Page 62 of Rebel
Allura shoos us toward the couches. “Let the man rest. Rebel, you need food or sleep.”
“I need both,” I admit, “but I’ll settle for sitting.”
The girls drift into smaller knots. Divine mumbling code, Raven sharpening knives, French teaching Iris a cardtrick she’s clearly rigging. Calypso is slow dancing with Farris, their baby girl nestled between them. Normal, for us.
I sit beside Carter. He smells like antiseptic and gunpowder. His head lolls toward me. “You okay?” he asks.
“No.”
“Honest. I like that.”
I huff a laugh that catches halfway to tears. “You’re not allowed to scare me like that again.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“It’s the truth.” We fall quiet. The music hums, low and weary. Outside, thunder rolls somewhere out over the ocean.
He shifts, wincing. I reach out without thinking, fingers brushing his hair back from his forehead. “You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“Can’t.”
“Then stay with me.” So I do. His breathing evens. The others fade into the background. Our found family, loud and loyal, the only kind that ever mattered.
For a long minute, I just watch the rise and fall of his chest, proof of life, proof of luck. The guilt still sits heavy, but it’s quieter now. Bones saved us. Carter bled for me. The Harlots still ride. That’s enough for tonight.
French calls from across the room, “Hey, Sugar, next time we hit a gala, maybe wear red. Hides the bloodbetter.” The laughter that follows is sharp and sweet. I let it wash over me.
I look at Carter, then at the women who are my family, and whisper to the room,
“We’re not done.”
No one argues. Engines cool, wounds knit, hearts keep time with the rain on the roof. Tomorrow we ride again. Tonight, we breathe.
17
CARTER
The pain arrives like the weather. It moves in, sets up camp, then pretends it owns the place.
The spare room Rebel puts me in smells like lemon cleaner and motor oil. There’s a steel table shoved under the window, a beat-up dresser, and a full bed that complains every time I breathe wrong. The shoulder burn is a steady drum, kept honest by the stitches, the gauze, and the way my body keeps trying to turn toward a fight that’s already over.
Rebel is the only soft thing in the room. If I tell her that, she’ll slit my throat, so I keep my thoughts to myself.
She sits on the edge of the mattress with a metal bowl of warm water and a roll of gauze balanced on her thigh. Her long dark hair is up in a messy bun thingy. Rebel shoves her sleeves past her elbows. Back straight like she’s daring pain to argue with her. The Harlots’ noise, laughter, boots, bass from the jukebox, bleeds through the walls, muffled and safe.
“Hold still,” Rebel says, which is funny, because she’s the hurricane.
“I am holding still,” I grumble.
“You’re vibrating like a generator.”
“That’s the charm,” I smirk and clench my teeth.
Rebel snorts, and the sound does more for me than the painkillers. Fingers sure, she peels back blood-tacky tape and lifts the dressing. Cool air hits the wound. My teeth click on instinct. No worse than the last dozen holes I’ve collected, but it feels different because it happened with her heart beating under my hands.
