Page 44 of Bones and Ashes

I was here under Savannah's terms. So she could watch me. So she could care for me. So she could save me.

Which is a fine option to have when you're dyin'. But it comes from a position of weakness.

All these years, I was never welcome here. Two of the Ashby women claimed to care about me.

The mother, like a mother.

The daughter, like a lover.

And neither of them ever thought to ask me over for dinner when I was sixteen.

My stay here was not optional.

Bein’ here right now is. I'm here tonight on my own terms. And it's not a small thing. It's an inflection point.

Another clear line drawn in the sand.

Another moment in my life that changes the trajectory.

For fuck's sake, Legion. Ya always were a poet, I get it. But stop with the theater-kid energy.

Before I can laugh about my own internal spiral, my phone buzzes. I check it.

Blocked number.

A sick feelin' creeps in. The kind of feelin' that comes with bad news. The kind that doesn't announce itself, just settles into your chest like it's been livin' there the whole time, waitin' for an invitation to unpack.

I tap accept. "Yeah. Who's this."

"Well, well. The man himself. Didn't think you'd pick up that fast, Mr. President."

Mike. Of course it's fuckin' Mike. I lean against the bathroom counter and stare at the faucet because lookin' at my own face right now seems like a bad idea.

I already hate this deal. One day. That's what it's been. Not even. I dropped Savannah off at sunrise—and that sunrise was somethin', I'll give the sky that, all that pink bleedin' into gold like Montana was tryin' to apologize for what it was about to do—and now the sun isn't even down yet and Mike's already got his hand on my collar, tuggin'.

One day. Shit, it hasn't even been twelve hours.

"What do you want." I don't dress it up. I don't even bother with a question mark.

"Straight to it. I like that about you, Kane." He pauses, and I can hear somethin' rustle on his end, paper or a wrapper. Somethin' small and bureaucratic that makes me wanna put my fist through the mirror. "We got product movin' tonight. Little hiccup in the line. Nothin' that's gonna keep anyone up past their bedtime."

"What kinda hiccup."

"Just a flat tire that needs fixin'. We got a box truck," he says. "One of the rear duals went. Driver's got a spare but nothin' on him that'll lift that kinda weight. Your shop's the closest thing to civilization that isn't gonna ask questions. Just need a jack and a set of hands that knows which end of a wrench is which."

A flat tire.

I feel my shoulders drop half an inch.

A flat tire I can do. A flat tire is a Tuesday.

A flat tire isn't buryin' a body, isn't producin' a body, isn't some kind of robbery that'll put me back in Whitefall for the rest of my natural life.

A flat tire is the smallest ask a man like Mike could make, and I know that.

I know he's startin' small.

I know that's the whole point of startin' small.