Page 45 of Taken By the Bounty Hunter

“You’re shocked that I guessed right. You have that look,” he says.

I swallow. “What look?”

“Don’t try to deny it.”

“Okay. They had me in isolation for a month.”

“Fuck, Georgie.”

“I know.”

“I never went outside.”

“What else?”

I dab the tears away but don’t fight the urge to cry. “I want to fucking burn that place to the ground.”

“I’ll help you.”

“I know.”

He already knows Wynella was my prison guard and the whole story about how I stabbed her. What neither of us know is why the hell she’s renting a room in town. But we’ve both already agreed that we need to find a place of our own. Living in a closet and living with Wynella are both untenable situations.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

I nudge him with my knee. “We know why I’m weird. How about you?” The crying is starting to subside, and I manage to smile.

“You already know my story,” he says. “But it’s not as bad as yours.”

I shake my head. He knows how I feel when he talks like that.

A few moments pass, and we eat in comfortable silence.

Jefferson shoves the food wrappers, empty cans, and napkins into the cooler.

“Back to the closet,” I joke.

He laughs at my dark humor but drives us in the opposite direction from The Dump.

“Where are we going?”

My husband doesn’t answer until we’re parked in front of a sweet, modest house in a leafy residential neighborhood of Darling Creek.

“What is this?”

Without a word, he tosses me the keys. “Our new house.”

“You didn’t,” I say.

“I did.”

I look from my husband to the single-story white brick house with a screened-in front porch. It looks older but well-kept.

“It’s so…normal,” I say.

“And no closets. Not a single one,” Jefferson says.

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