Cruz peaked a brow at me as he carried a handful of bottles to the garbage can. “The last time this door was locked was when Aunt May bought the house back in eighty-eight. I’m not about to break that open-door streak, are you?”
My fingers fell from the lock on the door handle. “Unlocked it is. Good night, Cruz. Thanks for letting the newest member of the Pariah Society hang with you.”
Cruz winked. “Anytime, cupcake. Anytime.”
After closing the door, I started for my car. Now that the adrenaline from the night had worn off, I felt exhausted. The kind that made taking one more step a feat of willpower and strength.
The streets were still quiet, and most of the cars that had been lined up and down the street were gone. A few were still staggered here and there, but The Clink was quiet for once. With the handful of stars just barely showing through the city lights and the hum from the streetlights, it was almost peaceful. Almost.
A place like this could never truly embody peace because too much tragedy had been birthed here.
I could just make out my Toyota up ahead, but it took every last reserve of strength I had to make it that last half block. It didn’t help that I’d hardly slept the night before, too anxious from anticipating what would transpire tonight.
Before I made it to the car, I could tell something was wrong. It was tilting—the side next to the curb was lower than the other. A sigh rumbled in my chest. How many cars with slashed tires had I passed in my years here? Too damn many.
Add one more to that list. So much for that perceived armistice . . . but then again, it was after midnight, so it was officially a new day. On with things in The Clink as usual: gang wars, drug deals, vehicular theft, and tire slashing.
I had a spare in the trunk, but I didn’t have two. Not that I could have changed a tire with the level of exhaustion I’d reached anyway. Just as I was pulling out my phone to find a local, hopefully affordable towing service, I noticed someone move out of the shadows.
This wasn’t the time of night or the zip code a person wanted to experience someone creeping out of the shadows, but this shadow was a familiar one. A shape I’d never feared. A figure I knew I never could fear, no matter what the past contained or where the future went.
“How many times have I reminded you not to take to these streets at night alone?” Grant’s frame loomed just beyond the streetlight’s reach, but I could see him as plain as if it were day. Growing up here, you learned how to see in the dark. It was the only way to survive.
“Probably a thousand,” I answered, trying not to act thrown that Grant was standing ten feet in front of me when I thought he’d stormed away hours ago.
“Make it a thousand and one then.” The faintest of smiles pulled at one side of his mouth. “Don’t walk alone at night here. Don’t go anywhere alone here. It’s not safe. Never has been and never will be.”
The irony of me surviving seventeen years in The Clink hit me then. I’d survived hell only to struggle through the supposed free-land ever since.
“It’s not safe for cars, at least.” I waved at my two flat tires. How much was that going to cost?
“Probably just a couple of young kids trying to prove how tough they are.”
“In The Clink? No. I don’t remember anyone being like that.” I looked at Grant to find he was still doing that almost-smile of his. I could remember him really smiling only a few times. At least the kind of smile that other people did—the type that reached their eyes.
A minute of silence passed between us. After what had been said in the bedroom and how he’d spent most of the night ignoring me, I had no idea what he was doing here now. Seemingly willingly.
“What are you doing here, Grant?” I asked, not quite as eloquently as I’d been planning. I blamed that on the time of night and my waning energy.
The skin between his eyebrows creased for one long moment before his expression cleared. Tilting away from me, he motioned at my car. “I called you a tow truck, but I wasn’t sure where to send it to get new tires. I wanted to make sure it was close to wherever you’re staying, but I wasn’t sure where that was.” He cleared his throat. “Or even if you were staying.”
My chest tightened, hearing the boy I remembered in the man before me. “I’m staying over in the Pearl District. On Carson Street.”
He nodded like he knew where that was, but I wasn’t sure if he did. When we lived here, we rarely left The Clink’s boundaries, then he’d gone to college in College Station to stay close to me, then onto big cities with big teams.
“Thank you for calling a tow truck. You didn’t have to do that though.” I shifted, already owing Grant a debt I could never pay back if I spent the rest of my life trying. A debt that had grown. Again.