Page 13 of Rook's Vow
He walked out. His men followed. The engines fired, one by one, and the Jackals pulled out of the lot, onto the highway, and the sound of them faded until there was nothing left but the wind and the settling dust and a building that was thankfully still standing.
I foundher in the kitchen, sobbing to herself.
She was on her knees in two inches of water, pulling supplies from under the counter, salvaging what she could. Her shirt was torn, her knees were scraped, there was a bruise forming on her cheekbone where she'd hit the floor. She was soaked from the broken pipes, working fast through the tears, not looking up.
She heard me and stopped. Sat back on her heels, her hands on her thighs, and looked at me standing in the doorway of her wrecked kitchen with water spreading across the tiles and the smell of smoke still hanging in the air.
"The jukebox is gone," she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. Her voice was steady, but her chin was shaking. "Everything else I can fix I think. The pipes, the kitchen, the stools. Insurance will cover most of it. But the jukebox." She pressed her lips together. "My grandmother picked every song on it, it was all I had left of her. I can't replace that."
I crossed the kitchen. The water was cold against my boots. I knelt down in front of her, in the water, in the mess, and I took her face in my hands. Gently. My thumbs on her cheekbones, one of them tracing the edge of the bruise that was darkening under her eye.
"You hit him with the bat," I said.
"I did."
"And broke the other one's nose."
"He deserved it.”
“I’m really proud of you,” I said. “Your grandparents would have been too.”
Something happened in my chest that I didn't try to control. A giving way, a releasing, like holding something tightly for a very long time and finally understanding the grip wasn't necessary. I'd held a line once and the institution had destroyed me for it. I'd spent eight years believing that was what happened when you stood for something. You got flattened, shown the door, and the truth you'd told didn't matter because the people with the power had already decided what the truth was going to be.
I'd been wrong. The line held this time. The brotherhood held. The woman in front of me, stubborn, fierce, kneeling inthe wreckage of everything she owned with scraped knees, a swelling eye, and her chin still up, and she was still here.
"I love you," I said. Not the way I'd said it yesterday, in the heat of a moment, the words torn out as a weapon against her fear. Quiet. Simple. In a wrecked kitchen in two inches of water, and with the sound of brothers cleaning up outside.
She leaned into me. Her face close, her eyes bright, wet, fierce.
"I know," she said. "I know you do. I love you back.”
I kissed her. Slow, careful, tasting salt and smoke. Her hands came up to my wrists, holding on, her fingers cold from the water and tight around my skin. The kitchen was ruined. The stop was ruined. And none of it mattered because she was here, I was here, and the vow I'd made, the one I'd never said aloud until yesterday, had been kept.
The rest could be rebuilt.
I helped her up. We walked through the stop together, past the wreckage, past the brothers who were already clearing debris and boarding up what needed boarding. Ghost was on watch outside, leaning against his bike, watching the highway with the patience of a man who could wait for anything. No one thought they’d be back, but we weren’t going to get caught by surprise. He looked at Lexie, at the bruise on her face, at my hand on her back. Gave me a nod so slight you'd miss it if you didn't know him. Then he went back to watching the road.
Lexie stood in the doorway of Lane's and looked at what was left. The counter was cracked but standing. The stools were broken, but the bolts were still in the floor. The walls were solid, the roof was whole, the foundation hadn't moved an inch.
"It's going to take weeks," she said.
"I know."
“Are you going to help?"
"I'm not going anywhere."
She leaned against me. My arm around her shoulders, her body against mine, the two of us standing in the doorway of a building that had survived because the woman who owned it had refused to let go of it and the man who loved her had refused to let go of her.
The highway stretched out in front of us, empty, heading west into the mountains. The afternoon was fading, the light going gold through the pines. Somewhere out there the Jackals were riding back to their chapter with bruised ribs and a story to tell. The bad blood between our clubs was simmering toward something that would come to a head in its own time. But that was tomorrow's problem.
Tonight was ours and the quiet was ours.
I held her and I didn't let go.
Epilogue
Lexie
