Page 11 of The Vigilant

“I got out four and a half months ago. Just in time to turn twenty-one.”

Fun fact: California’s maximum age for juvenile incarceration is twenty-five, so there was no graduation out of juvie when I turned eighteen. Thankfully, my sentence was only three and a half years with this final six months to be spent on parole.

I scooped the last bite of food from my plate, ignoring the warmth I felt because he was looking at me. No matter how many times he asked, I drew a hard line on answers the day I got out.

“You done?” His eyes flicked to my plate.

“Yeah.” I wiped the corners of my mouth, but before I could reach for my plate, it was in his hands.

I let my gaze slide to him as he stood, his big body moving with a kind of effortlessness that reminded me of a dragon. A massive, powerful, and deadly creature, but one that was still always depicted as moving gracefully.

And now, a dragon who looked just as effortless doing dishes.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, watching him scrub our plates. “That was really good.”

He made some sound in reply, but I was in a daze watching him.

From the time I met him as a child, Tynan Bates had always been a man in my eyes. I’d just never been able to see him the way I do now. A man of extremes. Extreme ruggedness and extreme tenderness. And for me, extreme safety and devastating risk. I knew I couldn’t have him, but for a few moments, I pretended like he was mine to admire. To want.

And I pretended like it was okay to ask, “Who were you texting before?”

He looked up, green eyes lasering into mine as his brow lifted.

“You were angry typing. Thought maybe you were missing out on a hot date because of me and were in trouble.” I tipped back, threading my hands through my hair, feeling my robe gape a little wider on my chest, exposing the delicate tattoos that began on my sternum.

For a fraction of a second, his gaze dropped. But a fraction was enough to catch it. A fraction was enough to feel the heat of it.A fraction was enough to want more.

He looked back up at me, answering, “I was texting my boss, letting him know why I disappeared from the garage earlier.”

I slid my tongue over my bottom lip. “So, no hot date?”

His jaw fired so hard I was surprised I didn’t hear a crack. “No dates.”

My lips parted, that same crackle entering the air that had earlier. Like something was popping all the little bubbles on the bubble wrap buffering the tension between us.

“What’s the wasp for?” he asked then, and I stiffened, glancing up to my right hand that was absentmindedly combingmy damp hair. The delicate etch of the wasp was inked into the vulnerable skin of my wrist.Mara.

I lowered my arms a little too quickly and then answered, “My best friend and I got matching tattoos when we were sixteen. Right after Dad died.”

Of course, Mom signed off on it. I liked to think it was the artist in her that wanted to encourage any kind of expression, especially when it came to processing complex emotions like grief, but the reality was she was too distraught, angry, and drugged up to care about giving her parental consent.

She might’ve cared about the scorpion tattoo I got a year later, but by then I had a fake ID, and she was too preoccupied with Randy.

“Didn’t ask when, Sutton,” he said low and then repeated, “Why the wasp?”

The story tangled in my mouth. It wasn’t that the origin of the tattoo was anything particularly revealing—especially considering how colorful the last few years of my life had been, but maybe that was why I hesitated. Because it was the origin. The seed that had grown into a full-fledged oak tree. The spark that ignited the wildfire. It was nothing but the beginning…and that was everything.

But I didn’t have a choice.

Success in warfare is gained by carefully accommodating ourselves to the enemy’s purpose.

I had to give Tynan something to make him feel like it was okay to leave.

“It was Mara’s idea,” I began, running my thumb over the drawing.

“Mara’s your best friend?”

I nodded slowly, wading carefully into this topic. “She was the first person to talk to me when I started my last new school. My fifth at that point.”

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