Page 108 of Fearless

Ava wiggled her toes and the leaping tendons made the gator look like he was snapping his jaws. “A little. It kind of throbs. Hurt like a bitch while he was doing it.”

Leah sat back and shook her head a little, disbelieving. “Do you know what my mom would say if I told her I wanted her to take me to get a tattoo?”

Ava grinned. “I can guess.”

“Like I keep saying: your mom is the coolest.”

Leah had come by to bring Ava notes from class, and to visit. They sat on Ava’s bed with a bag of Skittles between them.

“How do you feel?” Leah asked, growing serious. “Are you still - ?” She grimaced and gestured to her own stomach.

“I stopped bleeding,” Ava said with a shrug. “And most of the cramping’s stopped. The doc said I was lucky I wasn’t that far along.”

Leah blinked, and gave her that same odd look everyone had been giving her.

“Oh, not you too,” Ava said. “Come on. Everyone’s acting like I’m some sort of freak show.”

“Sorry. Totally not doing that.” Leah was the first person to let it drop and change the subject, but that look…Ava was so tired of that look.

And still, nothing from Mercy.

Twenty-Six

Five Years Ago

It seemed fitting that the pain would bleed through at the pinnacle of her insanity. That her peace was undercut by a secret fragility that grew exponentially, just beneath the surface.

She went back to school at the end of the week, and she heard the whispers, felt the stares, read the avoidance for what it was: she was a leper now, officially. And she didn’t care.

Mason was still not back, but the rumor was that his parents were enrolling him in private school. Beau and Ainsley, she quickly learned, weren’t going to turn stool pigeon. They were too terrified by what had happened to meet her gaze, or open their mouths to spread gossip. Ainsley’s last defiant act had been tampering with Ava’s phone, and now, she was done.

By the time the dismissal bell sounded, Ava had her plan all locked down. Everyone knew about her and Mercy: no need to hide anymore. No sense pretending it was less serious than it was. She only had a few months of high school left, and then she’d be free to start making plans for the future. She was underage, but she wouldn’t have to move in with Mercy until she was eighteen. She could wait that long. She wouldn’t go away to school. She could take day classes at UT, work at the nursery. And once she and Mercy bought a house together, they could have children, sanctioned ones, ones that she didn’t lose thanks to a kick in the stomach. She could see it all now, picket fence-enclosed and glorious. She was giddy and spinning with the idea of it, her whole future, laid out in glossy Technicolor before her, smelling of Mercy’s leather jacket and feeling like his heart beating against hers.

She left school and drove to his apartment. She couldn’t park in the alley, though, because there was a U-Haul truck blocking her way. Leaving her truck at the curb, she skipped up the iron staircase.

Something was wrong.

The apartment door stood open, and just inside, she saw the short stacks of cardboard liquor boxes. Air from inside came through the door, stirring against her face: a sense of human energy abandoning the place. The ghost of Home leaving to haunt somewhere else.

Ava braced a hand against the jamb and felt her pulse pick up a notch.

“Mercy?”

He stepped out of the kitchen, in jeans and white long-sleeve t-shirt, sans cut. His expression was guarded, an unfamiliar spark of regret in his eyes.

Her pulse went up another notch.

“What’s going on?” she asked, stepping into the living room.

He didn’t answer her. His hands went in his back pockets and he sighed, eyes skittering toward the window.

Ava stepped closer and heard herself laughing. “Are you moving?” She meant it as a joke. Mercy loved this apartment.

But he said, “Yeah.”

She laughed again, a hollow brittle sound she didn’t recognize. Her body sending up the warning alarm to her brain.Wake up, stupid! Something’s wrong!

“If you get a bigger place,” she said, “make sure there’s enough room for a king sized bed.” Smile, little nose scrunch. Blatant, girlish flirting.

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