Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 215412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1077(@200wpm)___ 862(@250wpm)___ 718(@300wpm)
“As if you didn’t notice.” He sighs. “I handle Cracker’s security, and he buys me all this.” He gestures at the room full of expensive tech.
“Are you using drugs?”
“No.” His head snaps up, eyes burning. “I’ve never touched that shit. Not once. Not even when Cracker tried to shove pills down my throat after I got stabbed.”
The image guts me. Jag bleeding out and some crackhead forcing opioids into his mouth. I should’ve been with him, taking care of him.
“You’ve been here all month? In this room? Recovering?”
“Yeah.”
“And you didn’t tell me? I would’ve helped you. Instead, you let me think you left.”
“I didn’t leave you, Dove. I watched you.” He gestures toward the monitors. “Every day. Every night. Always with you.”
Of course, he was. He doesn’t crawl through my windows anymore. He crawls through every camera I pass.
I miss the windows.
“What happened?” I point to his wound.
“I lived.” He sits on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, hands loosely hanging between them.
That’s it. No details. No who. No why. No explanation for the blade that almost killed him or the enemies that want us both dead.
I wait for more, but he won’t give it.
Not tonight.
Maybe not ever.
He exhales heavily, and the fight drains out of both of us at the same time.
The monitors dim to a blue glow, and the house outside this room sinks into muffled TV noise, clinking pipes, and someone laughing.
“Get some sleep.” Jag stands and pulls the blankets back.
“I’m not tired.”
“Hungry?”
“I ate at work.”
He pulls clean clothes from a crate in the corner, gives me something to wear, and gestures for me to turn around.
With our backs to each other, we change into our sleepwear. I pull on a shirt and flannel pants he grew out of, and I turn to find him wearing gray sweats and a white tank.
I climb into the bed, and the mattress dips as he joins me.
“Tell me about the shop.” He drags the blanket over us.
“You literally watch it through like six angles.”
“I want to hear it from you.”
So I talk. I tell him about the busted transmission I rebuilt after school, the oil spill I slipped on, the new guy who thinks he’s charming, but I would never date him because he likes country music.
Jag listens, really listens, even though he already saw and heard it all through his cameras.
“What about school?” he asks.
“Hate it.”
“You need it.”
“You needed it, too.”
“Still do. But I’d probably scare the teachers.”
That pulls a smile out of me. I roll onto my side, facing him.
His hair sticks up in every direction. He looks exhausted.
“And your foster place?” he murmurs.
“Awful.”
“It’s a house full of women.”
“Exactly.”
“What’d they do?”
“Nothing. And everything. You know how it is.”
“I know.”
A hush settles over us. He lies back, opens an arm without asking, and I slide into the warm circle. My head finds the same spot on his chest it always has, just below his collarbone, near the rhythm of my favorite sound.
And just like that, we’re in our cardboard fort again. Our bed made out of trash. Our alley corner behind the bakery. Every place we hid in together, every night he kept watch while I slept.
“You scared me,” I whisper.
“You scare me every second of every day.” He presses his chin to the top of my head.
“How?”
“By existing outside of these.” He flexes the band of his arms around me.
“You’re not funny.”
“Didn’t say I was.”
I jab a finger in his ribs, nowhere near the wound, but he hisses like a kicked cat.
“Sorry.” I bite my lip.
“No, you’re not.”
I’m not. But he’s smiling now, the small, rare one that dimples the corner of his mouth.
The quiet stretches, warm and heavy, humming with the heartbeat under my cheek.
“I can’t remember them.” I trace a fingertip along the neckline of his tank. “Our parents.”
His body stiffens.
“I try.” I take a breath. “I really do. But it’s just… Blurry shapes. Maybe a smell. Maybe not even that. Tell me about them. Just something.”
“It’s late, Dove.”
“You never talk about them.”
He goes quiet again, and for a second, I think he’ll get up and escape into his computers.
Instead, he shifts onto his back, eyes on the ceiling. “Mom cooked, and Dad helped her sometimes. They liked to dance together in the kitchen. That’s all.”
“That’s not all.”
“It’s enough.”
“No, it’s not.” I lift my head. “I don’t remember what they sounded like or what they looked like or if they laughed or how they—”
“Let it go.”
“You remember more than I do.”
“It doesn’t matter what I remember.” He rubs a hand over his face, frustrated.
“It matters to me.”
“They’re gone, and we survived. That’s what matters.”
“But I want to know them.”
“You knew enough.” He flicks a strand of my hair off my forehead. “You knew they existed. Some kids don’t even get that.”
It’s not the answer I need. But I can tell by the roughness in his voice that talking about them hurts him.