Chelsea allows herself a small smile through the receding tears. Of course Arlene is the one in charge, at least once it’s clear that no one is still in physical danger.
Pulling away, Arlene inspects Chelsea’s face, asks her what day and year it is, watches her pupils as they follow Arlene’s finger back and forth and up and down.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Arlene says softly.
“My girls,” Chelsea whispers.
They’re back there, alone, cornered by a corpse. She needs to go to them, comfort them.
“They’re fine. Let’s worry about you for a minute. Are you hurt?”
Chelsea explains what she can, as best she can, as quickly as she can. She doesn’t know what happened before she got here, only that when she did, David already had a gun out and pointed at her daughters and mother. She’s remotely curious about how it all came to pass, whether he brought them all here as some sort of sick audience or as a backup plan, knowing she wouldn’t run away if they were present, or if they somehow all ended up here independently.
And when she gets to the part about attacking him…
“Was it the Violence?” Arlene asks quietly.
“I…” Chelsea doesn’t want to lie to this woman who has done more for her psyche than anything else in the past twenty years. But the steady, probing look Arlene is giving her tells her that what she says next is important, and that there’s more at stake than the truth. “It was.”
“Such a horrible disease,” Arlene says, patting her arm. “Now I have to ask you something before Harlan gets here, and he’s on his way.” She leans in close. “How do you want this handled? Because we can call the police, make it official, but then they’ll want to take you in, maybe put you into one of those awful camps, and I know you just got your girls back. It might be better if…”
“If we handle it ourselves,” Chelsea finishes.
Arlene nods slowly, knowingly. “I’m not gonna pretend that we wouldn’t get shut down if this went public. And I’m also not gonna pretend that you’d have a chance of staying with your girls. But it’s up to you.”
Chelsea stands on numb feet and wobbling legs, looks down the long aisle, her brain skipping right over the navy-blue sheet draped over a lump on the floor. There’s Ella, holding Brooklyn, who’s eating a Moon Pie they must’ve found in the cabinets. There’s Patricia, leaning back against the wall, face strained and eyes closed, red as a boiled ham as Indigo puts a compress on her forehead.
“Arlene,” she says urgently, turning back, “I want—”
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here,” Harlan Payne says, squeezing up the stairs. It’s a tight fit, but he makes it. The groupies outside are screaming his name, screaming for Rampage, the flash from twenty cameras blinding Chelsea. He frowns and yanks the door shut and clasps her shoulders in oddly gentle hands. “Are you okay?”
Chelsea nods, he asks her all the same questions Arlene has asked her, Chelsea explains again using even fewer words. It’s exhausting, being forced to live it over and over again. Arlene must sense that, as she interrupts.
“I have all the information. Let’s not make Chelsea talk about it again. We need to get the bus far away from here, get all our people into a hotel, and do some cleaning up.”
Harlan gives Chelsea a sharp, cunning look. “No police?”
Chelsea shrugs. “What’s the point? I don’t want to end up in a quarantine camp, and you don’t want to lose the VFR.”
“But what do you need, from all this?”
It’s oddly put, but she appreciates the question. How does she want to move forward?
Funny to be asked this question twice in as many days.
“Do I still have a job?”
Harlan Payne, pro wrestling star, seven feet tall and clad in a five-thousand-dollar suit, honks a chuckle like a little kid who just farted.
“Honey, do you think I’m gonna fire you for getting rid of some abusive asshole who threatened to kill your kids? Who probably found you because I plastered your face all over TV and the internet? No fuckin’ way. We’re gonna toss this piece of shit in a swamp and keep on fighting. If you want your job, it’s still your job.”
“But the tour bus?”
He waves a dismissive hand. “I’ll tear out the carpet, put in new, sell it, and get a new one.” He winks. “I got money now.” He cocks his head at her. “But I got to ask you again, you plan on suing me?”
Now it’s Chelsea’s turn to splutter a laugh. “Sue…you?”
“I said I’d protect you, and I clearly failed at that. Now, it’s not written down somewhere, but this is…” He glances down the aisle of the tour bus, rubbing the stubble at his throat. “This is beyond the pale.”
Warmth rushes into Chelsea’s chest.
“Let me keep doing this. Just let me bring my girls along, too. They can share a bunk. They—”
He puts a hand on her shoulder, but not like David used to, not like he’s holding her down. Like he’s steadying her.
“Done. I’ll just get you a little motor home. Nothin’ big like mine, mind you, but a little one. You okay to drive something like that?”
“No, but I can learn.”
“Good girl.” He looks around the bus again. “If you’re out of this particular bus, I can just replace the carpet and keep using it, save a few thousand. But you got to promise me: This is between us. You won’t tell anybody what happened in here. And your little motor home—we’ll just say your bank account finally unfroze and you bought it yourself.”
The knot in Chelsea’s chest unfurls, and her whole body feels as loose as soft serve. She flops back in the driver’s seat, suddenly acutely aware of how uncomfortable it is, how much her arms hurt, where every new bruise from her match with TJ is forming into a purple smudge.
Which reminds her.
“You gonna yell at me for convincing TJ to throw my match?” she asks. It seems like such a small thing, comparatively, but small things matter, too.
Harlan grins. “Yeah. This is me yelling. Don’t throw my matches. Next time, you’re gonna lose. To Matt. And it’s gonna be embarrassing. And you’re just gonna take it. Got it?”
“Got it.”
He nods decisively and puts his hands on his hips, his elbows awkward in the small space.
“Then we’ll just drive this bus the hell away and get you ladies somewhere more…” He stares at David’s corpse. “Comfortable. I heard there was gonna be pizza.”
“Pizza?” Brooklyn shrieks.
Harlan looks back at the little girl, who’s standing on his tour bus sofa in her tiara.
“Whatever you want, Princess,” he says.
EPILOGUE