Tourmaline stared down at the Shovelhead, fluorescent lights humming above her and a YouTube video pulled up in her hand. She watched it even though she’d already watched it a hundred times. She just needed to change the oil. Simple. If she could put gas in the Shovelhead, she could change the oil.
She took a deep breath, set everything down, and began looking through her father’s tools for a wrench.
The oil was in the middle of draining when the garage door opened; she jumped, kicking the oil pan. Oil sloshed onto her toes, but she grabbed her phone and pretended to be using it as Jason walked in.
He frowned. “What’s up, T?”
“Oh.” She waved her phone. “Nothing.”
“Mm-hm.”
Suddenly she realized the phone looked more suspicious than the oil pan. “I needed to call school.”
He laughed.
She remembered it was nine at night.
“I’m not . . .” She exhaled and looked around. How much did he know about her and Cash, anyway?
“You changing the oil?”
She nodded, too afraid to say it out loud.
“It probably needs it.” He poked through the tool chest. “You see a locknut wrench in here? I can’t remember who I lent it to.”
What the hell was a locknut wrench? “No.” She grabbed a shop towel and wiped off her toes and the little bit of oil that had landed on the floor. “How did you learn to do stuff on bikes?”
“By doing it. And asking for help when I didn’t know what I was doing.” He met her gaze. “Even when it made me feel like a dipshit.”
She smiled and nodded.
“Listen, T.” He cleared his throat and went back to searching through the tool chest. “I, um . . .”
She froze and waited, heart beating hard. Was this about Cash? Or Virginia?
“I’m not interested in getting involved between you and anyone else, okay? That’s not my realm. But I’m not blind. Your dad is going to find out. And it’s not going to go well. I’m supporting Cash, but you both need to be careful and think through all that you’re doing, okay? That’s my weird speech about that.” He shut a drawer, still not looking at her. “God, I’d kill myself if I ever had a daughter.”
She thought about that and then laughed. “Karma would probably kill you first.”
He looked mortified.
It was strange. Stranger to think she was in a place where she could see Jason looking mortified at something she said.
“It’s okay, you know.” She waited until his gaze flickered to hers and repeated. “I know. It’s fine.”
“It’s not . . . ,” he trailed off, shaking his head.
“If it was any other person, maybe it’d be weirder. But . . .” It was Virginia. And Virginia’s eighteen was not Tourmaline’s eighteen and it would be silly to believe something different. “She needs someone with power, who won’t use it against her. Anything less wouldn’t ever hold her respect.”
He nodded, back to avoiding looking at her. “I promise I won’t . . . I won’t use that. I don’t want . . .” His mouth tightened and he looked at his feet. “Thanks, T. Let me know if you need any help, all right?”
“Will do.”
The oil had finished draining. Pulling out the drain tube, she screwed the cap back on and then began the hunt for the oil filter. Somewhere underneath. By the back tire. On her hands and knees, she carefully eased under the bike and looked around.
Someone came in and slammed the door.
Tourmaline jerked up. God, when had the garage gotten so popular?
But it was just Virginia.
“Hey you,” Tourmaline said, half frowning, half smiling. Not sure why Virginia was back at this time of night. “Long time no see.”
Virginia fumbled with the pack of smokes. “We’re fucked.”
Tourmaline sank back on her heels. “What?”
The lights hummed above and cast a sickening glow on Virginia’s face. Her fingers shook as she lit the smoke and sucked a deep breath in.
Tourmaline knew without asking. Knew without knowing. Something was about to go wrong. Again. Always. She hung her head. Stared at the wrench in her hands. “What is it?”
“Me. I fucked up.” Virginia stabbed her fingers into her chest, and then took another long drag on the smoke and passed it to Tourmaline.
Tourmaline shook her head.
Virginia paused, staring at the outstretched cigarette. Suddenly, her expression faltered and collapsed in on itself and she lifted eyes full of tears. “I didn’t know the gun was already stolen. He stole it from your dad years ago. That cop—”
The garage did a slow spin.
The smoke twisted with intent.
And Virginia was crying.
We planted Dad’s own gun. At the scene Dad—or some Warden—had made.
Tourmaline’s stomach dove and all the air left her chest. She sank against the bike and stared.
“I didn’t know,” Virginia whispered. “I’m sorry. We should have left it. We shouldn’t have tried to get it pinned on Hazard. It’s my fault. I’m such a fuckup. I am so sorry. You trusted me. And I let you down.”
“It’s not your fault, V.” It was all hers. Only hers. It was her family.
The cigarette drooped in Virginia’s fingers; tears left black streaks of makeup on her cheeks. “I just don’t understand why I can’t keep anything right. It’s hopeless.”
“It can’t be. I won’t allow it,” Tourmaline said, the words echoing in her hollowed-out chest.
What was there left to do? What could they possibly use? Tourmaline found her own eyes burning and she rubbed them hard. She closed her eyes behind her hands and almost wished she hadn’t tried, had just lain on the road and let Wayne run over her that night. But then she remembered Cash’s bike in the dark and Virginia in the woods and the sizzle of the sunshine above her as she told Jason why she was friends with Virginia. When girls stick together in this world, they’re harder to pick off. Tourmaline lifted her chin and waited for Virginia to look at her. “We’ve got one thing left. But I can’t ask you to do this. You have to decide for yourself.”
Virginia sniffed. “What is it?”
“It” was the business card with the raised edges of a seal. The man who’d come looking for her in the rain. Tourmaline swallowed. “The FBI.”
There was a long pause.
The lights hummed. The bugs droned.
“Yes or no. It’s your call. I can’t do it without you.” Tourmaline’s voice cracked. “Without what you know.”
Virginia took another long pull on the smoke and exhaled it in a long, hard rush of smoke. She didn’t look at Tourmaline.
The crickets sang louder. The quiet itself seemed to move.
Virginia’s chin trembled and she glanced to Tourmaline. “Ride or die, bitch.”
Tourmaline snorted.
Virginia chuckled over her cigarette, fingers still shaking.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter that their throats were too tight and their chests cinched, because they were laughing and crying all at once.