Page 63 of Captive of Outlaws

“I haven’t worn one of these since Senior Prom,” Tuck says, shrugging his shoulders inside his jacket. He’s gone for the two-tone look, a round-lapeled off-white jacket with narrow dark trousers—but it works for him.

“And that was what, three weeks ago?” Will says, sipping whiskey. Tuck gives him a shove.

“C’mon, man.” He steps back and spreads his arms. “How do I look?”

Will and Rob pause, taking him in.

“Fine,” Rob says.

“Passable,” Will says.

LJ just laughs.

Tuck folds his arms. “I was asking Maren.”

“Me?” My voice is almost a squeak from where I’m sitting huddled in the corner.

“Yeah, you.” Tuck grins. “Whaddya think?”

“You look great,” I say truthfully. “You all do.”

“We look ridiculous,” LJ says. “We’re going to stand out like sore fuckin’ thumbs.”

“Ah ah ah,” Rob says. “Masquerade, though. No one will be any the wiser. Speaking of which...” He turns to me, eyebrow raised. “Didn’t you say you had something for us?”

Sheepishly, I unfold myself from my armchair and grab the paper gift bags I’d stashed under the piano.

“I...made you guys some masks.”

My face is burning as I say it, embarrassed as all hell because I’m much more at ease fixing a car than handcrafting something beautiful, and my art skills haven’t improved since the days of glitter glue and macaroni portraits. But I’d wanted to help with this...mission, or whatever, and this was what I came up with.

“They’re not that great,” I preface, handing out the tissue-paper-wrapped packets—blue for LJ, green for Rob, gold for Tuck, and red for Will. “I just wanted to, you know, contribute.”

A look of realization dawns on Tuck’s face. “Is this why you were asking us about animals?”

I grin. “You got me.”

LJ darts a glance in my direction. “Didn’t ask me.”

“Would you have answered if I did?” I shoot back, maybe a little aggressively. I retreat. “I asked Rob what to make you. And he said—”

“A bear,” Rob finishes for me. “Obviously.” He unwraps his, and holds up my handiwork: a Venetian-style half-mask, gilded with sculpted curlicues I painstakingly painted in the garage, shaped like a fox. “Damn. It’s perfect, Maren.” He holds it up to his face and looks at Will, who laughs brightly.

“Sorry,” he says quickly, waving a hand at me. “It’s not you, Maren. It’s a damn good mask, actually. Just...funny to see him in it.” Will unwraps his: a dragon, complete withpainted-on scale details. His eyes widen, and his lips part a little in surprise. “Wow.”

I smile a bit in spite of my self-consciousness. “You don’t have to humor me. I’m better at patching up rust than I am painting.”

“I don’t give compliments if I don’t mean them,” Will says, peering through the eyeholes. “And this is stellar.”

“I love it.” Tuck unwraps his—a silver wolf. “Perfect.”

And LJ flips his bear mask over and back again, inspecting it like he’s expecting to find a crack or a blob of rogue paint. But a tiny curve is tugging at the edge of his lips.

“Well, anyway,” I say. All the attention is making me feel weird. “I hope they’ll work.”

“More than work,” Rob says. “They’ll get the job done and then some. I hope you made one for yourself, though.”

“Nothing special,” I say. It’s the truth: I ran out of time. Mine is just a plain white affair, a few rhinestones and feathers I fashioned out of modeling clay at the edges. “But it’ll work. I’m not going to socialize much anyway.”

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