Kill Switch (Devil's Night, #3)

by Penelope Douglas

“Lookin’ good,” I said. “Yeah, you’re prejudiced.” “I don’t lie.”

“What was that?” Winter asked. I dumped my phone in the console and shifted the car into gear. “Someone liked the shit I built at your house,” I replied. “Wanted me to make a tree house and fountain for their property.” “And you said no?” “I don’t have time for that,” I shot back. “I need to get a job and figure out what we’re doing.” And then I paused, my back straightening and understanding dawning on me. “Ohhhhh.” “Yeah, dumbass!” she screeched. He was trying to hire me. To design and build.

But . . . “I can’t work for the people in my own town like I’m a servant.” “Ugh.” She rolled her eyes. “First stop Thunder Bay, next stop world domination. How about that?”

Later that night, long after the sun had set and I’d left Winter to work on some marketing ideas for the tour with Alex, I walked up to a front door I’d never knocked on and never thought I would. There was so much I’d missed over the years, that when I pieced it together now, it all fit like a puzzle. The ice cream she gave me when I was seven one day on the street, saying the server had given her and Rika one too many.

I drove off, Christiane Fane still standing in the doorway watching me. That was all she ever did. And hopefully she knew better than to try for more.

Winter was trying to get me to quit. It was a non-option for much of the argument. I wasn’t a nonsmoker. But then she mentioned kids and the smell being on my clothes and how secondhand smoke kills, and do I really want the baby to smell like shit? Ah, fuck it. I walked over to the French doors, picking up my lighter off the table and sparking it up as I put on my shoes and opened the door to go out, but then I heard her sleepy voice from across the room. “Hey,” she said from the bed. “Anything wrong?” I growled silently, tearing the cigarette out of my mouth and crushing it in my fist. Dammit.

“Everything’s fine,” I soothed, sitting on the bed and leaning down to kiss her. “You were trying to smoke, weren’t you?” she said, sitting up. I sighed, setting my phone back on the bedside table. “I’m dying here, babe.”

And although I was paying the bills and building us a future, I did relent when Banks gave the house back to Winter, including ownership of everything in it. Banks advised Winter to keep it solely in her name, though, so she could kick me out whenever she wanted. They laughed about that one.

They’d moved into the city, Ari refusing to ever be in the same room with me again. Somehow I’d find the strength to go on living.

“I love that sound. Like the world is asleep.”

Over her shoulder, out the window, the snow fell, charging the air with a little more beauty, the animation making the earth look alive even when everything else was still. A little more pretty. A little more peaceful. A little more cover. She always got that about me. She felt it, too. Even when we were kids, she knew.

“I just don’t like it out there very much,” she explains. “My stupid sister ruins everything.” I feel like I understand. I don’t like it out there very much, either. We can hide. Together. If she wants. “I’ll go,” she tells me and starts to turn. But I reach my hand through the water, inviting her in instead.

Her eyes meet mine, and that’s how she stays for several seconds, increasing the pressure just a little. It doesn’t hurt, though. Not at all. It actually feels kind of good, because the annoying sting of the cut is suddenly gone. Just gone. Like a kill switch.

“Why do you wear the rosary?” she asks. I follow her gaze, looking down and seeing the wooden beads peeking out from under my shirt where they’re caught on my collar. “They get mad when kids wear it like a necklace, you know?” she points out. A laugh escapes me, and I can’t help it. I swallow. “I know.”

She looks down at it, rubbing the cross between her fingers, the silver over the wood. “You can have it,” I say. She can remember me, then. “Are you mad I’m here?” she asks all of a sudden. Do I seem mad? When I don’t answer, she looks up at me. I shake my head. “Can I come back again, then?” she presses hopefully. And I nod. “Let’s do this,” she says, taking off the rosary and then unclipping the silver jeweled barrette from her hair. She takes both and sets them up on the little alcove under the upper bowl, hiding them in the niche there. “Since it’s our secret hiding place,” she tells me with an excited look in her eyes. “It’s like part of us is always here. In our spot.” I tip my head back against the fountain, looking up at the items that claim our nook, and I smile. She’s nice. I like how she talks to me. And she likes it here, too.

The snowy, silent night raged outside, our entire world right here, right now. I wish we never had to leave the fountain. We never did.