“Political gestures of mob justice,” Finn said, very carefully, in the way that stopped my throat, “are not the law, Dev.”
“I know that.”
“I’m glad you do. But while you’re eating ground rations with Victor’s old lady, I figure that you can help us with something. A new development.”
The clock behind Finn’s head read nearly 10 p.m. She’d be waiting for me. Not worried, no, but waiting. My hands started to shake again, harder.
“What development?” Whatever they were planning, I would make sure I had the cover to protect her.
“Potential stoolie,” Finn said. “Odd-jobber by the name of Trent Sullivan. He won’t come to headquarters, is wary of talking to any of our undercovers, says everyone knows they’re cops. But you’re too new for them to know, and now you’re with Victor’s fucking angel? Congratulations, kid, I think you got your break. Find him, talk to him, lay the groundwork, and we’ll set up the sting. Think you can do that?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll let you know how it’s going next week.”
“And if you get a hint of the kills your old lady has planned…”
“She never tells me the names.”
“Of course she doesn’t. So let me know what she doesn’t tell you.”
“She’s good, too, Finn.”
“You’ll do your best.”
I got up to leave. It was 10:15. The second hand was making me dizzy. The milk and chocolate syrup and fizzy water were churning to butter in my gut. I thought of her smile when she saw me walk through the door. I thought of what I was doing here.
“Kid … if you think you’re in over your head, we can still pull you out.”
I stared at him, so full of hungers that my eyes crunched when they blinked.
“This is mine.”
Finn put his hands up. Pale and fat, greasy from the fries. “Just asking.”
I barely had the money for a coffee at breakfast, but I paid for a cab to her place. She opened the door before I was halfway up the stairs. In her arms I finally stopped shaking.
4
A car turns up the drive, at last. My hands sting, they touch her even before she’s forced the car out of the mud.
She is thinking about me.
I haven’t closed the door that Alvin left open. Water runs from the welcome mat, across the slate tiles, and laps at Pea’s muddy garden boots. The rain has given way to a mist that obscures my view of the driveway. The swollen passing of the river below plugs my ears. I wait for her on the porch, barefoot and bareheaded. Wondering if she will tell me what business she had with Bobby Junior. If I have the right to ask.
Her footsteps crunch in the gravel and mud of the driveway. Then pause, then resume. The mist gives her up. Dew beads her hair and she carries muddy shoes in one hand. Exhaustion emphasizes those lines she hates around her eyes, the ones that deepen when she smiles.
“I think I can save the tomatoes,” she says.
“You spent all that time in Hudson?”
I didn’t mean to say that. But shame is stayed by something like desire. Pea traces my jawline with a muddy hand. And if I were who I want to be, I could kiss her now, before any more words expose us. I could grab hold of her and pull her so close our ribs settle in each other’s spaces and hurt as we breathe. But she watches me with distant pity, as though through a window.
“I ran into Bobby Bell—he used to come around the Pelican a few years ago, some rich kid begging kicks from Victor. I never knew you’d grown up together.”
“He’s a few years older. We never talked much.”
His gang used to make a game of trapping me places where I couldn’t get away. They liked using my ability against me. They had their sport, they regularly beat me until I learned to defend myself. Until my skill outpaced their cruel intelligence. It only took one demonstration, carefully planned, pitilessly executed. One night in a clearing by the river. They left me alone and my mother congratulated me on rising above the situation.
“Dev,” Pea says, almost a whisper. “Did something happen?”
“I missed you.”
“Did you?”
Could she doubt it? I look more closely and see: yes. She is here, she has planted her garden, she waits for me. But she still wonders.
“Alvin dropped by for a visit,” I say.
Her eyes jerk back to my face. “The boy from Craver’s store? What did he want?”
“He says Bobby Junior wants to kill him. For some secret he knows.”
“Did you touch him?”
“Wouldn’t let me.”
“Then he’s hiding something. And that kid is dangerous.”
“I was thinking of helping him.”
“Were you, now?”
“I can take care of myself, Pea.”
“Can you, Dev?” She laughs. “Can you anymore?”
The white rush of the river fills my throat. I meet her angry eyes while something inside me snaps again and again. I catch a glimmer of her fear. What astonishing, awful power. I can scare this dangerous woman, this angel and no one’s knife. It is enough.
My kiss demands. It seeks aggressive, mindless domination. And she submits for a second or two. Then she bites my lip, hard. I flinch, but she doesn’t let go. Blood fills our mouths. Her arms pull me so close my breastbone aches with each frantic pulse. I run my hands through her hair, I cradle her against the sensation of my own pain. The too-sweet taste of my own blood. In my fingertips, she sings of love and relief.
I lift her, she struggles, her shoes strike the wet wood of the porch. She climbs me like a wall, wraps her legs around my waist, squeezes until I am only a memory of a breath, one that she sucks from my lips as I gasp.
I push up her skirt and force my hand in that space that presses, damp, against my stomach. Her scissor grip relaxes while her hands yank my
