Page 19 of Ransom
"Fenix is family," he said, looking out over the ranch. "They all are."
They untied the body and lifted it between them, the taller one taking the shoulders and the shorter one taking the legs, moving with the easy competence of men who'd done this a hundred times before. They carried Roy Castillo toward the main house,the shorter one humming something tuneless as they rounded the corner toward what must've been the root cellar entrance.
"What the hell was that?" I said.
"That was Linc and Fenix," Sierra said, like that explained anything. "They handle the burials."
"The kid just said he's going to sleep with a corpse."
"The boy's got some things he's working through," Rafe said. "But he's good with the dead. Respectful. Your judge will be looked after."
"That's not reassuring."
Rafe turned to me. "You can sleep in the house. Sierra'll get you settled. We'll talk in the morning."
I slid off the mare. My boots hit the dirt, and the world tilted for a second before it settled. Ransom still sat on Galahad across the yard, his hands loose on the reins, his face half-shadowed under the brim of his hat.
Our eyes met.
He tightened his jaw and looked away first, turning Galahad toward the barn without a word.
I woke before dawn,the way I always did, no alarm, just my body knowing the dark had thinned enough that staying in bed was a waste of daylight.
The casita was cold. I reached for the watch on the nightstand. Four forty-three. The photo beside it caught the gray light coming through the window. It was of me and Chance when he was sixteen and I'd just turned eighteen, both of us grinning like idiots in front of Aguilar's cruiser the day he brought us fishing instead of booking us for trespassing. Chance's arm was slung over my shoulder. My hat was on backwards. We looked young enough that it hurt to look at.
I looked at it anyway, same as every morning, then got out of bed.
I pulled on jeans, boots, a flannel shirt that had seen better decades, and buttoned it up. I tried not to think about Winston's hands on me. Tried not to think about his mouth, his eyes, the sound he'd made when I told him to beg.
I failed at that, too.
The feral cat waited on the step when I opened the door. She was an orange tabby with half an ear missing, mean as a snake to everyone but me. She didn't move when I stepped over her, just held me in those yellow eyes while I filled her dish from the bag I kept by the door.
"You're welcome," I said.
She ignored me and ate.
On my way to the barn, I passed Coyote in the dirt about ten feet from the porch, flat on his belly, elbows under him, eyes locked on the cat at her dish. He'd been there the whole time. He hadn't moved when I came out, and he didn't move now. His chin was an inch off the ground, and he hadn't blinked in what looked like a while.
"Coyote."
"Shh."
"What are you doing?"
"Hunting."
"You're hunting the cat?"
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "No. I'm hunting Nimue's breakfast."
"You can't feed her to your snake. She's too big."
He rolled his eyes at me. "I know that. But she knows where all the fat mice are. When she's done eating, she's going to show me."
"Have fun," I muttered and left him there. Some mornings you took the wins where you found them.
Galahad huffed when I came into the barn and stuck his head over the stall door. I scratched behind his ears, and he leaned into it, eyes half-closed.
