Page 33 of Hell In A Handbasket
Turning, I stalk back to the counter. “You’re a pain in my ass, Solomon.” I snatch up the case file, shoving it into Minka’s bag and closing the zipper at the top. “There were so many other ways to do this.”
She tears a curly fry into pieces, placing each morsel on her tongue and smiling like none of this is a bother to her at all. “I have no regrets. I get a weekend with your doctors.”
“You get an afternoon, a long night with one eye open, and a tense drive back to the airport. Unfortunately for you, you’ve fractured a working relationship I never liked anyway. Every time you called my wife, I sprouted a new gray hair.” I snag Minka’s bag and the plate the server sets down in front of Jay. “My life will be a helluva lot more peaceful now that I don’t have to worry about whatever bullshit you two are cooking up together.” I meet Jay’s dark stare and tip my chin. “Thanks for the burger.”
Spinning on my heels, I lock eyes with Mayet and hate that beneath the rage is a woman hurt.
Minka Mayet so rarely wants friends, and this is further proof, in her eyes, of why she shouldn’t bother.
“Eat up, babe.” I walk back to our table and set the plate down in front of her. “Those pod-looking beds on the bus look pretty good. They’re private, so we’ll shut everyone out and bide our time ‘till our flight tomorrow.”
“Oh, damn. She’s leaving!” Cato bounds up from his chair and skids toward the diner door. “Eliza! Don’t leave, girl. I’m not done talking to you.”
AUBREE
It’s an odd sensation, to witness and to feel Minka’s unfiltered rage, but beneath that, her overflowing protection. Her desperation to shield me from the people she deems harmful. Her aching emotions spring between guarding me and guarding her own heart.
Sophia’s stunt has taken a chip she wasn’t expecting to lose today.
She got on a plane and brought her entire family halfway across the country on Sophia’s word alone, only to feel the sting of betrayal so soon after landing.
If the world were made up of colored, pulsing waves, then Minka is both black and bright yellow, each shade fighting for dominance as her thoughts weave from me to Sophia. Defensiveness to disappointment. Protection to punishment.
I always knew she loved me. Even though her words are constantly harsh and her appreciation is rarely voiced out loud, I’ve felt her familial affection since the early days of her new life within Copeland City.
My gift is a blessing, really, because if I depended on verbal approval, I’d be left wanting.
Butknowingshe loves me, andfeelingher turmoil today, is a whole other level of swelling beauty that pulses in my heart. But then again, the pleasure I feel dissipates just as quickly because Ifeelher pain in every second breath she takes.
“Hey.” Tim walks past Minka and Archer’s silent bed-pod-thing, leaving them to their privacy, though I know he hurts for her, too. Then he comes to sit beside me. He lowers to the floor of the bus with a groan, pulling the legs of his jeans up to make it easier to bend his knees, then he leans back against the wall and stops only when his shoulder touches mine.
Finally, he turns just his head and grins. So handsome. So perfect.
“I always figured she had a temper. Her cold controlhadto mean there was more bubbling beneath the surface. But that was something else, huh?”
I tilt my head to the side and rest on his shoulder. “She was protecting me.”
“Mm.” I feel the vibration of his voice. The warm caress of his lips on the top of my head. “She was. Kinda funny how she’s the least able to fight for others, considering her blood thing. But she’s the first through a door anyway.”
“Probably why Archer’s always so stressed.” I bring my hands up and wrap them around his arm, snuggling in to his side and inhaling the scent of his aftershave. “She’s as emotionally stunted as Minka, ya know?”
“Sophia?”
“Mmhm. She wanted to get to me, which is why Minka’s pissed. But she also wants to spend time with Minka.” I lower my voice, knowing there are far too many bodies on this bus and not enough privacy for a completely unfiltered conversation. “She got her feelings hurt, too. Because Minka’s mad at her.”
Smirking, Jen leans out of her pod and looks between us. “She’ll beextramad if she finds out you’re talking about her.”
Tim hits her with an unkind stare. “Go back to your room.”
“So it’s true, huh?” She rests on her belly and elbows, supporting her chin in her palm and kicking her feet so they arc through the air with each swing. Though the windows are tinted all around us, I still catch the sparkle of a toe ring when it passes through a ray of sunlight. “You can read minds, Doctor Emeri?”
“No one can read minds. That’s a fallacy employed by con artists who like to steal a person’s last dollar. It’s a performance at best, and a scam most often.”
“But you?—”
“Never said I read minds. Ever.” We long ago drove out to… somewhere… a few minutes outside of the small town called Plainview. Parking a giant bus in a tiny main street is dumb—and illegal—so we had no choice but to relocate. But since we stopped a while back, and the sun flirts with the horizon, I push to my feet and turn again, taking Tim’s hand in mine.
It’s not like I can lift him, and trying only makes it harder for him to do it himself, but I’m not ready to walk away, and I’m not willing to sit here any longer and have these people gape at me like I belong to a circus of misfits.
