Even if I am so far past good at this point that I don’t know what I am anymore. Sinner? Broken? All of the above and worse.
“Calvino likes me, don’t worry. He knows I’m just a simple country girl.” I grin at her and put on my West Virginia accent, really laying it on thick. “He knows I wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Rainwater smiles back even if she doesn’t seem convinced, but she follows Raven out the door. Sunshine’s next and she hesitates before touching my hand.
“You’re a good one, you know that, Gracie? Too good for this hellhole.” And then she’s gone, hurrying after the others. I wait a second until they’re out of sight before I close the door and turn back to the slumbering bastard on the couch.
Sunshine’s wrong.
I’m not a good one.
I’m so far from a good one that I’ve done laps around my old church-going self and come out the other side more jaded and much angrier than I ever imagined I would be.
But that doesn’t matter. I can worry about morality later, after I’ve taken care of what I need to do.
I take several deep breaths, steady myself, before I walk over to my man and stand above him like a vengeful angel.
Asleep, he doesn’t look so bad. Peaceful almost, like a big slumbering bear. It’s easy to imagine he’s not dangerous when he’s not conscious, without that spark of anger and death in his eyes, but the moment he regains consciousness will be a goddamn reckoning and I better hope I’m not around for it.
I drop to my knees and lean against his bulk, shoving him to the side so I can reach his back pocket.
He grunts and stirs. He takes a massive breath and licks his lips and his eyes flutter open and for one horrible moment, I think he’s about to say something as he looks at me, eyelids fluttering, pupils half-focused, but he only grunts and slumps sideways, mumbling to himself. “Charlie, you look like shit, your hair got fucking short,” he grumbles and I recognize his wife’s name on his heavily slurred tongue.
I grab the wallet from his back pocket and open it. His driver’s license stares me in the face and my heart does strange backwards leaps: Vince Manzini, six-foot-three, brown eyes, brown hair, aged thirty-eight based on his birthday, which was apparently three weeks ago—happy birthday, Vinny, my boy. There’s a couple hundred dollars in twenties and fifties, some scraps of paper, and a few credit cards. I pocket the scraps but leave everything else.
I fish the phone from his pocket next. My breath’s coming fast now and I’m riding on the edge so fast I don’t know if I’ll crash or take off and go soaring. My life could tip either way, and I’m terrified, but I have to do this—I have to do it no matter how hard or how dangerous, because to turn back now is to spit in the face of Riley, and I can’t do that, I won’t do that, not when she remains the one thing grounding me to this otherwise miserable and crumbling world. Thinking about my cousin lights a fire in my chest, a raging hot fire that melts away the ice-cold nerves as I try to unlock the old iPhone model—probably a burner—but he’s got a passcode, of course he’s got a passcode.
I grab his wrist and raise his limp thumb to the fingerprint scanner on the bottom button, and just as the phone clicks and the screen flashes to home, the icons populating like a wave, hope flooding me and maybe, just maybe, I’m going to do this, I’m going to actually do this for real—
The door opens and a man steps into the room.
I go very still and look over.
Vince’s hand is still gripped in mine, his giant paw-like fingers pressed against the phone button. I release him and his wrist drops and he grunts and mumbles something, still very much asleep, and rolls over on his side getting more comfortable.
I grip the phone against my breasts, covering the screen, and stare into Calvino’s eyes as he closes the door behind him.
Calvino’s like his brother, but different. Same dark hair, same dark irises, but he’s harder, sharper, with higher cheekbones, a square jaw, and more tattoos. He looks like a man sculpted from ash and thunder and put into this world to do nothing but break hearts and take what he wants, and rumors suggest that’s exactly what he does, like he’s leaving a wave of pleased and damaged women in his wake every time he walks into a room.
Anger is etched all across his body as he looks at me and my heart’s racing and my brain’s glitched-out and overloaded with fear and I should do something, say something, try to explain what I’m doing, but what can I say that would make this okay? I’m holding his brother’s phone in my hands and using his unconscious thumb to unlock it, I’m definitely way past the line of anything remotely normal, and now I’m going to die.