Page 27 of Hell and Halos

But my laugh breaks it open.

I laugh because there's nothing else I can do.

And then I stop.

Cash has turned in his seat. Calm, always. Rage manifestin' quiet. Wyatt, eyes wide and mouth open, is breathing so hard, I can feel his panic attack from six feet away.

I set the shotgun against the dash real careful, like it matters, like anything I do with my hands right now matters, and I stare straight ahead into the dark where the headlights cut a path to nothin'.

"You know how sick those fuckin' demons are?" I ask. I'm lookin' straight ahead, but my eyes slide to the side. And I see the Ashby brothers for the first time. They are no different than me. Not really.

We're all in the same fuckin' war.

Gettin' up every single day to battle against something we can't see and don't understand. And most days, it's not good, but we're still here, so we count it as a win.

But some days, like today, we just flat lose.

"Those demons are so sick, so fuckin' demented, they set us up, you know?"

And for a moment, I see Wyatt's complete understandin'. His battle with addiction and whatever else he's buried deep inside himself over the years.

"Legion," Cash says. "We gotta find Mercy."

I almost laugh again. "Mercy," I mutter back, lettin' out a long breath. "Yeah. Let's go find Mercy. Who won't be there in that trunk. We'll just find another note, and we'll go another place, and all the while, the Devil has my woman. He took the only thing I ever wanted. My own fuckin' family. My own little group of humans that I could protect. The Devil don't come at you with fire. That's the lie they sell in Sunday school. He comes at you with patience. He waits. He watches. He lets you win just enough battles to think the war is yours."

Cash gets out of the truck, pushin' Wyatt aside so hard, he stumbles out of view, probably hittin' the dirt. I don't hear him land. Don't care. The engine's still tickin’, and the wind's movin' dust across the hood in little ghost waves, and I just sit there, watchin' it happen like it's happenin' to somebody else.

My eyes track Cash as he comes around the front of the truck, his own eyes locked on me as well, and I know that look. I've worn that look. It's the look a man gets when words run out and there's nothin' left in the account but fists. Debt's gotta get paid somehow.

And then he's at my door, pullin' it open, hinges screamin' like they know what's comin'. Yankin' me by the collar, leather twistin' in his grip, cold air hittin' my face, and then he punches me in the face.

The punch lands square and I go sideways out of the cab, boots catchin' the runnin' board, and then there's nothin' under me but air, and then there's dirt. Gravel in my teeth. Shoulder first, then hip, then the back of my skull bouncin' off hardpan. The sky spins once. Stars smear. Somewhere off to my left Wyatt is sayin' Jesus, Cash, Jesus, over and over like it's a prayer that might work if he says it enough times.

I don't get up.

I'm not sure I can, but I'm also not sure I would if I could, and that right there is the problem, isn't it. That right there is the whole fuckin' problem.

Cash doesn't wait for me to decide. He's got my collar again, fist knotted up in leather, and shirt and the skin of my neck, haulin' me up to my knees, then my feet, my boots draggin' furrows in the gravel, and he shoves his face so close to mine I can smell his cologne.

Which feels very gay to notice.

"This is not the time," Cash screams, and spit hits my cheek, "to be a fucking poet. You hear me? This is not the time to be a fucking pussy. We don't got the luxury of sitting in our own shit brooding over our mistakes. We don't got time for your goddamned existential fucking crisis⁠—"

He shakes me. My head snaps back and forward and I let it.

"Mercy Kane," he says, and the name comes out of his mouth like something he's carryin' for me because I dropped it. "Nine years old. Locked up. Tied up. Held prisoner somewhere on my fuckin' land. And you—you—" His voice cracks clean down the middle. "All you can do is wax poetic about the goddamned devil?"

He throws me.

Not a shove. A throw. I hit the ground on my back, and the breath goes out of me in one long ugly bark, and I lie there lookin' up at that mangled belly of a sky while his boots crunch past my head.

Door hinges scream. Metal slides off the dash.

Then he's standin' over me, shotgun in his hands, and he's lookin' down at me the way you look at a dog you've given up on.

"I'll be right back," Cash says. "I'm gonna go save your little sister."

Wyatt catches up with him, clutchin' his own shotgun, laughin' a little. "What? What's goin' on? Whose sister?" I watch as he looks around. "Which sister? Mercy? How the hell did this become about Mercy? I thought we were lookin' for Savannah? What the hell is happenin'? How the hell did Mercy get here?"