Page 45 of The Outsider

“You never had it this long before,” I commented as I started to brush it out as gently as I could.

“I wasn’t allowed to cut it,” she replied. “Angel liked it longer.”

I tackled the knots at the bottom with as much care as I could.

“Well, as John would say, fuck that guy.”

To my surprise, she laughed—a real, deep, belly laugh—and it touched my soul. I wanted so badly to help her heal from whatever had happened to her. I just didn’t know how. For now, I focused on taking care of her hair, twisting it into a lovely fishtail braid that Kimmy would’ve approved of.

“This is how Kimmy bonded with me at first,” I said with a smile. “She’d do my hair for me. Without her, I don’t know that I ever would’ve adapted to life out here…or felt safe enough to open up to John.”

Asha didn’t reply, but she’d relaxed a little under my touch, which was something at least.

“Kimmy really is something special,” I said after a moment. “Don’t you think?”

Asha snorted. “You’re awful at subtlety, you know that?”

I giggled. “Well, I know you two have been getting along really well.”

Another pause, but then Asha said, “She’s not what I expected. Never met someone who could provide life-saving medicine just as easily as she could stab a guy in the throat.”

I laughed again. “Yeah, that’s her. I’m glad you hit it off.”

“I don’t know,” she said as I fished in my bag for a ribbon to tie off the braid. “I’m worried about what’s going to happen when we get to this place. The Valley. From what Kimmy’s told me, it’s not going to be good.”

“John seems to think it’ll be okay.”

Asha made a sound of derision. “Not sure how he could possibly think that, with all that stuff about the Jamesons and the whole mess around them leaving.”

Jameson. That name Kimmy had let slip weeks ago, around the campfire.

I frowned. “What?”

She turned to face me, eyebrows raised. “You don’t know what I’m talking about?”

She clearly inferred my answer from the confusion in my expression.

“He hasn’t told you,” she said, a frown creasing her brow, and I made an impatient noise. “Fuck, he really hasn’t told you?”

“Told me what, exactly?” I snapped. “What has Kimmy been telling you?”

She shrugged noncommittally. “Just what we’re up against. But I guess he didn’t think that was worth sharing with you. He’d rather you be grasping around in the dark. Asshole.”

I took a deep breath to calm myself against the rising tide of dread that swelled in my chest. Why wouldn’t John have told me something important?

“Tell me,” I commanded. “Everything you know.”

Asha stared at me and pursed her lips, like she was assessing my readiness.

“You sure you want to hear it?” she asked. “It doesn’t paint your boyfriend in a particularly flattering light.”

“I don’t care.”

It wasn’t true and we both knew it, but she shrugged again.

“Nobody’s going to want us there when we get to the Valley,” she said. “But Kim told me about who’s going to be leading the charge to take us out ASAP. The Jamesons.”

John had shut down the conversation about them before and wouldn’t budge even when I asked him later in private.You don’t need to worry about it,he’d said firmly.Just focus on what’s in front of us right now.

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