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Rain pushes the food around on her plate next to me as they read out the crimes of the accused. A few more hospital workers who refused to remove life support, a woman who continued tube-feeding her disabled husband, and a mother who saved her child’s life with an EpiPen after he had an allergic reaction to a bee sting.
These are considered high crimes now, but murder and rape are totally legal.
Go fucking figure.
Just before the first of the accused gets to say her last words, I turn and cup my hands over Rain’s ears. She’s not watching the broadcast—her gaze has been glued to her untouched breakfast ever since it came on—but I know she’s listening.
Her big blue eyes lift, and for a moment, it feels like we’re the only two people in the room.
Bam!
I force a small smile as the sound of a body landing at the bottom of a dirt hole reverberates through my fucking soul.
Bam!
I smooth my thumbs over her cheekbones, being extra careful with the right side, which is now sporting a gnarly green-and-purple bruise.
Bam!
The third convict takes a bullet between the eyes as Rain drinks me in with hers. The corners of her full pink lips twitch as if she wanted to smile back, but she pulls them down and drops her gaze instead.
Bam!
I can’t say that I blame her. I’m probably the only motherfucker who can smile while people are being executed on live TV.
Bam!
Because I’m the only motherfucker who gets to look at her while it happens.
Across from us, Quint pushes his plate away and cups a hand over his mouth in disgust while Lamar stares blankly at the screen as if he were just watching another bad horror flick.
I pull Rain’s head against my chest, thankful that she’s not freaking out, thankful that she’s here with me instead of lying in the bottom of a dirt hole in Plaza Park, and I begin to get the feeling that the executions aren’t the only thing people are watching in the food court.
I glance up and find Carter’s parents staring at us from a few tables away. His sister is wearing headphones and playing on someone’s cell phone—no doubt to protect her from the mass murders happening on live TV—but her folks are none too happy. Mrs. Renshaw has the Southern decency to look away, but Carter’s dad holds my stare for what feels like hours. There’s no challenge in his puffy, bloodshot eyes—the old bastard can hardly walk—just a deep sadness.
I know that feeling. I’ve lost her before too.
Carter didn’t come to breakfast with them, and honestly, I don’t fucking blame him. Just the idea of seeing Rain with someone else was enough to make me pack my shit and go. I want to feel bad for the guy, and I would, if he deserved my sympathy. But I know assholes like him. Popular. Good-looking. Entitled as fuck. Guys like that don’t take rejection well. They throw tantrums like fucking toddlers when shit doesn’t go their way. And wherever Carter is right now, my guess is that he’s plotting his next move, not licking his wounds.
I look around the room, taking a mental headcount, and a sinking feeling slithers into my gut.
The runaways are all accounted for at Q’s table—watching their phones and smoking weed and aiming guns at each other’s heads like they’re Governor Fuckface on TV. Quint—who is now down to a large Band-Aid and a couple of aspirin a day—and Lamar are in a heated debate about whether they should steal a Jeep and find a place in the mountains or steal a convertible and try to find a beach house to squat in. And the Renshaws are huddled together as usual, all except for Carter.
He’s the only one unaccounted for.
Until that motherfucker marches into the food court, carrying my duffel bag.
Carter shoots me an eat shit look as he heads straight toward Q’s table, and I laugh—I actually fucking laugh—and shake my head.
So predictable.
Rain doesn’t think it’s funny though. She stiffens in my arms the second she sees him.
I want to reassure her that it’s going to be fine. That no matter what happens, I won’t let these dramatic little bitches hurt her. But I can’t.
This is post-April 23.
All bets are off.
