Virginia woke in the car and stared at the ceiling. It’d only been a few weeks of hiding out and mowing with Tourmaline, but it felt like her whole life. Now it was here—the funeral of Virginia Campbell, whatever she may have been. May she rest in peace.
Virginia’s cheek pressed against the soft material of the backseat, and amber streetlights flashed randomly onto the carpeted floor. In that moment, without any veil between her and the truth, she thought of Tourmaline and of Jason. Of those people who did not like her or call her their friend and who were the ones she most desperately wanted to be loved by. The ones she wanted to count as her people. It seemed clear now that she had gone to Tourmaline not to preserve some idea of her own external value, but to preserve this feeling—this horrible, heart-wrenching ability to love and care, even when she wasn’t lovable. And in the end, Virginia had taken what she most wanted, used them, lied to them, and driven one of them into a tree.
Virginia’s head rocked as the car turned. The dark hum of the road that would end at Hazard’s droned in her ear.
What now, Virginia Campbell? A cat with nine lives. Sailing through the starry night with all four paws in the air. How many had she used by now? What life was next?
Sail through and . . . twist.
Virginia closed her eyes and would have fallen back into a drunken sleep if not for the firm grip on her arms, hauling her up and out of the backseat. The sweet breeze lifted her hair off her face and she roused, automatically raising her head and opening her eyes to the night. This place was familiar. Too familiar. Her stomach twisted.
Now it did not matter whether Hazard had seen her in the brush, or whether he knew she had his picture hidden in her email in Jason’s sock drawer, or whether he simply thought she was shirking his orders. Her fate would be the same no matter the offense.
The man kept her arm bent behind her back, pushing her through the thigh-high grass toward the weathered late Victorian.
Empty and forsaken, the house was set in the brush of the valley below the Blue Ridge. Its peaked corners leered over her in the dark. The man pushed her past the ornately trimmed and sagging porch. Past the plywood-covered windows. Around to a single set of steps into a bare steel door.
This was her last chance to make a run for it, and even though she twisted her head in the direction of the horizon beyond the fields, where the soft amber glow of light from a sleeping town was strung as a beacon, she kept her feet going past the moment. Stupid had never been part of her moves. There was absolutely a gun somewhere on the man’s body, and if she ran, they’d make whatever followed five times worse because they’d had to go get her.
He pushed her up the creaking steps and, without letting go, rapped his knuckles three times.
The door swung open.
Hazard stood there, backlit by fluorescent work lights. No “Esquire” tonight, just a T-shirt and a pair of old-man khakis. “Well, don’t you look prettier than a pat of butter melting on a stack of flapjacks,” he said with a smile, pushing the door open wider.
“You should have just invited me. I’d have come to your party,” she purred, as if she were walking into this godforsaken house of her own free will and not being dragged out of a backseat like some hog-tied calf.
He smiled. “Your spirit is always so wonderful.” Pushing up his sleeves, Hazard stepped back into the shadows of the house.
“I could have brought something. I make a damn good potato salad.”
“Oh, no, darlin’. You’re the guest of honor tonight.”
Keeping her shoulders from dropping, she met his eyes in the astringent light and wrote the lines she wanted to believe, the lines she wanted them all to see—that nothing they could do would touch her where it counted, that she would take what was due on the chin and come out the other side no worse for wear.
Someone shut the door behind her. The air inside the house was suddenly stale and heavy.
“You disappointed me. Hurt me, even,” Hazard said, leaning against the skeleton frames of the cabinets behind him. “We had such a nice dinner and I got home expecting that email.”
About the Wardens. She’d faked them. Good enough to hold up under a quick look, but not under scrutiny. Virginia swallowed and took a long stride in his direction, gathering as much verve as she could to plant it into the creaking, dirty floors.
A hand clamped onto her elbow and yanked her back.
She twisted into the pain and cried out, shoving and twisting to break free.
Her heartbeat stuttered. She tried to lift her chin, but found it would go no higher.
“You should have known better than to try and trick me like that. I didn’t think you were stupid enough to think it would work, but . . . I misjudged you. You aren’t what I thought. And to add insult to injury, you tried to avoid me?” He shook his head and sighed. “You betrayed me.” He pushed off the counter and nodded to someone in the shadows. “Let’s go. I have court in the morning.”
Virginia’s stomach dropped out from underneath her and her knees weakened. She should have run. Should have been long gone. Why had she stayed?
The man holding her tightened his grip on her arms, and another man unsheathed a buck knife.
This was the point when she should pass out. But everything stayed monotone and dull and real in the most horrible way. The wind rattled the roof. Hazard didn’t move from the counter. Watching. He was too smart to do it himself—like he was too smart to rape her, too smart to bribe cops with money, too smart for his own good.
Pass out, she ordered herself. Go back to sleep. Find the dark and hide there until it’s safe to come out. Her heartbeat slowed, but her eyes stayed open. She twisted her arm, testing the man who held her.
He shoved her to her knees.
Pass out.
But everything stayed as it was.
“Put her on the floor and do it,” Hazard said.
She was on the floor.
The man holding her arm pushed her down, and she wrenched away. “No.” She didn’t want to lie down.
A solid thump of dull pain shot up her back, and she only realized the man had kicked her over when her chin hit the floor.
“No. Put her on her back.”
She swore she wasn’t going to fight. She knew. Knew what fighting did. But in that second, her reality became too real and she forgot. Screaming, she kicked right up to her feet and yanked her arms away.
For a second, she was free. Standing on her own, breathing hard as she faced down Hazard and his knife. A cat with nine lives, but a bobcat awake in a hungry spring. She met his eyes and the thrum of her heartbeat twisted.
He would pay for the smirk he’d given her when he had evaluated the awkward girl-child she had once been, and agreed to take her in the absence of cash; and he’d pay for the smirk now. For standing there as if this were all business, something on the to-do list, and not something he had long ago made deeply personal. And suddenly she was drowning in all that anger Jason had told her was there. She could not be angry at her mother for that moment—even though that was the moment she was truly, deeply, angry over—but she’d be angry at Hazard for all the ones after.
The second lasted less than a second.
They had her again, hauling her backward.
She twisted and kicked—to give them a hell of a time getting this poor rounder down. Something in her middle hurt blunt and thick, knocking the wind out of her. But as the blooms of water stains on the ceiling passed before her eyes, she remembered Jason and the clicking fan and she breathed again in one great gasp.
The back of her head thumped on the dirty wood floor. If she didn’t fight, she’d be hurt. If she fought, she’d die.
And she wanted to fucking live.
Don’t fight.
“Pull her hair out, Warren.”
A third set of hands jerked her up by her hair and then ripped it all upward, twisting her neck.
Virginia swallowed the scream, but a noise escaped her throat as she hung, choked.
The man with the buck knife started sawing.
What was he doing? Her heart thumped wildly. Survive. It pounded. Survive. Survive. Survive.
Hair fell back to her shoulders, chopped short. Little by little the tension abated until the man held her by only a thin rope of uncut hair, sending pain searing through her scalp. She twisted, arching, trying to hold herself up—but the men holding her wrists just yanked her back down.
The knife flicked through and the fire abated.
She smacked the back of her head on the floor. Tiny bursts of light drifted over her vision, but not the darkness she longed for.
“Just taking what’s mine,” Hazard said with a smile. “What’s next? How about those nails?”
She closed her eyes, locking in on the end, on making it through. He could take these petty things, but he could never take her will. Her heart hammered a million miles a minute.
“Well, hell,” someone drawled out long and heavy.
Jason. She opened her eyes. The same ceiling was above her, but she’d heard him. Had she finally passed out and started dreaming?
“I’m not interrupting, am I?”
Virginia lifted her head.
Jason stood in the doorway. Hands on his waist. T-shirt billowing out gently in the breeze that rushed through the open door.
“Perfect timing,” she croaked. “Did you bring the potato salad?”
“Shut up, Virginia,” Hazard snarled.
As if punctuating, someone kicked her side.
She forced herself to use the last of her breath to groan. For Jason. Just in case.
“Let her up,” Jason said, sounding deadly.
“With all due respect, this really is no business of yours,” Hazard said. As if to emphasize his point, two more men appeared out of the shadows, one on either side of the door.
Virginia’s throat choked in fear. This wasn’t right. Didn’t Jason have people with him? Suddenly, she realized he wasn’t wearing his vest, and for some reason she couldn’t explain, her stomach twisted.
“I’m not looking for a fight. And I won’t hold this against you.” Jason paused, jaw twitching. “But I want her now.”
“That’s not how this works. You should know.” Hazard took another step, knife in hand. “Where’re your brothers?”
Jason crossed his arms. He didn’t look worried, even as the two men moved with him, glancing at Hazard like dogs waiting for their cue. He found her eyes, expression impassive. “Come on, Virginia.”
She pulled against the hands that pinned her, but they held firm.
“You may not be looking for a fight, but you’ll certainly get one,” Hazard said.
Fear prickled her back. She was more scared for Jason than she was for herself. Hazard would kill Jason, no matter what he did. He was here alone. Without protection.
For her.
Her throat tightened, and she yanked and twisted.
“Hold her!” Hazard yelled.
The two men twisted her arms, and a massive boot came down on her chest, sinking so much weight into her ribs the whole world split into pain. She gasped and went limp. The boot eased only a little. Just enough for her to find Jason across the room.
The grip on Virginia’s arms loosened, and she tested it slightly, skin slipping underneath the men’s sweating palms. Why hadn’t Jason brought more people? More something? But really she wondered why he had come at all. She was not worth this risk.
“I’m doing you a favor. Coming alone. It’s up to you to take the favor.”
Something changed, electric and tense in the air.
“Listen,” Hazard said, taking a step forward. “There’s nothing special here. She’ll be fine, I promise. I’ll even deliver her to you when I’m finished. There’s no need to . . .” But he trailed off as Jason took a step forward.
“There’s no negotiation.”
Hazard only paused a moment. “Stop,” he ordered. “Let her up.”
Jason didn’t move.
They let her go, and Virginia scrambled away, running for Jason before she was even upright. She didn’t drop her eyes from him, just in case it was a dream and she lost him by looking away. Wrapping her arms around his waist, she slung herself behind him.
He didn’t disappear. He was warm. And solid.
And real.
She wanted to cry. But she just put her forehead in between his shoulder blades and took a deep breath. Of the wood smoke and sweat and leather and soap that was all Jason. Of something safe.
“This is done now,” Jason said. He took her hand off his waist and held it tight, turning for outside.
As they hit the ground, he pulled her into a run.