like I was with the Sinners for six months. Like I am now, after they tried to kill me.
But he’s not here, and he hasn’t called. I stayed awake until the sky outside turned a steely grey, afraid to close my eyes because every time I did the hissing of the grasses beyond the walls around the Sinners’ clubhouse filled my ears—the hissing of the grass growing on what was meant to be my grave.
I finally fell asleep at dawn, knowing that I can depend on no one but myself. I shouldn’t have forgotten that. It was so very pleasant to let go and just feel good for the last week or so. But where does that ever get me? Back to the same old place of torment and sadness and weakness I started from back when my mom started losing it and it was my job to put food on the table or else we starved.
It’s time I turned a new leaf, I think.
Waiting in beds for men to come and save me, to help me, has never worked out the way I hoped it would in the past. There’s absolutely no reason it will now. Whether Colt calls or comes to me, whether he takes me away, there is no reason to think it will all be better afterward. And there’s every reason to believe it will all be just like it’s always been. Something new and exciting, culminating in nothing.
18
Colt
The order came in a short text message in the darkest hours of the second night. Come down. Don’t be seen.
Nothing much could be seen as Blaze and I stumbled and tripped our way down the hill to the road that curves back around it to the spot where Ice dropped us off two nights ago. The bushes stubbornly growing on this hillside aren’t just thick, they’re thorny too. Some have thorns large and sharp enough to cut through jeans, I found out on more than one occasion. But lucky for us, the almost full moon was still in the sky, low by the horizon but still glowing bright enough to light our way at least a little bit.
A van was waiting for us in the darkness by the side of the road, Ice behind the wheel, Ace and Eagle already in there waiting for us. No one said anything as we climbed in the van, and slid the door shut as quietly as we could. Then we drove to pick up the other two pairs of watchers. Ice kept the lights off, and went slowly. He didn’t turn them on or speed up until we were at least four miles away from the hills, heading back to the bunker.
No one spoke.
I’m sitting beside the opening to the front cabin, watching the road ahead, my heart beating faster and faster as we approach the Lucky Star Motel. It’s so late that the streetlights are off, but the sign is shining bright, the Vacancy part flashing. In my mind, I can clearly see Brenda’s moonlit form sleeping on the bed and I want to lie down beside her so bad it’s hard to control it. I almost ask Ice to stop so I can go see her. It wouldn’t take long. Just long enough to kiss her a few times. A few thousand times wouldn’t be enough. Not with Brenda. A million wouldn’t come close.
The grip of madness that almost had me asking to stop is slow to fade as we ride on into the darkness away from the motel.
Blaze is staring at me very intently once I finally stop staring at the road ahead of us and turn back to face the others in the van. He knows what I was thinking, he always does, but luckily he doesn’t call me out on it right then and there.
Eagle is nodding off, his head hung forward, his hands locked together in his lap. Everyone else, including Blaze, is doing the same thing by the time we reach the bunker.
“Rise and shine,” Ice says as he opens the back door. “Cross wants to see you all right away.”
A part of my mind is still lying beside Brenda’s soft, moonlit body, falling asleep. Another part wants a shower and sleep in the narrow bunk I have here, and the part that’s alert enough to report to my president is very, very tiny.
As I follow the others into the brightly lit main room of the bunker, the light blinds me and sends