco says, having bought into Conor’s