Page 43 of The Company We Keep

Dust rolled down the passenger window, the air rushing by them a sudden roar, and leaned out, emptying his clip with shots at the cops’ tires in front of them. It was no use — even if Dust were the hottest shot in town, Carrow and the cops were swerving too much. Apparently LAPD was too interested in the masked person on the bike to even notice the sedan taking shots at their tires.

And then Dust remembered. They were all clear. He’d nearly forgotten his entire point for the job.

Laughing, elated, Dust fell back into his seat and rolled up the window.

He retrieved a small tablet from the breast pocket of his jacket and thumbed through the screens.

“Brace yourselves,” Dust said into the comms.

One tap of a button and the sun seemed to rise early behind them. The sight of the blaze was instantaneous, but it took a moment for the sound of the blast to reach them on the highway. All of the drivers around them — including the cops — reacted as soon as the hollow echo of the explosion rolled over the 110. Carrow stayed the course, swerving around new vehicles, maneuvering around the cops as they slowed. Herron fell back at the same time until they were on the driver’s side of the sedan, coasting along with them. For once, the skeleton grin of their mask was a welcomed sight.

The sound of the cops’ sirens faded quickly behind them.

They had made it.

Carrow laughed hard, slapping the steering wheel. Leta, behind them now, was beeping and flashing her lights and Herron did the same. For a moment, they formed an abbreviated, grim parade, all celebrating Dust’s handiwork.

The moment passed but the elated mood in the car remained as Herron maneuvered off the highway and then Leta at the next exit. Carrow kept them going north, falling down to a more reasonable speed before finally turning to Dust and smiling.

“And that was…?”

“Several tons of explosives nestled around the perimeter of the museum,” Dust explained. “Enough to cripple the facade but positioned so that none of the artifacts were harmed — at least theoretically.”

Carrow laughed again, shaking his head.

“Surprised?” Dust asked, unable to bite down his own smile at the fact that he’d pleased his boss.

“Pleasantly,” Carrow said. “Yes.”

The poker face was gone — so far forgotten that it almost seemed like it had never existed in the first place.

“Where to now, boss?”

“Safe house south of here,” Carrow said. “It’s not far.”

The safe houseended up looking eerily similar to the house that Dust grew up in — at least from the outside. The old multi-story building was positioned on the beach and seemed to loom up on stilts. It was nondescript: just an old beach bungalow in a row of old beach bungalows, the sunbleached siding looking ghostly in the moonlight.

Carrow pulled them into the dark, open car bay and cut the lights. He grabbed a duffel bag out of the back and ledDust up the stairs, pausing to unlock the back door of the house.

The heady ocean air was stronger there, thicker, and Dust couldn’t fight the deja vu of the moment. He’d stood on other porches in the middle of the night, listening to the ocean and waiting to be let into a dark room. That was the reality of being a teenager on the Georgia coast — and even someone as uninteresting and bland as Charlie Judge had occasionally found himself sneaking around on summer nights.

Pleasure and familiarity flooded his system as past and present came together in the moment, mixing with the adrenaline of the night, and he found himself placing a hand on Carrow’s hip as the man let them inside.

The lock clicked behind them, the door separating them from the night beyond, and Dust stepped back, pulling his hand away — uncertain maybe. Carrow tossed the duffel bag away.

The silence of the safehouse was oppressive, and Carrow tried to make out the expression on Dust’s face in the dark. Heachedfor the other man, spurred on by the odd combination of elation at a job finished without injury, pleasure at having been right about Dust’s capabilities, and the manic joy of adrenaline coursing through his veins, still somehow not wearing off.

“Carrow —”

Carrow was kissing him before he could let doubt edge into the corner of his mind. He could have this. They could have this.

They crashed together — the heist, the night, the safehouse falling away from them.

It felt inevitable. Fated, maybe.

Every bit of adrenaline and want built to that moment as Carrow pressed the smaller man against the wall. Dust made a small shocked sound against Carrow’s mouth, half question and half pleasure. Carrow didn’t stop, and it only took Dust a moment to go pliant against him.

He tasted like the aftermath of explosions — like gunpowder and blood and ozone. Something crackled through Carrow as he claimed his mouth, kissing him deep and burying fingertips into his waist.

---