“I shouldn’t trust or believe you,” Evan said. “But somehow, I do.”
“If I fuck it up, you can always dose me with something untraceable,” I suggested.
To that, she let out a small laugh.
“Yes, there is always that option,” she agreed, taking the tea and the pill over toward her daughter, getting her to take it, and saying her goodbyes. “If anything seems wrong—“
“I will make sure you are the first to know,” I assured her.
“Thank you,” she said, then made her way out.
“Alright,” I said, exhaling hard. “Your ma is gone. You can let it out,” I told her.
Her gaze held mine for a long second before she turned and screamed into her pillow.
“There you go,” I said, grabbing the tray and making my way toward her.
“That shit she put on burned like a mother,” Louana grumbled. “And my pants are going to be stained purple forever.”
“That shit works, though,” I told her. “That gent—“
“Gentian Violet,” Louana filled in for me.
“Yeah, that. Voss scrounged up some gauze pads that were coated with that shit. Came from some fancy-ass wound care center. Worked like a charm.”
“And by scrounged up, do you mean he broke in and stole them?”
“He’s a man of many talents. Come on, try to sit up a bit. You gotta eat some of this or your stomach is going to hurt from the pain meds.”
“I’ll eat,” she said, but gave the cups of tea a hateful look. “But I am not choking any more of that down. And if you tell my mother, I will set you on fire in your sleep.”
“Noted,” I agreed, unable to stop the smile from tugging at my lips.
“Who cooked?”
“Me,” I told her and watched her freeze with the fork half raised to her lips. “Relax, I know how to cook eggs.”
“Really? Because I once had to inform you that you can’t put aluminum foil in the microwave.”
“Didn’t have microwaves most of the time. Had to learn to cook. Sometimes over a fire. Never gave myself or Voss food poisoning. It’s safe,” I assured her.
“If I get sick—“
“Yes, I know. Waking up on fire. Very scary,” I told her, rummaging around in her sheets for the remote for the TV. “What are we watching?” I asked, dropping down near her feet.
If she had any thoughts about me sitting there, she didn’t vocalize them.
“Jungle 2 Jungle,” she told me.
“That’s an unfamiliar one.”
“A rich city guy learns he has a teenage son who is being raised by his wife he needs to divorce so he can remarry. The catch is, she has been living in the Amazon with a tribe for years, and his son is very, I don’t know, feral. And he brings him back to the city. He tries to eat the cat. It’s probably not politically correct for this day and age, but it’s an old comfort watch,” Louana told me as she finally put some of the eggs in her mouth.
“How’s the food?” I asked as I searched for the movie.
“It’s not bad. It could use ketchup.”
“Ketchup on eggs is almost as bad as you putting it on mac & cheese,” I told her.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, shrugging.
Then we fell into companionable silence as she ate and we watched the movie.
Things seemed almost, well, good.
Until my phone vibrated in my pocket.
And a text came that I was praying would never come.
“What?” Louana asked, and I could feel her keen gaze on my face.
“What what?” I asked, tucking my phone away.
“Don’t bullshit me. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you look that freaked.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” I told her, shrugging it off.
Because I couldn’t tell her.
I couldn’t tell anyone.
But it looked like my past was finally starting to catch up to me…
CHAPTER TEN
Louana
“I know we haven’t been super close lately,” a familiar voice said, making me force my eyes open. “But when you get shot in the ass, I want a phone call,” Violet said, throwing her arms out dramatically from the doorway.
I swear my heart just ached at seeing her, at knowing how much we’d missed about each other over the years. Yet, somehow, it felt like hardly any time had passed at all as she moved into the room.
She, like the rest of us, had grown up.
She still looked like the Vi I had always known—tall, long-legged, with a rack I would die for, dark hair, honey-brown eyes, and a sort of delicate face with a cleft chin, something that always made her look a lot less intimidating than she actually was.
She’d followed in her mom’s footsteps and gone into the skip-chasing business. Which, well, suited her.
We’d bonded so well when we were younger because we both had wild, restless spirits. And from what I heard, Vi was constantly taking off across the country looking for people who didn’t show up at court, coming back to crash on the couches of her loved ones, but not quite putting down any roots.