What the fuck was she doing?
“Forgive me. Forgive me,” she said, her lips brushing against my shoulder, a hand tangling in my hair.
For one moment, I could believe this hug was real. It was her sorrow, but also my own. It was our confusion over this cataclysm in our lives. It was me and this girl out of nowhere, sharing this pain, this grief. It was me being lost and someone else getting it, holding it.
A shiver raced up my spine, and I swallowed hard. “What’s your name?”
“Jill. Jill Loughlin.”
“You can’t be here, Jill Loughlin.”
She let go of me and wiped at her face. “Okay.”
“There’s nothing for you here. Nothing.”
She stared up at me, her gray-blue eyes glistening pools of wet, like stones in the sea. The tears, the choppy breaths had stopped. Her hand reached out and pressed against my chest.
“You loved him,” she whispered. “He was a good man. A good person.”
My heart raced under the pressure of her palm. She’d only spent a couple of hours with Dig, at best, yet she was so sure, so confident.
“I loved him like no other.” My voice rasped in the cool darkness between us. “He was my best friend, my brother. I don’t know how I’ll live without him. I know I’ll never forget him.”
Her lips curved into the tiniest smile, her cheeks rising, her gray-blue eyes a force to be reckoned with. Her fingertips pressed into my chest. “You shouldn’t ever forget him. I never will. Not ever.”
I put a hand over hers and held it there, as if I could suck some of the Dig energy she’d absorbed out of her arm and make it flow into mine.
I squeezed her hand at my chest. “What did he say to you? He had to have said something—”
“He told me if the cops ever got involved, it would only make things worse for all of us.”
“Yeah.”
“And he made me promise to take care of myself, appreciate what I’ve got. And if I needed help, get it, and don’t take it out on myself. ‘Trust me on that one,’ he said.”
My stomach heaved, but I squashed down the physical drive to vomit. I only nodded, a strangled noise escaping my throat.
She moved her hand across my chest and removed it from me.
I shifted my weight. “You gotta go home. The Feds are hanging all over us. You got a car? How’d you get here?”
“I took the bus.”
“Jesus.” I wiped my arm across my face. “Where the hell do you live?”
“Ellston.”
Almost three hours north of here. “I’m too fucked up to take you home myself, but I’ll get someone who will.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. Gotta get you home.”
“Thank you.”
I only nodded, not sure what to do with her thank-you, her unflustered smile that lit up her whole face, her conviction, her trust.
I couldn’t breathe.
“You remember, you don’t say a word, to nobody. And I’ll be watching out for things on this end. I’ll keep an eye out. Know that I am. Don’t you ever fuckin’ dare talk to anybody—”
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Okay.” I shuffled forward.
“Thank you.”
I swiveled to face her. “Don’t fucking thank me!” My voice came out harsh, mean. I hadn’t wanted it to be though. I stood up as straight as I could. “Please, just don’t thank me.”
I had Dready take her home. I told him to get her talking, take down her address and phone number, find out anything else about her. He did.
And I kept tabs on her.
I’d kept eyes on her for the next year.
And Jill Loughlin hadn’t disappointed.
“She saw me,” Dready snorted over the phone. “She was hanging out with two girlfriends, waiting for the school bus, and I revved my engine. She spotted me right off, gave me a long look, and then got on her bus, not missing a beat.”
“Good.”
You couldn’t miss Dready. Over six-three, all muscle, and reddish-brown hair in a mess of ratty dreadlocks.
“Get home,” I said into my phone and shut it down.
I had kept my ears to the ground with the rival MC connected to the asshole who had kidnapped Jill and also his brother who had killed Dig. But things were quiet. Although both asshats were the nephews of that club’s VP, there were no rumblings, no retaliatory maneuvers whatsoever.
But you could never be sure of this shit.
Every couple of weeks I sent Dready up to Ellston to check on Jill. Well, more like let her see him, let her know that the One-Eyed Jacks were a presence in her life. A teenage girl was an unknown entity.
It’d been about a year since she’d come to Meager and found me. She was in her senior year of high school now, went to church on Sunday with her parents, even went to youth group meetings and was a member of the track team. The all-American girl.
Jill didn’t need me, and I had to stop being sucked in by the impulse to help, to save, to bolster.
I had to.