Cage with tattoos.
I breathe through it.
“Not sorry.”
She watches me.
I try again.
“What kind of favor?”
Her phone buzzes one more time.
She reads it.
Her face drains, then hardens.
From down the hall, August snorts in his sleep, then goes quiet again. A dinosaur falls off his bed with a soft thump.
Amelia looks toward his door.
Then back at me.
“Can you watch August?”
The question lands like a vow and a warning.
It says she trusts me.
It says she is going.
It says the Queens’ favor is already stepping through her door.
I look at the phone.
Then at her hair hiding the tattoo.
Then down the hall where August sleeps with toy dinosaurs on the floor and no idea that his mother’s freedom just sent a bill.
“What kind of job?” I ask.
Her eyes meet mine.
She is scared.
She is steady.
“The kind Hot Mama doesn’t ask for twice.”
The Queens handed her a road, and God help me, I was going to have to watch her choose that too.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Amelia
The morning after Hot Mama’s message, I make pancakes from a box because I’m trying to prove this trailer is a home and not just another place I ran to.
Derby stands in my tiny kitchen with his arms crossed, watching the pan.