Page 50 of The Final Cut

She does not need to carry all of it alone. We will be fierce for her when she can’t be.

The channel widens.

A great blue heron stands in the shallows near a fallen tree, long legs still, neck folded into its body like a thought held carefully. It watches us pass with one yellow eye. Reva’s gaze catches on it, and her lips round in silent ‘O.’

Some of the tension leaves her shoulders.

I take the skiff farther into the bayou, through a cut only locals and men with too many secrets bother learning. The cabin is well out of sight now. The world narrows to water, grass, trees, and the dull thrum of the motor beneath my hand, the sun barely visible through the treetops overhead.

Minutes pass. She lets them.

When she finally speaks, her voice is rough from disuse. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere.”

Her head turns. “What the hell kind of answer is that?”

“An honest one.”

“We’re in a boat, Deacon; boats usually go places.”

“This one is going nowhere with intention.”

Her eyes narrow, and I stifle a smile. She’s never more alive than when she wants to throw me into the water.

“I just wanted to get you out of there,” I say.

“We were in the middle of training. You can’t just⁠—”

“You were spiraling.”

She rolls her eyes. “No, I was making several excellent points.”

“You were blaming yourself for being hunted by a woman who ordered your death when you were seven.”

The heron lifts from the shallows, wings spreading wide and slow. Reva watches it rise through the mist. For a few seconds, neither of us says anything. Its wings beat once, twice; then it glides low over the water and disappears between the trees.

“I shouldn’t have come back here,” she says.

The words are quiet enough that the motor nearly eats them.

I turn us into a side channel, deeper under the cypress canopy. “That sounds like a lie grief is whispering in your ear, little ghost.”

Her mouth pulls tight. “You make it sound poetic.”

“Well, it’s not. Just the truth.”

She looks down at her wrist.

Snap. The sound is small in the open air.

“Cal got shot because of me.”

“No, Cal got shot because Isabel ordered a man to shoot you, and he stepped in the way.”

She sniffs. “I’m the reason she had anyone to shoot.”

I nod. “That is true.”