Noble, even.
By noon, I hate myself for being noble.
Amelia stands in my kitchen with those keys in her hand, hair pulled back, jeans on, one of her own shirts tucked crooked at the waist, and the look of a woman trying to convince herself she is brave enough for a grocery run.
Not a club run.
Not a war.
Not even the Fire Pit.
A damn grocery run.
“I need to go,” she says.
My first answer is no.
It gets all the way to my tongue before I bite it down hard enough to taste blood.
She sees it anyway.
Of course she does.
Her chin lifts, and there is that spark in her again. Fear wearing boots. “You gave me the keys.”
“I remember.”
“Then I’m using them.”
“I see that.”
“You’re doing that thing with your jaw.”
“What thing?”
“The thing where you’re chewing on all the orders you want to give me.”
August, sitting at the table with Blue Rex and a bowl of cereal that is mostly marshmallows because my household standards have collapsed, looks up. “Derby chews orders?”
“No,” I say.
Amelia says, “Yes.”
He considers that. “Do they taste bad?”
“Terrible,” I mutter.
Amelia’s mouth twitches, but she doesn’t soften enough to let me off the hook. She has one hand wrapped around the truck keys like she expects me to ask for them back.
I would rather chew glass.
I also want to take them, lock the door, put her and August in the safest room in the house, and go hunting until every person who has made her scared to drive into town regrets the day their mothers made poor decisions.
Progress is hell.
“I need a few things,” she says. “For August. For me. With my money.”
I look at the twenty-seven-dollar life she refuses to let anyone else own.