Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,15

a shelter. The guys who slipped me a few joints when Fern wasn’t looking. But then it got scary. We got mugged. Aunt Fern got assaulted. Some fucking tweaker lunatic bit me.

Fern stopped taking us after that.

And our Saturdays just turned into battlegrounds.

Her knuckles rapped against the glass again and behind me Max murmured in his concussed stupor. I made sure not to glance back at him, so as to not draw Aunt Fern’s attention to him. I cracked open the door.

“I’m leaving,” I said. “I’m sorry I stopped. I shouldn’t have—”

“Get out of the car, Olivia.”

I was too exhausted to be dressed down by her right now. I deserved it, I totally understood that, but I was too damn tired. And time was running out. I needed to get Max to a hospital. It was time to stop pretending I could fix all my mistakes.

“Aunt Fern,” I sighed. The messy pile of her bright red hair—never her natural color—was listing dramatically to the left. It needed to be shored up. I imagined a crew of mini-engineers with toothpicks and hair ties.

Oh God. I’ve lost my mind.

And then the car door was ripped out of my hand and I was pulled up into the sunshine and the hot smell of asphalt and plumeria. It was hot. Hot all over. Even the wind was hot.

She held me in her strong hands. Aunt Fern wasn’t a big woman, but she had that former military bearing that, when I’d been a teenager and spinning with grief and hate, had been the perfect dartboard for all my teenage-girl barbs.

And she smelled like coffee and Obsession for Women body powder.

Still.

But she was my height exactly and her hazel eyes met mine squarely.

All these years later, making my own mistakes, being a full-grown adult, and I still couldn’t tell what she was thinking. What she saw when she looked at me. How awful I must appear to her, sweaty and ransacked. Bloody and exhausted.

I held it in for as long as I could, tried as hard as I could to keep myself together. But it was no good. Seven long hours after seven long years.

And her level stare broke me.

I sobbed. One hard sob that jerked my whole body.

She didn’t wrap me in her arms. There was no soft embrace for me to fall into. And I would have killed for that right now. A little comfort. Some kindness. But that was not Aunt Fern’s style. Nope. She just gave me a little snap-out-of-it-shake. My head bobbed on my neck.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my eyes, trying to pull myself together. “Sorry.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I’m in trouble.” I took a deep ragged breath, trying to pull myself together. “I’m in so much trouble. And I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She lifted her eyebrows like she was surprised that in the seven years that had gone by, I was just as alone as when I left here.

“Well, let’s park your car—” She turned and stopped. Her eyes on the backseat. Max.

Stress tears. More stress tears. I could not make them stop. I closed my eyes and put my hands over my face.

“This trouble. Does it have anything to do with the body in the backseat?”

I nodded, afraid if I opened my mouth I would sob.

“He dead?” she asked without panic. Yes. This…this was why I came here. She was not going to freak out. She could handle shit like this. Army nurse. Hardcore.

“Not yet.”

“Well, let’s see about getting him inside.”

Thank God. After all these years.

I could finally see a blessing when I landed on its doorstep.

Chapter 7

I parked the Buick in the far corner of the parking garage. Fern gave me a parking permit and a handicapped tag.

It was like camouflage, those permits and tags. My shitty Buick that had felt so conspicuous before was now rendered invisible, surrounded by other giant sedans. Older model Buicks and Cadillacs. All with handicapped tags hanging from the mirrors. Every one of them looked about the same.

“All right, soldier,” Joan said as we opened the back doors. “On your feet.”

Max blinked open his fever-bright eyes.

“Aunt Fern? The nurse?” he asked in a dry whisper. His face was pale beneath the bruises. His lips dry.

He needed more fluids. My few stops to pour water down his throat hadn’t been enough.

“That’s right,” Fern said. “I’m going to take care of you.”

“No hospitals.”

Fern gave me some serious side-eye. Fern wasn’t an idiot. Only a person in serious criminal trouble