“I’d love to taste your eggs,” I said, smiling.
Jilly got to work, eager to do something she felt confident doing. I saw a different side of Jilly as she whipped together scrambled eggs and dry toast, presenting a small breakfast for my approval. I took an exploratory bite, surprised when it was actually delicious. “You made some magic with very little to work with. I’m impressed.”
Jilly grinned, sampling her own handiwork. “I like to cook with butter but a nonstick pan will work, too. Amazing what a little salt and pepper can do, right?”
“It’s really good.”
“Someday I’ll have to make my chili Verde for you. One of my foster parents showed me all the secrets passed down through their family. Even though they weren’t great people, they were excellent cooks. People like us, we gotta pick up skills where we find them,” Jilly said with a happy shrug.
For the most part, Jilly was a sweet soul. Those golden eyes told a sad story if you knew how to read. Before Madame Moirai, I would’ve said I was an excellent judge of character. I had a sixth sense about people. I often knew when someone was lying. A little bell went off in my head, a tiny tinkling sound that warned something wasn’t adding up.
Because of that intuitive skill, I’d arrogantly thought I wasn’t capable of being conned.
And then, I ended up walking headlong straight into the biggest con out there.
I should’ve known it was all bullshit from the start.
I never should’ve veered from my No. 1 rule: if it looks to good to be true, it usually is.
But here we are.
It was worse than humbling — it was crippling. I didn’t know how to trust my instincts anymore. Nothing seemed to make sense in my world anymore.
Jilly seemed to sense I was struggling. She reached over to grasp my hand and squeeze it. “If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be dead,” she acknowledged quietly. “I’ll never forget that.”
I held her gaze, secretly ashamed that my intention hadn’t been to save Jilly or Dylan, only Tana and it’d only been a flip of the coin that’d put me as their unlikely champion.
I skewed my gaze away, unable to take the guilt. I forced a smile, saying, “You can make me eggs anytime you like,” and returned to my plate. If I had food in my mouth, I couldn’t talk and I didn’t want to talk right now.
I didn’t want anyone to look at me like their hero.
For all I knew, we were heading from the frying pan to the fire. I had no idea where Dylan was taking us or if it was safe.
All I knew was that for us, there was no turning back.
And if things ended up going sour, there’d be no future.
22
Jilly and I cleaned the kitchen, leaving no evidence of our little breakfast and then tossed our pajamas into the outside trash bin, happy to leave any shred of Madame Moirai behind. I left Jilly in charge of raiding the pantry for things we could take that wouldn’t go bad and I went to find Dylan.
I found her in the garage, poking around in the bins and shelves lining the walls, seemingly more comfortable in a garage than in the house.
I leaned against the door frame. Dylan looked up, saw me, and then kept up with her search. I sighed, pushing off to walk to her. “Look, you need to cool it with the whole rage monster thing,” I told her. “We need to keep Jilly feeling secure so she doesn’t run off to the cops. If you keep snapping like that she’s going to end up freaking out and running straight to the police, which you and I both know isn’t going to end the way she thinks it will.”
“Yeah, well, that’s her problem. I’m not her babysitter or her therapist.”
God, why did she have to be so fucking difficult? I swallowed my irritation and tried again. “I get it. None of us signed on for this shitshow but here we are and we have to make the best of it if we’re going to survive. We might not like it but we’re stuck together for the time being, got it? Don’t make it harder than it already is.”
“Why do you care? Why didn’t you bail when you had the chance? You didn’t have to save us.” She shrugged, admitting, “I would’ve run without looking back.”
I didn’t want to answer. With a flip of a coin, I could’ve reacted differently. Fate had other plans. I’d never been a fan of spending too much time looking backward because nothing in my past had ever been worth looking twice at but now, more than ever, I had every reason to leave it all behind. I cast Dylan a short smile, answering, “Because I didn’t.”
“Playing the hero sounds all well and good until shit gets real and suddenly you’re in over your head.”
Her quiet statement hit a chord. I couldn’t tell if she was picking a fight with me or talking to herself. Dylan was hard to unravel and I didn’t have time to play her self-destructive little games. Whatever she was struggling with, she’d have to figure out on her own. “How about you take the ‘W’ and stop poking at the why and how? We have to work together and that’s all that matters. Like it or not, we need each other.”
Dylan shot me a black look but the ire faded quickly. Either she knew I was right or she was too tired to keep fighting. She exhaled and leaned against the workbench. Her expression screwed into a mask of frustration. “I didn’t mean to snap like that,” she said. “I don’t know…I just…I’m so fucking mad inside and I don’t know what to do about it.”
I understood her rage. My blood percolated with the need to lash out at someone, too. For now, I had a better handle on that powder keg but no promises that I always would. “Attacking each other isn’t going to make it better,” I told her. “We gotta keep control of ourselves if we’re going to find a way out. Madame Moirai is going to count on us acting like scared kids. We have to outsmart her if we’re going to get out of this alive.”
“Look, I know you’re right but it pisses me off that you’re handling this better than me,” Dylan said, her blunt honesty more than I was expecting. “How is that you’re not twisting in on yourself like I am?”
If she knew how I wanted to curl inward and cry for a thousand years, she wouldn’t think I was so chill. I shook off her backhand compliment, saying, “Trust me, I am. I’m just better at stuffing it down for the time being. At some point, the dam will break and then, hell, maybe I’ll have the epic melt-down I’m due. Until then, I have to keep moving forward.”
I was no motivational speaker by any stretch of the imagination but I made my point. Dylan nodded, accepting my answer. “Yeah, I guess so. I’m sorry for being a bitch. I can’t say it won’t happen again but I’ll try to be less of a rage monster, okay?”
That’s all I could ask for. I nodded. Dylan and I understood each other even if we weren’t destined to be besties. We lost Tana. We couldn’t lose Jilly, too. Through the worst of circumstances, we’d become unlikely allies. As much as Dylan would be the last person I’d choose to hang with, it felt good knowing we shared a common enemy. Switching gears, I gestured to the car. “You can drive this thing?”
“You bet your ass I can. I ‘ve been driving since I was eleven. Manual transmission, too. My dad owned a shop. I picked up some skills when my old man was too drunk to function. Someone had to keep the shop running. That, someone, turned out to be me. Until I couldn’t take his bullshit anymore and bailed.”
“You liked working on cars,” I surmised.
Dylan shrugged as if she didn’t want to reveal too much. “I mean, yeah, it was better than sitting around the house waiting for my old man to lose his shit for no fucking reason. At least cars made some kind of sense.”