White Rabbit(56)

“What? If he’s got a death wish, I sure as hell can’t stop him.” She turns back to me. “The place is called Smokey’s, or Smoker’s, or the Smokehouse—something like that. It’s in a strip mall off Route 2, behind this old gas station that closed down a couple years ago. There’s a gross diner where they go after last call, right in the same complex. It’s near one of those enormous dollar stores where they sell ugly bullshit and wonky stuff from China that doesn’t work right.”

“I think I know where you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do,” she replies with insulting kindness.

“Rufus, this is nuts!” Sebastian is starting to sound desperate. “I don’t care what this Lyle dude told you once upon a time! He is a dangerous guy, with dangerous friends, and you’re asking for serious, murdery trouble if you go to him looking for favors!”

“You don’t have to come,” I answer briskly, shoving past him and making my way to the door. “You two stay here, lock yourselves in, and hide from Hayden in the dark. Meanwhile, April’s at the police station, maybe about to get arrested for something she didn’t do, and I promised I’d help her. So I’m going.”

With that, I smack the deadbolt open and step out into the strangling golden mist that fills Lia’s concrete stairwell like quicksand.





18

It’s a phenomenal exit line. Unfortunately, stomping off into the night all by myself to go hunt down a kingpin-slash-gang member is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done, and I find myself regretting it before I’ve even made it out of Lia’s side yard. Truthfully, I’m nowhere near as composed as I made myself seem when I was safely inside with the door locked. Way back then, confronting Lyle Shetland was just a notion—a preposterous one, which, through sheer stubbornness in the face of those doubting me, I convinced myself would work; now that I’m actually going to try to do it, every step I take feels like one more scoop of dirt piled into my own grave.

I can’t even figure out exactly what I intended with my parting remark, which suddenly sounds petty, provoking, and self-congratulatory all at once as I play it back. You two stay here, lock yourselves in, and hide from Hayden in the dark. Did I really want Sebastian to stay with Lia and be safe? Or had I deliberately demeaned his courage so he would follow me? The fact is, I realize, I want both to happen; and no matter which move he makes next, it’s going to be the wrong one, and it’s going to annoy me.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

When I hit the front lawn, the fog is rolling through the neighborhood as thick as grease, reducing the street ahead of me to a lonely smear of eerie shadows and ghostly light. Abruptly, I know precisely which option I really hope Sebastian chooses; and, seconds later, the sound of thumping feet behind me tells me he has in fact picked it.

“I think maybe you really do have a death wish,” he grumbles when he catches up with me, glowering moodily.

In spite of how much I was just hoping he’d show up, I can’t resist rising to the argument. “I told you, like, a million times that you don’t have to come with me.”

“I know what you told me—I told you that I don’t give a shit. You’re not getting rid of me.” His eyes drop to a spot between my collarbones and his tone changes. “Look, I know you’re angry with me. I know you … you hate me, and you’re not going to forgive me. You made that really clear. But this isn’t even about that. If you’re walking into a lion’s den tonight, then you’re not doing it alone. Maybe you don’t care if a drug dealer fucking wastes you, but I do. So, you know. Deal with it.”

I struggle to come up with a response, but can’t seem to. There are a thousand things I could say here, a thousand things I want to say, but each one is rigged with emotional explosives. Part of the problem is the way he seems to be looking at me, with serious, intimate eyes—the way he used to, when things were perfect; I’m afraid to not be angry, terrified of the slippery slope back into aching need for him that lies just beyond my terribly slender guardrail of resentment … but I’m just as afraid to push him away, because I miss serious, intimate Sebastian Williams so fucking much. And a greedy, lonely, traitorous quarter of my heart loves that he’s looking at me again.

We make our way back to the Jeep through the dead silence of the neighborhood, the streets as still as a ruined civilization, and I try to shake off the creepy feeling of eyes tracking our progress. Wordlessly, Sebastian pulls away from the curb, heading automatically toward the airport, while I begin to think ahead—wondering what the hell I’m going to say when we reach our destination.

As if he’s read my mind, Sebastian suddenly asks, “So what’s the plan, anyway? I mean, we just walk into this shady diner where drug dealers hang out and go, ‘Yo, who wants to help the cops arrest somebody tonight?’”

“I … haven’t exactly figured that out, yet,” I confess, not wanting to acknowledge just how close to the sun we might actually be flying. This is all improvisation, here, one foot in front of the other, and I know I’m putting an awful lot of faith in Lyle’s memory. I haven’t seen him in more than two years, and if he’s forgotten about the little chat we had in the park, this mission will go from Risky to Kamikaze in a heartbeat. “I guess first we just see if he’s there. If he is, we try to get him to notice me so that he’ll say hi, and then we just sort of … you know, bring it up.”