One day your mom’s cancer treatment is working and the next she’s dead in the front yard. One day you’re planning your future with the girl you love and the next she’s gone without a trace.
Life is chaos and numbers don’t mean shit. All my counting and ritualizing never protected anyone from anything.
But here’s what else I know: just because I can’t control what happens doesn’t mean I can’tact.
My phone buzzes with Isaak’s response:Mobilization will take six hours minimum. Stay put. Do NOT engage.
Six hours.
The number sits in my head like a taunt because six is divisible by two and three. It’s perfectly even and symmetrical, the kind of number my brain wants to devour as so very reasonable.
But Harper doesn’t have six hours.
Z has a gun.
I think about Harper’s face in the prison, about the shadows under her eyes and the way she grabbed my wrist hard enough to bruise when she told me to run. I think about Silas refusing to see me not because he hates me, but because he was sending me after his daughter. I think about how I let her go because I didn’t fight hard enough to keep her.
I’m not making that mistake again.
I crouch down and sprint around toward the back of the house, and for once in my life I’m not counting my steps.
EIGHTEEN
HARPER
I fallto my knees on the carpet when I see Bruiser there holding his favorite Minecraft book. I hurl my arms around him and squeeze him to me because oh thank God he’s safe.
He’s here, he’s safe, and for one perfect second the terror dissolves into relief.
“Mom,” Bruiser complains. “Mooooom. You’re squishing my book.”
He squirms to get away from me, and it’s all so beautifully, perfectly normal that I squeeze him even tighter and fight not to sob into his hair. He smells like sunshine and dirt and a little bit like peanut butter—exactly the way a nine-year-old boy should smell.
He finally gets his elbows involved in the squirming and I laugh, which comes out choked and slightly hysterical. I give him one last kiss on the crown of his head before letting him go.
His face is immediately back in his book, even though he’s read aboutDave the Villagerconquering the zombie invasionabout a hundred times already. The pages are dog-eared and crinkled from all the places he’s dragged it.
“Where ya been, kiddo?” I ask, careful to keep my voice light and normal, like my hands aren’t still shaking.
He frowns like I’m being the weird one, eyes never leaving his book. “Staying at Uncle Choirboy’s. Why didn’t you tell me I had an uncle?”
The words hit me like a fist to the gut, and all the relief drains out of me so fast I feel dizzy.
Uncle Choirboy?
I don’t have any brothers and neither does Z, which means this “Uncle” is part of whatever nightmare Z has gotten us tangled up in. My hands are still on Bruiser’s shoulders, and I feel myself grip tighter without meaning to. Bruiser makes a little noise of protest, and while I loosen my grip, I can’t make myself let go completely.
“It was fun, though,” Bruiser continues, oblivious to my internal panic. “Uncle Choirboy and his friends all have nicknames, just like me. They said Bruiser was a good one.”
I force my voice to stay light and curious. “Oh yeah? What were the other nicknames people had?”
Bruiser looks up at the ceiling as he recalls, squinting in concentration. “Oh, well, there was Chains and Roadkill and Viper?—”
“Go play in your room, Bruise,” Z bites out from somewhere behind us.
But all I can hear echoing over and over in my head are the names Bruiser just listed off. Because those are Motorcycle Club names.
Z got us mixed up with a fucking MC?Jesus Christ! Apart from the cartels, those are some of the most ruthless crews operating in Texas these days.