Navarro grunted his thanks and jerked his head toward where Aria had moved a few feet away. “Go help her.”
She was bent over with a flashlight between her teeth, stitching the cut on Flix’s face.
“Can I help?”
Aria waggled the flashlight.
Joe pulled the light out of her mouth and shone it on Flix’s wound. The smooth cut dripped blood, and Joe wondered what had hit Flix. Not that it mattered, he supposed. Flix’s skin had paled, and his eyes had grown glassy. Even though it made the flashlight angle awkward, Joe sat and wrapped an arm around Flix’s narrow back. Flix sighed and pressed his uninjured cheek to Joe’s shoulder.
“He’s okay,” Aria said. “Worn out, probably. Maybe a little shock, but that’s all of us. Navi has to save the body glue for the people with more serious injuries or this kid wouldn’t even end up with a scar once he’s healed.”
“What about you?” Joe asked.
“What about me?”
“How are you?”
Aria stopped tending to Flix. She pushed the back of her hand over her forehead, like she’d forgotten her hair was short now and she didn’t have any to push back. She’d shoved her hair off her face a million times when they were young. Her eyes skittered over Joe and then away. “It’s good to see you, Joe.”
“It’s good to see you, too.” Joe reached for her arm, but she pulled away.
“You heard what I did.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, judge for yourself how I am.” Her voice shook.
“He’d forgive you. He’s not —”
Aria snorted. “Don’t tell me about my own... Navi. You think I don’t know? It’s not him; it’s her. Besides, I don’t want back in.”
“I think you do.”
She leaned in, which brought her closer to Joe, and worked quickly on Flix’s face. “You don’t know everything. You never did. You and Navi both think you’re the only ones born with a brain.”
Joe didn’t realize he’d tightened his grip until Flix squirmed and muttered, “Back off, lady.”
Joe shook his head. “Why are you so angry?”
Aria’s brows rose, and her voice came out as a growl. “Why aren’t you? After all the things that’ve been stolen from us?” She patted Flix’s knee. “You’re done, kid.”
She stomped away, and Joe watched her go, not sure what to think. Aria had always had her head in the clouds, nose buried in a book. She’d been a dreamer, but she’d always been kind. He remembered sitting with her in her room (Navarro would never have let them sit together on the bed, no matter how innocent it might have been), talking about William Shakespeare and sharing a candy bar one of his clients had given him for being “such a good boy.” He’d been fifteen or so. It made Joe sick now to think about how that man had thought candy could make up for how he’d touched a child, but at the time, Joe’d been more concerned about enjoying the treat. He’d sat on Aria’s floor, with her little plushie koala bear in his lap, talking about sonnets and trying to give Aria some candy because no one had talked literature with him in a long time. He had to practically force the sweets on her, though. She didn’t want to profit, she said, off of his degradation.
Joe knew what people thought of how he made a living, and Aria sat there on her bed like a princess, with her long hair and her clean hands and Navarro and Lil to keep her safe. Joe wanted to seem like he didn’t care. “It’s not like the guy jizzed on it, Aria. It’s just candy.”
Aria covered her mouth and burst into tears, and Joe was so sorry.
He stood on his knees and shuffled to the edge of her bed. This time, he kept his voice soft. “Here.” He held out the treat. “You can have the whole thing. Please stop crying.”
Aria took the candy bar with shaking hands and tore open the wrapper. It was chocolate, with little individual squares in a long row. She broke it evenly in half and handed one side back to Joe. She took a bite. One last fat teardrop had fallen down her cheeks, and she had said, “I don’t judge you. I judge those men.”
“Hey. Where are you?” Flix jolted Joe out of the memory.
“You okay?” Joe asked.
Flix nodded. A little color seemed to have returned to his cheeks.
“You are so strong, Flix, heart and soul and body and mind.” As mad as he’d been at Flix earlier in the night, Joe couldn’t help the tenderness now, not after remembering what he’d been through as a teen, knowing Flix had been through it, too.
Flix’s smile was small, but it was there. “You and me, we survive.”
“Warrior brothers.” Joe held up his pinky, and Flix crooked his own around it.
“I’m still mad you didn’t tell me about this chip garbage.”
“That’s okay.” At the moment, Joe was just grateful to have one of his group safe.
“I know once we ran away from Boggs, Marc and I couldn’t go back, but you should have told us what we’d gotten ourselves into.” Flix untangled himself from Joe and stood. “I’m gonna go back to the house, check on him.”
“I’ll go with you. Peter and Devin are probably already back there. Looks like everyone that can go home has.”
Flix squinted. “I haven’t seen Petey.”
“Me neither, but he was with Sadie, and she’s fine, so...” Right? But no, Sadie really was fine. Seemed like she maybe had a concussion, but if Peter had been injured, he would have been brought to Navarro with Sadie, and Joe hadn’t seen him there or in the too-big line of the dead. He’d checked. Still... “Let’s talk to Navarro and see if he sent Peter to help someone get back to their house or something.”
The moment they turned toward Navarro, Joe knew something was wrong. Lil had a clipboard,
