Page 39 of I Am Salvation

We head to the car, and Dragon, without asking, takes the driver’s seat. Fine with me.

“What’s the address?”

He rattles it off, and I put it in the GPS.

And we’re off.

We drive through the city of Taos. It’s dark now, but even so, the quaintness of the small town is visible in the mom-and-pop restaurants and art galleries. He keeps driving until we get to what appears to be a mobile home park.

I hold back my surprise. After all, I shouldn’t be surprised. Dragon doesn’t come from money. That much is obvious.

“Damn,” he says.

“What’s wrong?”

“I grew up in a suburb of Denver. A northern suburb, and the houses were no bigger than cracker boxes, but they were sure as hell a lot nicer than this.”

I look around. “Some of these look very nice.”

He scoffs. “Please, Diana. Nobody in your family would be caught dead here.”

“Ava might,” I say.

My cousin Ava is famous for never touching Steel money. She runs a bakery in downtown Snow Creek, and she used to live above it. Now she lives above Murphy’s Bar with her new husband, Brendan Murphy. She’s renting out the apartment above the bakery.

“Yeah? Last time I checked, you’re not Ava.”

“Just shut the fuck up, will you, Dragon?” I can scarcely believe those words came out of my mouth, but they get a chuckle out of him. “What’s so funny?”

“You just said the F word. You told me to shut the fuck up.”

“Because you won’t stop thinking of me as some spoiled rich bitch.” I punch him on his upper arm. “I am sick as hell of that. Everybody at my new job—correction, my former job—thought the same. And you’ve heard me say the F word before, so fuck you.”

He says nothing.

We drive up to the unit. It’s not one of the nicer maintained ones. In fact, the small lawn is full of weeds, and the redwood steps leading up to the door look broken and rickety.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I ask.

“No. This is something I need to do on my own.” He looks around, scanning our surroundings. “Keep the car doors locked.”

I was planning to, though I’m not going to say that to him.

He draws in a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

Chapter Eleven

Dragon

Seventeen years earlier…

Today is my birthday.

I’m thirteen.

And that means I move to a new group home.

I’ve been at this one since I was eight, a little kid. It’s been all right. The food sucks, and there’s never enough of it, but my bed isn’t too uncomfortable. And the guys here aren’t too bad either. I’ve been in a few fights, gotten some bloody noses and black eyes, but I’ve always held my own.

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