Page 60 of God of War

“Talking shit about yourself, acting like you’re worthless.”

“What do you care?” she replies, shrugging one shoulder. “You’re always telling me the same thing.”

Fuck, is that what she thinks? That I think she’s worthless? “No,” I say, shaking my head. “I get pissed at you when you do stupid shit and don’t listen to me. There’s a difference.”

Delaney pauses. She folds her hands over her stomach and stares up at the ceiling.

“Oh,” she says.

I huff and settle back on the floor. “That’s all you got to say?”

“What if I’m not good at anything?”

Christ. Her words are so small. A tiny, trembling fear, eked out and offered up to me like some vulnerable, fragile thing. I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to leap off the floor and wrap her in my arms.

“That’s not true,” I reply softly.

I feel the sharpness of her glare in the darkness. “How do you know? It’s not like we’ve spent a whole lot of time together before this. How would you know what I’m good at?”

“Because I look out my window every day and see what you’re good at.”

She sucks in a breath. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on, I might not know a daisy from a whatever, but I know that gardens don’t just look like mine. Not without someone putting the work in.”

She nibbles on her lip. “How long have you known?”

“From the second time your scrawny ass dragged a bag of fertilizer over at two a.m. First time I thought a cow had just taken a shit in my yard.”

She laughs and it echoes in our little dim hiding place. “Why didn’t you ever tell me to stop?”

I was waiting for this question. I take a deep breath. “Two reasons. One, I didn’t want to talk to you, figured it’d get me in more trouble. And two… I didn’t want you to stop.”

“Oh,” she says. I want to tease her, tell her that ‘Oh’ is quickly becoming her favorite word. But I think I hear a little smile in the sound, so I focus on that. That even though it’s dark, that smile shines like a beacon.

I’m not trying to fall asleep, but I do. I think maybe I dream of Delaney, of what life could be like if I wasn’t a Wastelander and a killer, and if she wasn’t some desperate girl on the run.

When I open my eyes, the sunlight making me squint, I don’t remember my dream. All those good feelings vanish like smoke, replaced by a shock of sudden adrenaline.

“Wakey-wakey,” says Deputy Flores, grinning down at me. I look to Delaney, her eyes round with fear. I can’t move, can’t go for my own weapon, because the barrel of his gun is aimed directly at Delaney’s head.

22

Delaney

“So, how did you find me?” I ask. I squirm in the backseat of the patrol car. Cracks in the vinyl pinch the parts of my thighs not covered by my shorts.

Aaron snorts from the driver’s seat as we drive out of Bowen, the empty highway stretching into the distance.

“I can’t just be a good fucking cop? I’m hurt, Del. I thought you believed in me.”

“You can choke on a dick and die, Flores. Believe that.”

I catch his eye in the rearview. Something dark flashes in his expression, a barely controlled contempt. Then, he chuckles.

“Come on now, Del. Don’t be like that. We’ve got a long drive back to your daddy, and you best believe I can make it pleasant for you, or…”

He lets it hang there. The threat of all the ways he can make it far, far worse for me. Though I can’t think of what could be worse than being hand-delivered to my father by Aaron fucking Flores. A man I’d always considered an overgrown boy with a teeth-whitening fetish.

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