Page 53 of Fury

“You’re not ugly. The scars are, but you aren’t. Not at all.” Her face reddened again.

A flash of heat went off in my chest, and the tension there melted at the gentleness of her voice, the sincerity of her tone.

“Thanks. I guess.” We both laughed.

“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.

“Yeah, sure.” I lit a cigarette and passed it to her and lit another for me.

“I’ve only smoked a few times before, but what the hell. I’ve done plenty of shit I’ve never done before in the last twenty-four hours.”

We talked, and she told me more about her sister and her baby brother. How she felt guilty leaving them, but she had to leave now or she knew she never would. She didn’t want to end up married and pregnant before she was twenty-two.

Serena woke up, stretching out on the mattress next to me. “I think we need to drink.”

“Let me go out and buy a bottle of whatever you guys want. It’ll cost less than opening those tiny bottles in the minibar,” said Tania.

“Very practical, Tania. I like that.” I tossed a twenty dollar bill on the bed. “Grab us a bottle of Jack.”

“Jack it is.” Tania took the bill, tucked her feet into her hot pink All-Stars, grabbed her bag, and left the room.

“I like her,” said Serena.

“Me too. We got real lucky.”

“See? Our luck has changed. The winds of fortune are blowing us on the right course.”

“There’s a course for good fortune?”

“Destiny always has a course for us.”

“You believe in that shit?”

“A part of me has faith in it. The little girl part of me. Like that part of Tania that wants to believe there has to be something more in her life than just a farm and the same faces.”

“Somewhere, over the rainbow, huh?”

She grinned. “Yeah. The three of us and Dorothy.”

I let out a laugh. “Let’s not forget the scruffy dog.”

“Toto!” Serena squealed like a kid, hands in the air.

“Yeah, Toto. Pity there ain’t no Auntie Em for us to go home to, baby.”

“We got each other.” She pushed the hair from my face, and my heart squeezed at her words.

“Yeah, we do.” I sat up on my elbows. “How you feeling?”

“Better. I keep thinking I have stuff to do, but I don’t.”

“No, you don’t. No more.” I took in a breath. “Get closer.”

She crawled up alongside me like a cat and hovered over me. The heat rising from her skin was palpable, and I craved it all over me, inside me, on me.

“Hi,” she whispered, her breath mingling with mine.

“Hi.”

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