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“And bring Kai home, Maggie. He’s yours too.”
Tah said that Kai was mine now, and it’s true. But what he didn’t say was the other half of that. I am Kai’s.
“So what’s the plan? I figure you got a plan. If that were my boyfriend, I’d have a plan.” She holds the glass to her mouth. “Even if you did shoot him.”
She gives me a small smile. She reaches over and squeezes my hand. “My uncle was right, Maggie. You make a great auntie.”
Hell, I’m watching over Ben, wherever she is. I’m practically a goddamn auntie!” “Maybe not quite, but it’s a start,” he admits, his mouth leaning into a smile.
“Any idea where we are? I mean, besides hell, generally?”
“I thought you were turning over a new leaf,” Rissa says to me. “Trying not to kill people.” “I was, but that was yesterday. Today, with the whole captured and drugged thing? I’m feeling pretty aggro.”
“I know we haven’t officially been introduced, Aaron,” I say, “but they call me the Monsterslayer. I think I can handle Bishop.”
Rissa admires what looks to be modified Heckler assault rifles. “It’s like early Keshmish,” she whispers, running a hand over the gun. I laugh, and she laughs back. Gives me a genuine smile.
“Maggie!” Rissa squeals with delight. “Look at this!” She picks up something from a bucket on the floor and holds it up. A hand grenade. She tucks a few in her pocket, looking like a kid who found a candy stash.
I feel like I should be offended, but I’m so far from offended. Being a fine lady sounds like a fucking nightmare.
a pretty veneer does not mean these people aren’t monsters.
Press gently on the gas pedal, and the Mercury answers me like the lover she is. “Yes, baby,” I murmur.
Ben shouts, “Get in, losers! We’re going to Amangiri!”
“You’re lucky I know all their songs and can sing them for you.”
“Lucky isn’t the word I’d choose.”
They are strange, but beautiful, too. More artwork than grotesquerie.
“Didn’t anyone tell you, Gideon?”
“I’m the crazy one in the girl gang.”
“And I don’t think you appreciate how certifiable you sound.”
“Convenient morality.”
“Let me the fuck go,”
“I’m just glad you’re here,”
“Friends, right? Just because you’re a solid bitch sometimes doesn’t mean I’m going to abandon you.”
Ben looks up, teary-eyed, and before I can tell her no, she rushes forward and throws her arms around me.
“Leave her alone. She’s injured. Plus, I’ve heard she melts if you hug her too much.”
“Are you fine?”
“I have to be.”
“Damn,” Rissa whispers, her voice full of awe. “You’re glowing,” Aaron murmurs. “Not just glowing,” Ben adds. “You’re on fire.”
I tap on Ben’s shoulder. She looks back at me. “Go ahead and open her up. Let’s see what she can do.”
Ben laughs, a wild joy, and I find myself grinning again as we go flying across the desert like a shotgun blast straight out of hell.
“Don’t die, Maggie,” she blurts. Runs forward and hugs me. I let her.
“Friends?” he asks, voice tentative. “More than friends,” I say, grinning. “Partners.”
“I think Gideon knows you switched sides, Kai.” “Shit,”
“Your life means more to me than his death.
Does that make sense?”
A warmth spreads through my chest, that same feeling I got back at Twin Arrows when Rissa offered me her friend...
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“It means come home safe. It means we’re family.”
“No! Free is lonely. Free is having no one who cares for you, no one who will sacrifice their own lives to protect you. Free is no one having your back even when you’re a solid bitch. I don’t want that kind of free!”
thinking of Rissa on a curb outside of the Twin Arrows, the two of us laughing over a shared cup of coffee. Of Ben, her hands over her heart, calling me family. Of Kai, who
loves me broken, dark, exactly as I am. “They already have.”
“Yeah, Mags,” he whispers against my hair. “Let’s go home.”
