Yeah, Hannah—you were escaping from a bunch of violent men, and your only protection is a killer. Sorry about your luck.
“Falk?”
“What?” My tone is harsh. I’m expecting her to argue some point about how we need to hold onto our humanity or some other bullshit, but she doesn’t.
“The pains have stopped.”
I look her over. She’s breathing easier now, and though her hand still rests on top of her belly, she isn’t clenching her abdomen like she was before.
“You sure?”
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah.” I look at my watch. It’s been more than half an hour, at least. “Can you keep going? If we can keep up this pace,
we’ll be there soon.”
“I never believe you when you say that.”
“Ten minutes. I promise.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Twelve minutes later, we reach our destination. It’s a small neighborhood just to the east of the bypass that surrounds Atlanta. We cross a bridge over a small creek that still has some water in it and make our way to the coordinates.
I can smell a fire as we approach.
“It smells like Christine’s cooking!” Hannah says with a smile.
“Let me check it out first,” I say. “Stay back here for a—”
“Falk?” Hannah grabs my arm, halting my words.
“What is it?”
“Please don’t leave me alone.” There are tears in her eyes as she speaks, and I nod before giving her a hug.
“I won’t,” I tell her. “But we’re going to go in quietly, okay?”
“Okay.”
I hold Hannah’s hand as we creep through the edge of the neighborhood, sticking close to the trees. Locating the exact house is pretty easy—we just follow the smell from the fire. As we get close, I can see the smoke rising from the back yard of a huge house. Around the fire, Marco, Sam, and Katrina are all sitting in lounge chairs. Christine appears a moment later with bottles of wine in her hands.
“Aren’t they underage?” I ask as Hannah and I step out of the trees.
“Falk! Hannah!”
They all run up to greet us. There’s a lot of hugging, which I put up with for a moment before letting Hannah take center stage while I back off for a cigarette. I close my eyes and lean against a tree, just watching.
Caesar’s dead—for sure this time. Hannah is with friends, and she’ll have more help besides me when the baby decides to really come. I don’t know what the future will hold for us, but for the time being, I’m going to allow myself to relax.
Just a little.
Chapter 10
“Hey! Check this out!”
Inside the storage unit, I stand and walk across the small open space to Marco. He’s pulling a cardboard box from a large, plastic storage bin.