Page 124 of That Girl is Trouble

I shove my hands into his chest. “What the fuck are you doing, Jack? Go get him!”

Preacher adjusts the strap of the duffel slung over his shoulder and sighs. “Someone’s gotta take the heat, Kitty. Otherwise, we’ll all be in lockup.”

“You don’t just leave someone behind! What happened to family? Loyalty? Your fucking brotherhood?”

“This is brotherhood,” Graves snarls. “It’s sacrifice. Taking one for the club, for his men, so the rest of us can get out. You think I want this? You think that was easy? That I wouldn’t march back up there and be the one who takes the fall?” He smooths his hand over his hair, looking back to the barn like he’s considering it. “It’ll… it’ll work out.”

“The fuck it will,” I snap. “There are bodies in there. That isn’t a small stint up in Central North. It’s fucking life in prison.”

“He’ll do the time, and he’ll get out. Triss will sort it. She’ll… she’ll figure something out.”

Panic crawls up my throat, and my heart launches into overdrive. “No. He won’t do the time. He will never go back to jail. Don’t you get that?”

I don’t give him time to process my words before I take off, trudging through the field, holding my arms in front of me and pushing the tall weeds out of my way as I go. I come out near the front of the barn, where flames are starting to lick their way up the wooden walls. Axe stumbles out, one hand on his stomach, the other wrapped around the grip of a gun. Four armed officers point their weapons at him, but he doesn’t slow.

“Back up, Donovan,” one of them yells.

I recognize the voice—Decker.

Axe isn’t going back to jail. He said it himself a hundred times. A thousand times. He won’t do it again. He’ll die before he goes back.

But I can’t let him die.

I step out of cover as he raises his arm, readying to shoot his way out, readying to lose. But as if he can sense me, he looks my way. And even in the dark, I swear he sees me. His eyes steady on the field, and his face changes. It’s that look. The softness, the pause, the second of vulnerability. It’s secret nights in his bed, hands wandering, touching softly even though we shouldn’t. It’s my hand on his heart, listening for the beat of it, feeling how its rhythm matches mine.

That look is everything. Maybe he thinks it’s worth it, staying alive even if it means torture. Because for me, he can do torture.

He drops the gun.

A shot cracks across the field, and his body drops. No. All the blood in my body runs cold, and a scream builds in my throat. A hand wraps around my mouth, and I’m pulled back into a hard chest. I can’t fucking breathe.

No. No, no, no.

I struggle against the hold around my waist, trying to get to him, grabbing at the tall weeds suddenly in front of me as a sob rips from my throat.

“He’s gone, Kat,” Graves murmurs, his pull on me firming up. He wraps his arms around mine, stopping my flailing, my attempts to break free, and cages me against him. “He’s—he’s gone.”

No.

I can’t stop the tears, the grief pooling in my chest as I struggle to take in a breath. My pulse is so erratic it’s spotting my vision.

No.

He’s not dead. He can’t be. I can’t bear it—the thought of his heart stopping. Of never feeling that thrum on my cheek when I lie on his chest, the life beating hard inside him like it beats inside me.

This isn’t how our story ends. He’s alive. He has to be.

Graves pulls me tighter. This time it doesn’t feel like a restraint. This time he’s hugging me, his chest bouncing against my back as we watch the four cops slowly approach, guns raised. Decker holsters his weapon and then shouts something I can’t make out.

“I didn’t say it back,” I whisper. “I didn’t—I didn’t tell him.”

I love you. I love you. I fucking love you.

“He knows, Kat. He… he knew.”

I slump back into Graves. I don’t fight him when he scoops me up and takes me deeper into the weeds. Away from the flashing blue and red lights. Away from Axe, who was unmoving and too still to be okay.

Emptiness washes through me. Triss says that happens when someone dies. They take a piece of you. My mom took a piece. A little one, but it’s missing all the same. The damage is permanent. A hole where there shouldn’t be one. Like when Jesse died—pale skin, eyes wide but not looking at me, too much blood—that piece is more noticeable. The hollowness that comes with losing something that shouldn’t have been lost.

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