Page 95 of Hell and High Water

Then my fearful escape from my abusive fiancée.

Setting it back down, I can’t resist slipping the broken picture out of its frame. Despite the white creases and fading, the people are still faintly visible.

Gavin’s face pops out at me immediately, his younger face so much softer. My dad looks about the same, never seeming to age in any of his photos. Other men and a couple of women fill out the roster.

And there, next to Gavin, Alaya. Her face is less scarred, but she looks like a complete badass with a sniper rifle resting on her shoulder.

Her smug look makes me want to break the frame all over again.

It’s not jealousy.

I swear.

There's more to it than that.

But for now, I’ll add it to the pile of feelings to sort through later.

What’s itching in my brain now is the missing gap of years. The aging Damon, the one who left his crew and then his family to run a secret shadow organization from a house in the middle of nowhere.

How did you get here, Dad? Why did you do this?

The only other door in the house opens into a small hallway. Three more doors line the wall ahead of me. Odd arrangement.

One is a bedroom, the middle a bathroom. Standard, dingy like the rest of the house.

The final door is locked. Odd that Alaya didn’t break it down or open it. Unless…

A twinge of horror zips up my spine.

There are no signs of a struggle anywhere in the house, and Rachelle never said where he was buried. I never asked.

Could his body be…?

The thought makes me want to puke for some reason. It also gives me wicked mystery vibes.

A desiccated corpse, holding the secrets to my past, my future, sitting in his chair behind that door.

Shivers shoot through me, sending me back out into the brighter living room. It’s not enough.

Flapping my hands with nervous energy and frankly a shit ton of the heebie-jeebies, I bolt outside, gulping down cool air.

The pent up panic and tension of the encounter hits me then, nearly driving me to my knees.

Fuck this. And fuck Alaya for being so…

Badass. I hate how she looked.

How she carried herself.

Worst of all, I hate how intriguing she was, how easy she was to talk to. How quickly she sucked me into a witty, clever conversation.

I’m just pulling myself back together when I hear the roar of an engine, the crunch of tires on gravel barreling down the driveway.

I’m a split second from dashing for the nearest cover when I see a flash of the brown truck through the trees and huff a sigh of relief. A sigh that I suck right back in as I realize that it’s Gavin and probably Evan and Tell.

And they are one thousand percent going to be PISSED.

Not to mention the little detail of ‘what the actual fuck am I going to tell them?’

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