Page 97 of Vile Bastards
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks, Scarlett,” he warns me, sweeping his gaze up and down my body before returning that intense stare to my face. “Remember what we talked about this morning? You’re my one and only chance.” He raises his hand in a pseudo-wave before taking off, eating the front steps up two at a time.
“I don’t know why, but I used to imagine you with a subservient boy toy on a leash.” Nisha follows Widow’s ascent up the steps before looking back at me with dark brown eyes, hard with that super special Prescott glint.
“It’s more fun to leash ‘em when they fight back,” I admit, slipping my arms into Widow’s jacket. “Did I mention I pulled a gun on the rich ones the other day?”
“Fuckin’ Christ.” Nisha sighs heavily as I grin, moving over to the Lotus as I slip into the ‘Vette.
Off we go.
It isn’t until I get there that I realize where I was heading in the first place.
There’s already a car parked at Lemon’s watery graveside.
I don’t recognize it, but I sure do recognize the guy sitting beside the water.
You have got to be fucking shitting me! I climb out of the Stingray as Nisha pauses beside me, rolling down her passenger side window.
“The fuck is he doing here?” she growls out, but I have no idea. I shrug and shake my head, bending low so that I can offer her a pleading look through the open window.
“Let me have a minute with him, okay?” I ask, and she sighs, shutting the Lotus’ engine off, rolling up the window, and cranking up KMZI 66.6.
I move over to where Ash is sitting on the frosty grass, panting and clenching the knees of his slacks. He doesn’t look at me as I sit down beside him.
“How is it that we keep running into each other like this?” I ask, and he laughs. The sound is dry and listless. I feel for him, I really do. I think that part of him was excited to take over Aspen’s life, to be his father’s golden child, privy to all of his secrets, living in the open, in the spotlight. But he’s starting to realize that any human with empathy and heart withers when living in shadow. And Ash has that, empathy and heart both.
Despise what everyone else thinks, I do trust him.
Scarlett, you are a fucking idiot.
“Unmei,” he whispers, turning those wild eyes over to me. I find it suddenly hard to swallow. “Fate.” He looks back toward the surface of the pond, and I do the same. I wonder why he’s here. Lemon wasn’t anything to him. He barely knew her. Maybe he feels responsibility for her death, the way I do? We were both there. At the very end, he was the Aspen she always wanted. He kissed her last breath from her bloody lips.
I shiver all over.
“What if you were followed here?” I ask him, and he laughs.
“I wasn’t followed here. You and Bohnes both, stop underestimating me so much. I’m not an idiot.” He growls this last part out, turning away from me. I wonder sometimes if he hates me for killing his twin. He has every right to. Ash Kelly has every right to want me dead.
‘Firework’ by CHANMINA comes drifting out of Nisha’s car like fog, joining the dreary weather and gray storm clouds gathering overhead. The song’s upbeat melancholy lends to the moment as I return my gaze to the still surface of the water. When the wind picks up, tiny ripples form, and a brown leaf floats down to kiss the surface tension.
I close my eyes and wrap my arms around my legs, happy to have Widow’s jacket with me. My chin rests on the denim sleeves as I sit there in restful silence, Ash by my side. If I expected his presence to ruin the moment, I was mistaken. He’s a solid, silent companion, his ebon hair rustling in the icy breeze.
“I’m sorry about Lucy,” he whispers after a while, and my eyes squeeze shut. The tears I’ve been holding back for so long come pouring back out, just as they did on that day, when I sobbed and screamed for her, when I held her bloodied body in my arms and felt the life drain from her and into my hands. “I’m so sorry, Scarlett.”
Ash puts an arm around me, and I’m surprised to see how much I like that. That rose garden and jasmine on a sweet summer night scent of his mixes with Widow’s smell, bolstering my tired spirit.
“Gomen ne, Scarlett-chan,” he adds, and then he’s murmuring to me in Japanese, and I’m crying silent tears, staring out at the pond, the scattered stumps from the last clear-cut, the distant shadows of the woods. Ash rests his cheek against my hair, releasing a weary sigh. “Are you going to tell me why you’ve got blood all over your face?”
