Page 23 of Scythe & Sparrow
“What do you mean by ‘got the jump’ on him?”
I cast a frown at the cooling body.Well, here goes.“Maybe you should just come and take a look. I could use a hand. Or two. I’ll drop you a pin. It’s probably best to keep it to yourself.”
Fionn takes a sharp breath to ask a question, but I hang up with a cringe and quickly drop him a pin before I pocket my phone.
“Well,” I say as I pat Eric’s lifeless arm. “This whole experience could have gone better, probably. But I didn’t pass out, so I’ll take that as a win. And you brought celebratory beer.”
Before the nausea creeps in once more, I gather my crutches and slam the doors shut before I limp my way to the back of the truck. I pop the tailgate down and grab a can of Coors Light from the cooler. Fionn blows up my phone with calls I don’t answer and texts I mostly ignore. There’s only one response I can give to his barrage of questions:You’ll see what I mean when you get here.
Thirty minutes later, I spot his truck barreling down the deserted road, a cloud of dust billowing in his wake. He slows when he nears the location of the dropped pin, but it takes him a moment to spot me waving from the bed of the truck, the vehicle clearly not where anyone would expect it to be. Fionn stops and cuts the engine, then marches in my direction, steps that slow and nearly halt as he takes in the state of my clothes. And then he’s running straight for me.
“Jesus, Rose,” he says, his Irish accent breaking free as panic etches lines in his face. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.” Though I give him a reassuring smile, it does nothing to untangle the knot of anxiety that twists my guts. Fionn’s eyes travel over every inch of me, searching for injuries that he won’t find. “I had a slight incident.”
“Slight incident,” he echoes, though it seems to take a second for the words to click together in his thoughts, his focus still consumed by hunting for the source of the blood. “What do you mean, ‘slight incident’?”
“There was this guy—” is all I manage to get out before Fionn’s gripped my shoulders, his eyes molten as they pierce right into me.
“Some guy did this to you?”
“No. Not exactly.” I look away to the tinted rear windows of the truck, but when I turn back, Fionn’s still watching me with an intensity that scorches the chambers of my heart. “This guy was really a piece of shit. I was in a shop and he was threatening a woman over the phone, and then he tried to come on to me with some lame-ass line about a fishing hole or some shit, I dunno, I don’t know shit about fish—”
“The point, Rose.”
“The point is, I …” I look to the grass. The sky. The ravine. The truck, though it seems to mock me. I shrug, trying to shrink from the weight of Fionn’s gaze that still burns a hole into my face. When I finally meet his eyes once more, I cringe. “I started it.”
“Youstarted it …”
“Yeah.”
“Aren’t you supposed to sayhestarted it?”
“Probably. Maybe hedidstart it with the whole dickhead-phone-call-fish-loser thing. So, more accurately, I guess I finished it …?”
Fionn lets go of my arms. He takes a step back and runs a hand through his hair, his expression slack as though the blossoming epiphany has wiped it clean of emotion. He walks to the front of the vehicle and opens the driver’s side door, and I hear the sharpintake of breath, the curses on the next exhale. The truck jostles as he steps up on the driver’s side and checks for signs of life. I already know there’s nothing to find.
There’s a long, terrifying, heavy silence. A redtail hawk cries in the sky above, the only sound on the windswept plains.
I try to look as nonthreatening as possible as Fionn slowly returns to the tailgate. I hold out a sweaty can of beer as an offering. “Would you like one?” Fionn stares at the dried blood streaked across my skin, though the condensation has rehydrated some of it. The aluminum is smeared with crimson streaks. He watches as I hastily wipe the can and my palm on my jean shorts and offer it to him again. “He won’t miss it,” I suggest. “Might as well.”
“What … the fuck … is happening?” he asks. I want to remind him that he’s a smart guy, he can probably figure it out. But I chew my lip and just wait for him to voice a few conclusions. “Did you … kill him?”
“Umm,yes. But he’s not a good guy.”
“And you called me to help you to what … get rid of him?”
I shrug. “I got a little stuck. And you specifically said, ‘Any trouble whatsoever, call me.’ This is ‘trouble whatsoever.’”
“I didn’t meankillingsomeone and disposing of their body.”
“I did the killing part. I just need a little help with the disposal.”
Fionn lets out an exasperated sigh. “‘Body disposal’ was not on my list of trouble.”
“You should have clarified that from the beginning.” I push the beer in his direction. Fionn drags his hands down his face and looks toward the sky as though angels might swoop down and save him. But the more I watch him and try to decode the series of cogsand wheels that must be turning in the confines of his skull, the more I realize a critical detail. “You’re not freaking out.”
Fionn turns his gaze to me, his eyes narrowing. “I am on the inside.”
