Page 66 of The Order of Disorder
“I love you,” I whisper.
His arm tightens. “I love you too, Max.”
The hangar doors yawn open at 5:30 a.m., spilling pale light across the concrete floor. The roar of engines turning over at this hour seems so much louder. I stand in the shadows near the stairs, arms crossed tight over my chest, dressed in one of Wyatt’s enormous t-shirts.
He gives me a final goodbye kiss, tilting my chin up and looking me dead in the eye. Those warm, crinkling blue eyes.
“Be good,” he says. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nod, smiling bravely, and watch him walk toward his bike, helmet in hand.
Dutch and Ray are already straddling their bikes, revving their engines. Muscle, not brains—Billy’s idea of a leash. Wyatt doesn't look at them. Doesn’t look at me again, either.
Wyatt mounts the bike and Billy pats him on the back like he’s sending off a horse. Wyatt fires up and rides out without looking back, Dutch and Ray following after.
The sound of it echoes for a long time.
I breathe in the exhaust like it’s his cologne, and pray Jake is still scanning the radio each night as planned.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE HANGAR’S UNUSUALLY quiet in the morning. With the bike repairs wrapped up, and people sleeping off last night’s party, I get the rare experience of seeing the hangar empty.
It’s like seeing the skeleton beneath the skin. A place that’s been home for more than six years now—and that, with any luck, I could be leaving behind sometime soon. Hopefully, this time for good.
Wyatt’s been gone for probably four or five hours. I don’t have a phone but I’ve been counting time in the way the light moves across the floor, sitting with a pit of anxiety in my stomach that doesn’t feel like it’s going to let up.
As the sun gets high in the sky, the hangar starts to stir. Rocket’s old lady comes down the stairs in an oversized SpongeBob SquarePants t-shirt and ratty pajama pants and turns the coffee pot on, giving me a polite nod on the way. Two heavily tattooed girls leave one of the first-floor rooms dressed only in shorty-shorts and bra tops. I don’t even remember seeing them last night. I watch through the open bay doors asthey negotiate their departure with the guard on the front gate. Eventually he radios for someone’s permission—probably Silas’s—and I decide it’s time for me to get scarce.
I head back to the bedroom without seeing anyone and lock the door behind me. Wyatt’s flannel hangs off the back of a chair, and I pick it up and hug it to me as I lie down on the bed, inhaling the comforting smell of it as if he were right there.
One night. Just over twenty-four hours to go. I survived without him for weeks. I just need to stay out of Billy’s thoughts for twenty-four hours and then Wyatt will be back. With a plan—a real plan this time. A way out.
The hours drag. I sleep for a bit and then wake up. I tidy up the room, arrange our clothes, and flip through some magazines that must have been left here. Preacher’s, I guess.Guns and AmmoandAmerican Iron. Things I literally could not be less interested in. I turn on the radio and curl up on the bed out of sight of the camera, hoping that Silas forgets about me too. I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling until my eyes burn. I make a game out of not crying.
I’m dozing when the knock comes on the door. Three sharp raps. I sit up fast, heart jackhammering against my ribs. For a second, I think—hope—but no. Not him. Can’t be.
And then I hear a key slide in the lock, and it opens.
Billy steps into the room, that smug fucking smirk that makes me want to claw the skin off his face, Cash behind him, a small black medical case in one hand. They walk in without a second’s hesitation, no lingering by the door.
“What’s with the locked door, Max?” asks Billy, as if it were unusual for me to lock it. As if I don’t have the right.
All the hope I’ve been clinging to evaporates in an instant. There was no chance he was going to leave me alone when Wyatt’s not here to protect me. The cat’s come to play withthe mouse. It was inevitable, and my heart sinks heavy at the inescapability that is Billy.
But I have survived this before, and I will survive it again.
He holds out his hand, a loose swathe of black fabric hanging from it.
“Get dressed,” he says, letting it fall onto the bed in a puddle of silk. “An old friend wants to see you.”
My stomach flips, sour and cold. “What friend?”
He tilts his head, assessing me with a cold smile. “Someone you haven’t seen in a while. Put on the dress so we can see how it looks.”
“No.”
His smile doesn't waver. “Not really a choice, sweetheart.”
