Page 23 of Gambler's Fallacy

I know he’s right. But she’s my sister.

She’s the only family I have left.

FIVE

HAVOC

I boltthe door to my apartment shut, then turn to Seven. “Okay. Three locks, and a camera system,andan alarm system. Vortex says the apartment is as safe as it can get.”

We’d done a thorough vetting of not just my apartment, but the entire complex, too. We’d done background checks on all the tenants, and Alice had personally assured us that she wouldn’t rent out a unit to anyone without checking with Caleb first.

She’s a much more attentive landlady than my Step Asshole had been, that’s for sure.

Vortex had been irritated the entire time we’d done the final check, but I don’t care enough about his problems to have asked about what’s going on.

“Okay,” Seven says, but he still looks uncertain. He nibbles on his bottom lip, then glances around. “So show me around?”

I nod, although I feel a bit self-conscious. I show him around the small apartment—a combined living/dining room, a small kitchen, and a bedroom. There’s next to no furniture in it, with a mattress in the bedroom and a few chairs I’d picked up off the side of the road. A TV and gaming system are on the floor near the secondhand couch.

“I figured there’s no point getting much furniture until the walls are painted,” I explain hastily. “Which you’re still helping me with, right?”

Seven stops biting his lip, but there’s a shade of wariness in his expression as he replies, “We’re going to paint it all blue, right? That shade we decided on?”

“Yeah, I got a blue for the living room.” I walk over to the paint supplies and heft up two cans of paint. “And bright red for my bedroom.” I grin at him. “Race car red, because I always wanted that color as a kid and never got it.”

His shoulders relax as he shakes his head. “That sounds… loud.” But he smiles back at me. “Have you ever driven a race car before?”

I start laying the tarp out around the living room. I’ve already taped off the edges, so hopefully we’ll get at least one room done today. “Not an official race car, but one of my buddies in the army owned this flashy car, and… okay, it’ll sound bad, but me and the others, we were really fucking jealous, right? So one night when he was really drunk, we took his keys.” I pause for effect and grin at Seven. “It would have been irresponsible to let him drive, right?”

Seven looks more confused than anything. “Yeah,” he says, but it’s more like he’s giving me the answer he thinks I want to hear instead of what he’s actually thinking.

I shrug it off and hand Seven one of the paint rollers. “Anyway, we all took turns joyriding that car, with my drunk buddy in the backseat. The car wouldn’t have won any races, but it drifted like a dream.” I pour paint into the tin, then cover my roller with it. “In the morning, he noticed the tires were completely worn down. None of us fessed up to who had done it.”

“What’s drifting?” Seven asks, taking the paint roller. He looks at it in fascination, then mimics what I’d done. “Oh, crap. It’s dripping everywhere,” he says in dismay.

“That’s why the tarp is there,” I say. “Just roll it out a bit more in the pan.” I show him how to do that, then get to work with painting the wall. “Drifting is when you do a, um, really sharp turnwith the car, so it skids sideways. It’s fun as hell but killer on the wheels.”

“Oh,” he says, concentrating as he starts to paint, too. It’s messy and crooked, but he’s trying so hard that I can’t bring myself to correct him.

“Make sure to keep spreading the paint,” I say. “So that there are no obvious drips anywhere.”

Seven nods, and when he focuses, he doesn’t do a bad job. It’s clear he’s never done it before, but he doesn’t protest the work, either. “This doesn’t look like the color on the thing,” he says.

“It’ll look different when it dries,” I explain to him.

His brows furrow, but he accepts that answer, going back to the pan to put his roller back through the paint.

Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that he knows next to nothing of life, but at other times, it’s painfully clear that he hasn’t experienced much at all.

“So, did you figure out some place you want to visit in the city that isn’t the casino?” I ask. “I’m not kidding about a trip out to a national park or something. It sounds scary but we’ll be able to see for miles, so it’s not like anyone can sneak up on us.”

“But they could easily hide our bodies,” he says, and he’s deadpan enough to where I’m not sure what to say to that until he adds, “Of course, you could hide their bodies out there, too.”

I pause in my painting to look at him. “Do you want me to teach you how to fight?”

He goes completely still, the paint roller still against the wall, and I see that he’s trembling as he gives a quick shake of his head. “No! No. I couldn’t. That would be… No.”

I set my paint roller into the pan and grab Seven’s shoulders. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to. It’s not for everyone.”

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