Page 69 of Making His Bones

I can’t say “I don’t know what came over me” because I do. All at once, rage flooded my brain, and I saw red. It was as though blood vessels in my eyeballs had ruptured, coloring everything in in sunset scarlet. I saw youngsters like Gray being mauled by older men in front of the cameras. I saw Tiago and all his friends lying there rolling their eyes waiting for it to get over with. The only pleasure was on the older men’s side. They probably performed for free.

But before I could put all this into words, I took one long stride. Gripping Gray’s gun hand, I pressed his trigger finger. The report was sort of muted, maybe due to the ringing in my ears. I saw rather than felt a rosette bloom on Pitchfork’s shoulder near his heart. He fell halfway back into the truck. I released my hand from around Gray’s and bent to pick up Pitchfork’s ankles. Suddenly Tiago was at my side helping. We swung the legs with the pants entangling them clumsily up into the truck bed. I honestly don’t know what Gray was doing—I blocked him out. We rolled Pitchfork into the depths of the unit, and he went freely, without resisting.

Had I just killed Pitchfork, or had Gray?

We both had. We were a team.

In fact, Wolf patted my shoulder. “Good job, Elektra. I was going to do that if no one else did. Gray. Let’s say we take him into the middle of the desert with a jug of moonshine.”

“Yeah!” I cried, eager like a little kid.

But the guy wasn’t dead. He moaned like a stiff on TV and tried propping himself up on his elbows. That was when Gray made the leap. He yanked on the rope that brought the rolling door down and latched it on the guy.

All four of us looked at each other. We all had different expressions.

Wolf looked determined, his lower jaw stuck out, spittle at the corners of his mouth. Gray looked shocked, maybe at himself for having locked the door. And Tiago, his eyes shone like stones in a creek. I couldn’t tell if he was happy or sad—maybe both.

Me, I knew I was just enraged.

“Do it!” I cried. “Take the truck out to the desert!”

Tiago said, “There’s already a big jug of moonshine back there. I didn’t drink it,” he told me, as though I were his mother. That pleased me, and I hugged him close with one arm.

“Nah, listen, this’ll be better,” said Gray. He went into the trailer where he spoke to the kid who had just been bungholed. He came out with a set of keys, jumped into the driver’s seat of the fish truck, and started it up. We all backed away from the exhaust pipes, and Gray drove the truck up another rocky hill.

“Where’s he going?” I asked, before I ran up the hill after him.

Gray didn’t go far. Jumping out of the driver’s seat, he banged three times on the side of the truck’s compartment.

“Smile for the mugshot, asshole!” he yelled, then joined me.

Now his smile was imbued with sun, freedom, joy. He put one arm around me, the other around Tiago.

“Great mission, gents!” said Wolf, raising an imaginary beer stein. “But what about that naked kid?”

“I spoke with him,” said Gray. “He’s going to wait a couple hours, then call the cop station. Tell everyone he’s been used and abused by Pitchfork and give all the details. A few more kids aren’t far away to back him up.”

In fact, the naked kid, now in pants, stood in front of the trailer making a piercing whistle. Three children crept out of the woods wearing odd items of clothing, like those hunting caps with ear flaps, a Carl Perkins T-shirt and no pants, and what looked like a colander for a hat.

I said, “DeFreeze will be busy dealing with Narcissa. Pitchfork will get some minions who don’t know about their corrupt deal.”

“Yeah,” said Wolf. “They might deal with him honestly for once.”

“Or,” said Gray, “he could be dead by that time.”

We were up by the bikes now. I took my lid and Wolf handed Tiago his. Gray continued, “You shot him through the heart. Judging from the amount of blood, you could’ve hit an aorta.”

“A pulmonary artery,” said Wolf.

Tiago said, “A ventricle.”

We all laughed, encouraging him in his medical studies. Or maybe he’d learned that the hard way, from being around gangsters who shot people through the ventricle.

As Wolf and Tiago mounted their bike and started it, my phone buzzed again. It was my cohort at DNAnon, having run tests on the stuff we’d FedExed to them.

Mari: Elektra, you were completely right. This DNA you sent is of a man, and it matches exactly with the DNA of the murderer from ten years ago. You’ve got your man. I am so happy to be able to help you. I’ll email you my report.

“We got her,” I told Gray, and showed him the phone. “Him.”

Gray laughed and got me in a bear hug. His chest shuddered with silent sobs. I had no idea the issue mattered so much to him personally, and love flooded my heart for him. I breathed deeply of his sweaty, masculine scent, and once again felt his bicep’s velvet through my fingertips. Gray was a wonder to all my senses, and for once I wanted to be open to another human, to relax, to trust.

Gray’s phone jingled. He looked at who was calling and took it. “Gray here. Mm-hm. Well, that’s good, because we took care of it already. Thanks, Lytton. Thanks for being there for us. No problem. Bye.” The phone call seemed to have been cathartic, because he wrapped me in his embrace again.

“You’re too smart, Elektra,” he mumbled into my hair as we were blasted with Wolf’s exhaust pipes.

“You’re too kind, Gray,” I said, realizing that smelling of motorcycle exhaust would be my future.

And that was fine by me.

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