“Won’t you say hello to her?” Jenner asked patiently.
Sarah pulled a little away from her father, gripping his arm. “Hi, Mercy. It looks like you’re really busy.”
Beside me, Kervos chuckled. “This is why I like kids. They tell it how it is.”
“We were actually just finishing up the most important part,” I said. “Why don’t I show you where you can hang out for a bit, and catch your dad up.” I glanced around at the others. “The rest of you can take a break. There’s beer in the fridge—just don’t go crazy. We’ve still got a lot of planning to do.”
Sam let out a little whoop, and half of the group tramped over to the kitchen. I led Jenner and Sarah over to the living room and turned on the iPod one of the guys had mounted on a portable speaker. “Do you like listening to music?” I asked her.
She smiled shyly. “I love Billie Eilish.”
“Let’s see… You’re in luck.” I started the album playing and patted the sofa. “You can hang out here, even sing along if you’d like.”
She hopped up and started swaying with the tune. I stepped off to the side with Jenner and cocked my head at him. “I’m assuming there’s a good reason she’s here? This is the first time I’ve seen her.”
Jenner sighed. “I need a drink first.”
We walked over to the kitchen, and he squeezed past the other guys to the fridge to grab a beer. With it in hand, he came back to the entrance to the living room and looked across it toward his daughter. He tipped the bottle to his lips and chugged half of it without stopping.
“So…?” I prodded as he lowered the beer.
Jenner made a face. “She mostly lives with her mom. Mostlylivedwith her mom. That woman took off two days ago. She got scared with all the violence going on around here, which I can’t blame her for, but she skipped town alone, leaving Sarah behind. I guess she didn’t want to have a kid with her, slowing her down. I got a text message from her and by the time I showed up at the house, she was already gone and Sarah was waiting without even a suitcase.”
My heart tugged at the picture he’d painted. My hand brushed over my pocket where I had my bracelet from my own mother on me like usual. Had my mom left for the same reasons Sarah’s had—thinking it was easier to make a run for it without me by her side?
A lump filled my throat. “I’m sorry.”
Jenner took another swig of the beer. “I didn’t make the best choices in partners when I was younger, obviously. And maybe it’s my fault too that I haven’t been around to pitch in as much as would be ideal. I don’t know. But I don’t want anything to happen to Sarah. I’ve always tried to be there for her as much as I can even with the kind of life I live.” He paused. “I haven’t got a clue how to keep her safe, Mercy. It’s hell out there right now.”
It was. And for some of us girls growing up in the gang life, it’d been hell all the way through, since way before the Storm had ever shown up on our doorstep.
I watched Sarah bob with the melody, and resolve coiled tight around my chest. I wasn’t my father, not one bit, and I was going to see that no other girls in the Bend grew up the way I had if I had anything to say about it. Things could be better for them than they’d been for me.
“You two can stay here,” I said abruptly.
Jenner blinked at me. “What?”
“Until the mess with the Storm is cleaned up, Sarah can stay here and so can you, so she’ll have you with her. There are too many rooms in here, and the silence practically echoes. God knows I need company. Since I’m running the Claws out of here again, people will be coming and going all the time anyway, and it’ll be the best protected building we’ve got. I don’t want her out on the streets in harm’s way.”
Jenner’s voice roughened. “Mercy, I—”
I held up a hand. “You don’t have to say anything. It’s the only answer that makes sense.” I lifted my chin toward where Sam and Kervos had gone over to join the girl, Kervos offering her a chocolate bar he must have grabbed from the stash on the kitchen counter. “Besides, she already seems to enjoy the company of our men.”
Jenner cracked a small smile. “She does, crazy as it sounds. They’re good to her.”
“Now that we’ve gotten that settled…” I elbowed him lightly. “Let me fill you in on what we already discussed, and then we’ll get everyone back to business.”
I filled him in on the basics of the Long Night’s deal and what we’d learned from him. Jenner’s expression turned more serious by the second.
“If you need anyone else on the betting side of things, I was involved in a little of that when I was starting out too,” he said. “And I know most of the guys here fairly well if you want advice on who to give what job to, whoshouldn’tbe working together, that kind of thing.”
“Thanks,” I said. “That’ll be a huge help.”
He tipped his head to me. “I can already tell you’re going to be a very different kind of leader than your father was, Mercy—and I’m thinking that’s a good thing.”
His vote of confidence warmed me for the five seconds it took before I noticed that Sarah had wandered away from the sofa. She crept over to the doorway that led to the basement stairs, and my pulse hiccupped.
I hurried over, forcing myself to slow as I reached her so I didn’t freak her out too much. Flashes of the horrors I’d experienced in that dark space flitted behind my eyes, sending another chill through me.