Page 52 of Live for Me

“The trafficking side,” she finally said. “They’re not Executioners.”

“You don’t think our President is involved in it anymore?”

“He is,” she said. “Just in a way that I’m not seeing clearly yet. He’s not usingourpart of the organization for whatever that is. Something else entirely. Its own entity. That’s why we can’t narrow it down to a specific Executioner or Judge. It’s not them at all. That’s why none of us knew about it. It wasn’tus.”

“So, where do we start?” I asked.

“Scream into the void,” she whispered. “See what screams back.”

“Maybe don’t do that. I’m not really in the mood to play with Satan today.”

She sighed. “Me either. Summoning him takes a lot of my energy.”

She smiled at me before she laid her head back against the seat again and shifted to look out the window.

So much pressure on a single person.

And Memphis took it all so very seriously. Like everything that was happening here was deeply personal to who she was and her ability to continue existing. This girl who didn’t seem to know how to just live for the sake of being alive.

I pulled the truck into what looked like an abandoned airfield, complete with a couple of very rundown hangars.

“I don’t want to dance right now, Utah,” she said on a sigh.

I laughed while I put the truck in park and got out to go around to open her door.

“We’re not dancing. You’re going to drive.”

“I amnotgoing to drive,” she said quickly. “We don’t have time for this. We have things to do, Utah.”

“Then you better try your hand at not being a stubborn little shit for a few minutes and try driving quickly so we can get back on schedule.”

She glared at me after that.

And when I held my hand out toward her to encourage her to get out of the truck, she unbuckled her seat belt and crawled across the middle seat to get behind the wheel rather than getting out of the truck the way that I was suggesting.

Because she didn’t actually know how tonotbe a stubborn little shit. Something about it was obviously hardwired right into her DNA.

I shut myself in the passenger’s side and waited for a moment while she looked across the dashboard and touched the wheel and the gearshift.

“Do we have to do this right?—”

“I am not going to sit here while you get on the Internet and research driving,” I interrupted and laughed. “You can do this, angel. You can learn as you go and just be in this moment with me. I’ll tell you exactly what to do.”

“If I hear condescension in your tone one more time, I will get out and walk the rest of the way.”

I laughed again. “You can get out, but you won’t be walking anywhere, sweetheart. I’m a decent enough man, but I’m not above tying you up and tossing you in the backseat if it means keeping you safe and with me.”

The bright pink tint that her cheeks took on after that left me dumbfounded for a few seconds, while the ogre portion of my brain demanded that I ask her if she enjoyed the thought of me tying her up as much as I did.

“Just tell me what to do so we can get back on track,” Memphis demanded. I had to shake my brain loose to make it remember how to drive. I leaned across the middle seat to start pointing out the different gauges across the dash.

“You’re in park now. This P,” I said and pointed to the light. “When you’re ready to move, put your foot on the brake and grab this lever. You’ll move it down until the D lights up to go forward. Or until the R lights up if you’re going in reverse. This one is how fast you’re going?—”

“Really? The one labeled MPH? I thought that was there to tell me how happy or sad your truck was.”

When I turned my head to glare at her, she started squirming immediately just because she was suddenly aware of how close I was to her.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Please, keep going.”

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