Page 92 of The Shadows We Keep

The door popsopen and quickly shuts. “God, this feels much better.” She says under her breath, getting settled before turning to me. Her eyes find the small slip of paper in my fingers, and she snatches it, reading over James’s message.

“What does this mean?” she asks, and I shift the car into gear, taking off down the beaten path.

“It means I just stole something valuable from one of the most powerful underground men in America and he won’t stop until he has it back.”

“You can’t really steal me if I came willingly,” she jokes trying to break the growing tension while my mind calculates what our next steps will look like. When I don’t reply, she huffs and turns on the radio. The music comes through full of static, it’ll stay that way until we get somewhere with better reception, but she leaves it anyway.

The broken melody of some old love song fills the car. Her head leans against the window, her body tucking in under itself on the seat.

“Where are we going?” she asks sleepily.

“Somewhere far away. Sleep. You’ll wake again before we’re there.”

* * *

The car comesto a gradual halt in front of a small log cabin surrounded by more woods. The sun is just peeking over the horizon through the trees. A thin layer of undisturbed snow coats the ground for as far as the eye can see.

My hand reaches over finding Keira’s knee, I give it a soft squeeze. She rouses from the fitful sleep she’s been in and out of over the last couple days as we traveled across half the U.S. Her back arches like cat, arms stretching above her head, while a yawn parts her lips.

“My turn to drive?” Her question is laced with sleep that’s still hanging on.

“No, sweetness, we’re here.”

Her eyes cast to the front of the car, taking in our surroundings.

“Where the hell is here?”

“Colorado.”

Her eyes bug at the answer.

“What the hell are we doing in Colorado?” she asks.

“Regrouping. Come on, let’s get inside. We’re due for another storm tonight, and I need to get things up and running before we possibly lose power.”

She doesn’t look impressed by that possibility. But that’s the reality when you’ve sequestered away in the remote reaches of the Rocky Mountains.

The thick wooden door creaks, opening without a key. The entry’s cloaked in shadowy forms of furniture draped in fabric cloths. James said this place has been in his family for generations, but with his work taking him all over the world, he hadn’t been here in ten plus years; it shows.

The stench of stale air permeates the further we advance, while looking for a light source.

“I’ve got it,” Keira calls before the dim glow of a lamp clicks on illuminating the space.

“Well, I’ve stayed in worse,” she says shrugging and takes off to explore. That fact kills me. The detachment with which she shares it makes me want to pay off James to take care of everything back home. Spending the rest of my days showing her what life without abandonment and abuse would look like. Where she’d never have to want for anything or worry about vengeful twin sisters and power-hungry, long-lost fathers.

But that’s not our reality. Our reality is this: fleeing across the country to a safe house where we can lie low and rally. Where I can use all of my skills and contacts to hunt her father down, figuring out what he really has planned and why exactly he needs his daughters back in his life after twenty-plus years.

Alina’s sob story was nothing more than icing on the cake for him, a wedge he thought would cause irreparable harm between Keira and me. But he underestimated the tether that binds us, he doesn’t know his daughter as well as he would like to think.

A crash comes from the other room and my feet tear out from under me as her screams hit my ears. I round the corner, stilling in place. Keira kneels, hunched over with a mess of boxes around her still settling from their fall.

“What happened?” I ask, my heart still racing in my chest.

When she turns, two sets of the biggest eyes train on me.

“Oh, no,” I declare, “we have too much going on right now to worry about another living thing,” I remind her. But then she brings the small ball of fluff up to her nose and cuddles it in closer.

I’m fucking screwed.

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