There had been a moment, when she first stepped into Vicki’s kitchen, when the woman had turned to Red and said, “Well, hi there, aren’t you just precious,” when Red had wanted to bolt. It had been instinct, plain and simple. Women said that sort of thing to her here and there: waitresses in diners, shop owners wanting her to buy something – like the lady who’d sold her the fringed jacket. But beyond a shy smile and a murmured “thank you,” she hadn’t ever had to interact with someone like that. Withanywoman. She had no friends aside from Rooster; there was no warm, nurturing female presence in her life. She’d seen mothers on TV, had ached for one, though she’d never say so aloud and make Rooster think that he was inadequate, because hewasn’t. But she’d always wanted, had kept her longing to herself, and then, suddenly, she was being handed an apron and asked if she knew anything about pie crust, and it was overwhelming. She didn’t know how to be a woman in another woman’s kitchen. Surely it would show: her strangeness. The fact that she was an escaped lab rat who was maybe, sort of deep in love with the only stable presence in her life. Surely Vicki would take a good look at her and know that her hair was the wrong color, and that she lived out of duffel bags, and that men had died because of her.
Easier to run away than face any of that. It was what they did, after all, she and Rooster: they ran.
But Vicki had said, “I’ve already got some dough in the fridge, we’ll just roll it out.” She sprinkled flour over a wooden cutting board, and then Red was caught, ensnared by the lure of maternal comfort. She’d jumped willingly into the trap at that point.
“What’d y’all do all day?” Rooster asked.
She smiled. He’d tried to scrape it away, but his Southern accent came out when he was tired. “We made pies. And cookies. And banana bread. They’re having a bake sale day after tomorrow at the VA to raise money for a new pool, and Vicki and her friends are supplying all the stuff they’ll sell.”
She glanced over and found that his shoulders looked a little tight now, straining at the back of his jacket.
She said the next part slowly, braced against his inevitable reaction. “She invited me to come and help work the table. Said they could use an extra set of hands.”
A pebble went skittering across the asphalt, pinged off the toe of Rooster’s boot. She didn’t know if he’d kicked it on purpose, but when she glanced over she could see that he was frowning, brows drawn together over his eyes now, when before he’d been expressionless. “Probably a bad idea.”
He said that a lot. It was probably a bad idea to visit the same city twice. To blow their money on a hotel with a jacuzzi tub. To talk to strangers unless absolutely necessary. To let Deshawn keep tabs on them. Red never pushed back – but tonight she did.
“Why?”
He glanced over sharply, frown deepening. “Why?”
“People have already seen us around town. We’re stuck here. What would it hurt?” She asked it sweetly, with a smile.
He shook his head. “Being visible’s a risk.”
“We’re visible right now.”
“We’realoneright now. If something happened – if somebody popped up – I could grab you and shelter behind those bushes. Get behind that wall.” He pointed to those places, voice falling into the clipped, matter-of-fact cadence of a man in an active war zone. She’d done that to him, she thought with a sudden pang; she’d created a war zone from which he could never escape, because it followed them – her – everywhere. “There’s good cover there, and there, and there. We go through that yard, and it’s a clear shot to the motel. We break into a car, we hotwire it–”
“Rooster,” she said, throat tight.
“You drop me anyplace on the map, and I can have five exit strategies worked out in ten minutes. That’s what a Marinedoes. But you go into some – some fuckingVA center,” he spat the word like it disgusted him, and this, this blowup? It wasn’t just about exit strategy. “What is that? A brick box with tiny windows. And I can get outta there, sure, but how much warning will I have? Hostiles on all sides, civilians getting hurt. And you’re up there, right in the front, everybody looking at you, and–”
“Everybody looks at me when I do a show,” she reminded gently.
“Yeah, and then we fucking leave town!” He made a wide, encompassing gesture with both arms. “But we’re stuck here. We’restuck. And–” He broke off, shook his head, raked his hair back with a shaking hand. “I can’t do my job like that. Don’t ask me to.”
Job.
The word hit her like a fist in the gut.
“I’m your job?” she asked, lips numb. They’d come to a halt in the middle of the street, and he turned to face her.
“It’s my job to keep you safe,” he said, voice dark with fury. “It’s myonlyjob. Most days I can’t get it right as it is. Why would a goddamnbake salebe worth making it that much harder?”
It hurt to swallow. She wrapped her arms tight around her middle. “I’m your job,” she repeated, a statement and not a question this time, because this was the truth. She was his cross to bear. Because she was young, because she was a lab rat with no life experience, she’d talked herself into believing that he felt the way she did; that the dark felt too heavy, lately, and the other’s breathing seemed a little too loud, and a little too far away in the next bed. But she was his job. His mission, and he was a warrior who didn’t know how to let go of the war.
He stared at her, chest working as he breathed.
“I’m sorry I made it hard for you,” she said, tonelessly, and started walking again.
Inside her, something fractured.
~*~
She got three steps ahead of him before he realized what she’d just said.
And whathe’djust said.
