Page 95 of Snow in Texas

She opened her eyes.

Voice calm, solid: “It’s not very original you know.”

He’d found her second knife, and laid it on the table beside the first. “What’s that?”

“Taking back your club. Candy already did that. You can’t do anything else but copy him?”

He smirked and sat down on the coffee table across from her. “What he did was treason. You know that, right? He didn’t take any votes. Didn’t explain himself to anybody. He oughta been buried in the desert, with the black dogs burned off his arms.”

“Except that’s what happened to your boys, isn’t it?”

The smirk vanished. “You turned into a real mouthy bitch.”

“From one bitch to another, huh?”

He stood suddenly, with a familiar, impulsive violence.

Crockett made a startled sound.

Riley reared back with his hand, a big theatrical slap, and Jenny ducked, threw herself down on the floor at his feet. Above her head, the whoosh of his hand through empty air.

He snarled. “Jesus, you stupid whore.”

Her wrists were bound, but her hands were not, and she managed to wriggle one down into the top of her boot before he grabbed her arm and hauled her upright.

She tilted her head back, so she could see his face, as she staggered to her feet. He was glaring at her with all the old hate and anger.

Soft, slipperyclickof the switchblade opening in her hand.

He froze, eyes widening. “Wha–”

And Jenny used the momentum he’d given her to straighten in a rush and drive the knife up into the soft underside of his jaw.

Candy had forced her to stab sandbags when she was younger. Stabbing a man was harder than it seemed, he’d reasoned. She needed to know what kind of resistance she would face. She thought of that afternoon now – the bright sun, the sound of sand pouring down onto the ground – but the feel of flesh was so different. The sudden spurt of blood nothing like the clean patter of sand.

An awful, animal sound tore out of Riley’s throat, and he staggered back from her.

Blood splashed her hands, her arms; she felt its wet viscous touch sliding down her face.

Riley pitched forward and blood poured out of his mouth, thick red ribbons. He gasped like a winded horse. Groped madly at the handle of the knife.

“You forgot about the third one,” Jenny said, tipping her bound hands so the blood ran out of her palms and dripped down onto the rug.

Glass shattered behind her, and she whirled.

Riley’s crew, coming in through the front windows, the door, blocking the fall of sunlight. She counted four.

“Oh shit.”

A gun went off, and she closed her eyes, waited for the pain…

Another shot, another. Curses, swears.

Her eyes popped open and…Pup??

One of Riley’s men fell facedown just inside the window and Pup stepped over him, gun in hand. He was still pale, still skinny, still shaking, even, but he turned and fired at the others.

Crockett heaved himself out of his chair, roaring, and threw himself between her and the unfolding firefight. He had a gun in his waistband, and pulled it, bellowing obscenities at the intruders.

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