Page 203 of Scrimmage

“They haven’t left. They’ve been sleeping in the nurses lounge,” Penny informs me. “That’s how long they’ve been here. The staff actually felt so bad for them that they offered for them to stay in there.”

“Who is they?”

“Did you fucking lose your memory? Jesus, Ashland. Koda and Alexi.”

That makes me laugh, and then I cough because like every fucking thing it hurts. “I just keep picturing them on the couch, and neither of them fit.”

“Believe me. They don’t,” Penny giggles. “You need to admit your shit with Koda is more than some fling. He passed Jeremy’s test. Mine, too. That man loves you, and you can’t tell me any differently. You should give him a chance.”

“I’m not fond of Chances.”

She levels her gaze. “He isn’t a Chance, and you know it.”

“We won’t be here anyways. Why does it matter?”

Penny sits on the edge of the bed folding her hands in her lap. A timid grin spreads across her face. “Would you be happy if Jeremy let us stay?”

“Are we playing some kind of game?”

“No.”

“Then why would he do that?”

“Apparently, it’s kinda up to us. With Dead Chance being dead, and the Rat King in prison, there really isn’t anyone left. The last piece has been put into the puzzle. You wouldn't have to go back to being Ashland Vaughn or anything. We would still be Ashland and Penny Bradshaw.”

I think about it. I really don’t want to leave our lives here. It’s messy and fun. We only have a year left anyways. Penny is wrong though, and Jeremy knows it. One person still hasn’t been found. It’s not that I think he would come after me to kill me. Yang saved my life, but I’m still angry and he very well might be, too.

“Do you want to stay?”

She tries to read me, then finally concedes. “I’m conflicted. I thought a lot over the last few weeks. You almost died here, but it’s also like we can be reborn for the last time. I understand if you don’t, and we can go.”

“I don’t want to,” I admit.

She looks up with wide eyes. “Really?”

“Really,” I confirm. “I like it here. I’ve got the shop. We’ve got friends. If we disappear again then we start all over and lose everything we’ve worked for. I’m worried though.”

Her eyebrows squeeze together. “About Koda?”

“No,” I huff. I don’t know how to say this. “About the...”

She picks at the fabric of the sheets. “You know they disbanded.”

“But if Damien has any idea…” I try again.

“I never met Dead Chance back then,” she points out. “He was already gone.”

“I saw him almost every day for two years and hadn’t realized that I had met him."

Her eyes flick to the ground, her neck bending in submission, and I see a flash of the old Penny. “We’ll go.”

“You don’t want to though.”

“What I don’t want, is for the past to rule our future anymore. I’mliving.In a world I thought I couldn’t make it in. I’m okay, Ashland. I am okay.”

Penny wants to stay, and while I’m worried, I also can’t make those decisions for her. She has a fucking point. We will never have identified every single face of every person in all of the organizations that seemed so twisted together. We can't hide forever. That's not who we are.

“Okay,” I agree. “We should stay. We’re not done raising hell here yet.”

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