“Debt paid. He owes me.”
I might have felt bad that he’d called in that favor for me and LaReigne, except right then Uncle Alva didn’t look like he had much longer to get paid. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, bracing his hand on his knee like he needed it to hold himself up. Someone banged on his bedroom door.
“What the fuck are you two whispering about in there?” Dane yelled.
“Mind your own goddamn business!” Uncle Alva answered.
“How is this going to work?” I said, since we were out of time. “Is the Fury going to call us? How does he get his money?”
“He’s coming here.”
“It is my goddamn business, whatever you’re getting up to.” Dane rattled the knob, but Uncle Alva had locked the door.
“Here? Because that doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I promised Dane I was leaving, and I think I better.”
“You’re fucking around with this because you don’t know how dangerous it is,” Dane said. “You need to come out and see what’s on the news.”
We couldn’t talk with Dane yelling anyway, so I opened the door, even though I figured it was bullshit. Gentry was standing in the hallway with Dane. I left them there and went out to the front room, where Dirk was watching the news.
“They found her dead,” he said. “The other hostage.”
“I know.” I felt the most cold-blooded relief that it was just more details about Molly Verbansky. Cause of death was manual strangulation, and the news people talked like the police were sure Molly had helped with the prison escape, because she was “romantically involved with Conrad Ligett.” For the first time, they started hinting that maybe LaReigne wasn’t innocent, either. All that told me was that the police cared even less about her safety than before.
“You see?” Dane said, standing in the doorway with Uncle Alva and Gentry. “Those are the kinda men you’re messing with. And you think you’re gonna track ’em down and get your sister back?”
“We’re gonna go into town and get a motel room,” I said.
“Why don’t you head back to Kansas, get a motel room after you cross the state line?” Dane said.
Uncle Alva doubled over coughing, and the look Dane gave him was pure contempt.
“Come on, Gentry,” I said.
We hadn’t unpacked much, so it only took a few minutes for us to get everything put back in our bags. I don’t know what was said while we were gone, but when we got downstairs, I could see it wasn’t anything good. Uncle Alva was standing at the kitchen sink. Dirk was at the back door, and Dane was out on the porch pacing up and down, smoking a cigarette.
“Just be cool,” Dirk was saying to him.
“Do you fucking know what they’re up to?”
“I know there’s no sense getting into a fight about it.”
When I stepped outside, Dane stopped pacing, but he didn’t say anything as Gentry and I went down the steps. Uncle Alva came after us, and together we walked across the yard to Gentry’s truck. Dane stayed on the porch, smoking and glaring. The sun was going down, but the outside lights hadn’t kicked on yet.
“I hate to see you go like this,” Uncle Alva said. Because I didn’t know what else to do, I hugged him. The butt of his gun pressed against my hip bone.
“I’ll call you and let you know where we’re staying,” I said.
“I reckon that’ll suit. Better than having somebody come around here while Dane’s bent outta shape.”
I let go of Uncle Alva and nodded. He turned back toward the house and, while Gentry put our bags in the back of the truck, I went around to get in on the passenger side. As I circled the hood, Dane came walking across the yard. Before he got to me, he took a drag off his cigarette and pitched it.
“Don’t you fucking do it,” he said. “I told you to go back to Kansas, and you damn well better.”
I ignored him and reached for the door handle.
“You seen what they did to that other woman. You think some Klansman is gonna sell out his brothers? More likely he’s coming to kill you. Maybe come around here and kill us, too.”
“I thought they were good old boys,” I said.
“I swear to god you better shut your smart mouth.”
Dane grabbed my arm and turned me around. I don’t know what he planned to do, but as soon as he touched me, Gentry came around the truck at full speed.
“I warned thee,” he said.
“And I’m warning you. You better get this bitch of yours under control before I—”
Gentry grabbed Dane’s elbow and did something to it that made Dane shut up and let go of me immediately. Then he turned and took a swing at Gentry.
They were completely mismatched. Dane was tall and lanky, and Gentry was short and stocky. I would have been afraid for Gentry, because Dane had better reach, but Gentry had a real boxer’s stance, and when Dane swung, Gentry dodged it. I backed way the hell up, because I didn’t want to catch a stray fist, but Gentry never even tried to punch Dane. He plowed into him, his right shoulder in the middle of Dane’s chest, and slammed him into the truck. Dane brought both his hands up, but before he could do anything, Gentry jabbed his left fist into Dane’s side, practically into his back. Both of Dane’s arms went floppy, and Gentry caught him around the waist and lowered him to the ground.
“Oh, damn!” Dirk said, as he ran across the yard. When he got to us, he squatted down and looked into Dane’s face. “I told you, man. I warned you not to mess with him.”
Dane didn’t answer. He was slumped against the truck’s rear wheel with his legs crumpled up under him and his hands limp at his sides. He looked pale and sweaty.
Gentry was shaking his left hand like it hurt, which it probably did. His right hand was in a fist, but not the clench and release he did when he was anxious. Just a loose fist. Turning away, he took a dozen steps across the yard to where the dog had watched the whole thing. The dog came as close as his chain would let him, so they were only a foot apart. Gentry stretched out his left hand. The dog sniffed it for a few seconds and then licked it.
“Gentry,” I said, but he wasn’t listening.
“You all right, bro?” Dirk looked at me. “Shit, he really done him. Right in the liver.”
“Gentry!” I tried again.
Dirk and I got Dane on his feet, and when I put my arm around him, I felt the gun tucked in the back of his belt. I pulled it out and handed it to Dirk. Then we walked Dane over to the front porch and lowered him down to sit on the steps.
“I swear. Here I thought you was the stupid one,” Uncle Alva said to Dirk. “At least you learnt your lesson.”
For a couple minutes, the three of us stood around Dane, but when Gentry walked up, I knew the peace would be over as soon as Dane could get on his feet.
“I’ll call you, Uncle Alva,” I said.
Gentry drove and I looked at Yelp, trying to pick a motel. There were only four in town, and they were all little run-down motor lodges. Thinking about the Fury, who wouldn’t even tell us his name, I picked the motel on the highway south of town. Maybe he wouldn’t like it being so visible on the main road, but in my mind that made it safer. Dane was an asshole, but that didn’t mean he was wrong about the Fury’s intentions.
While Gentry carried our bags into the room, I went down to the ice machine. When I got back, he was pacing up and down, having a conversation with his voices. Clench, release, clench, release. I put some ice into a hand towel, but I had to follow him back and forth a few laps before I got him to stop and take the ice. His hand was swollen but not too banged up. The upside of not punching people in the face. He let me wrap the towel around his knuckles, but then he went back to pacing.
I called Uncle Alva, and while I listened to the phone ring, I felt this sinking dread. What if he’d changed his mind? What if Dane had done something to him?
“It’s me,” I said, half expecting to hear Dane. Instead, I got thirty seconds of coughing before Uncle Alva spoke. I told him what motel we were at and what room we were in, even though it made me nervous to say it.
“The Fury says he’s coming Saturday, but he don’t know what time. Stay close and keep your phone with you.”
I felt better after I hung up. Not not nervous, because I was nervous as hell, but not as helpless. So much of the time I felt like I couldn’t help anyone, but maybe I could help LaReigne. I didn’t know what to do for Gentry, who was still going up and down. I said his name about ten times, trying to be loud without sounding like I was mad. Finally, he stopped at the foot of the bed where I was sitting.
“Gentry? Are you okay?” Then I tried to say it how he would: “Are you well?”
“I know not, my lady.”
“Does your hand hurt? Do you think you broke something?”
He unwound the wet towel, straightened his fingers, then made a fist.
“Nay,” he said. “But ere this day, I never struck a man in anger.”
“So you learned to box and beat the shit out of people with swords for fun?”
“Lady, ’tis not for amusement but to ready myself for a day I might see battle.” He was looking at his hand, frowning. Not like he’d never punched somebody and hurt his hand, but like hitting Dane was a whole new thing. I got up and took the towel, planning to put some more ice in it.
“Okay, well, think of it this way,” I said. “You saw battle today. Turns out all that practicing paid off. You were prepared.”
He nodded, but there was more pacing, until he finally stopped and pulled his phone out of his pocket. I wanted him to have a distraction from whatever he was thinking about, but I worried about who he was texting.
“You’re not going to tell your parents what I’m doing, are you?” I said.
“Nay, my lady. ’Twould distress my mother, and betray thy trust.”
“Yeah, somehow I don’t think you’re a very good liar.”
He smiled and said, “I am able, when I must. I have lied to thee twice and thou knew it not.”
That cracked me up. I think he expected me to ask what he’d lied about, but two lies? That was a drop in the bucket of the lies men had told me.
“I’m gonna take a shower,” I said.
I planned to take the longest shower in the world, like I never got to take. I was in there for a solid hour and, even though the hot water still hadn’t run out, I finally turned it off. I’d scrubbed everything I had to scrub, washed my hair, sang all the Patsy Cline songs I knew, and my hands were getting pruney. Since I’d turned the bathroom into a steam sauna, I used the motel’s blow-dryer on my hair, hoping it would cut back on the frizz. It was kind of soothing, hanging my head down, the blow-dryer buzzing in my ear, but when I turned it off, I heard how quiet the room was.
“Gentry? Gentry?” No answer. I poked my head out into the room to check on him. He was sitting on the bed, cross-legged, with his hands on his knees, and his eyes closed. Meditating. Or praying. “Gentry?”
“My lady?” he said, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“You okay?”
“I am. I thank thee for asking. Art thou well?”
“I’m very clean anyway.” I didn’t know how I was feeling.
I went back to the bathroom sink to comb out my hair. I hadn’t combed it in weeks, and it made the frizz worse. Gentry came and stood next to me, watching me try to unfuck my hair. After a few minutes, I gave up and tossed the comb on the counter.
“What do you think?” I held my arms out, so he could see me in my full glory. Bare-ass naked, half freckled, half ghostly white, thighs thick as hell, that scorched bird trying to take flight off me, and a massive poofy triangle of orange hair.
“Methinks thou art Venus from the sea.”
“Maybe I am a water nymph instead of a phoenix,” I said. “I do like showers.”
“Mayhap thou art many things I have ne seen ne heard of.”
I laughed and he smiled. I liked to watch him look at me in the mirror. It used to bother me that he never looked me in the eye, but now I knew that was just how he was. He wasn’t shy or squirrelly, but he was getting whatever information he needed by looking at other parts of me. Even though he’d been all knightly goodness about not watching me swim, he wasn’t embarrassed about looking at me. Not touching, just looking. Maybe waiting for an invitation.
I reached for my hair band on the bathroom counter, but he put out his hand, so I gave it to him, wondering if he meant to help me put my hair up. Instead he slid it up his arm, like he was taking my favor before a joust.
“To see thy hair loose upon thy shoulders liketh me best.”
“I wanna say something nice about you, but . . .” But honestly, the nice things I wanted to say, most men wouldn’t take them as compliments. I liked that he was strong but not hard. I liked that if his hand was somewhere I didn’t want touched, I could move it. I could say Stop or Do it like this, and unlike every other man I’d ever fucked, Gentry didn’t get offended. “But your hair is seriously messed up. I like your prick.”
“Then I shall use it to lay siege at all the gates of thy keep,” he said.
“Oh my god. You are so fucking filthy.”
I only meant to tease him, because he made me laugh, but he stopped smiling and got a serious look on his face.
“I fear I am, my lady. I fear Hildegard be right that I polluted my oath to thee.”
“You haven’t polluted any oath to me. Or do you think the black knight was wrong?”
Gentry was still frowning, but when I held out my hand, he took it.
“Nay, my lady.”
“I don’t, either,” I said.
As for him laying siege to all the gates of my keep, we gave it a shot.
CHAPTER 39
Rhys
The first text message I got about the situation was from Edrard: Did you know Gentry was going to Missouri?
When?
He’s there now. They drove over on Wednesday.
They?
He and Lady Zoroaster, Edrard texted. Then: Ducking autocorrect. Then: Lady Zee.
Later, when Gentry started a three-way text with Edrard and me, it took me about twenty texts to catch up. They were talking about going to find Zee’s sister, who I guess was missing.
Like a search party? I said.
Kind of.
Nay, Gentry texted. Tis a negotiation for her return.
Come on. It’ll be fun. I’m taking my bow, Edrard said.
An armed negotiation? I said.
Lady Zhorzha needeth an escort for the negotiation. Tis better we should be an armed escort. Tho thine aid would be much valued, my brother, if the journey thee liketh not, I shall not press thee.
That was Gentry’s way of saying I was being a chickenshit, and for an hour I didn’t answer him.
On the other message thread, Edrard said, It’ll be cool. A little change of pace.
What does Rosalinda think?
She’s pouting about it. I think she’s jealous of Zee. Idk why.
I couldn’t tell if he was joking or that oblivious. I was trying to decide how to answer Gentry when my boss popped up over the top of my cubicle.
“Doing anything fun this weekend?” he said.
“Oh, the usual.” I fumbled my phone into my pocket, because we weren’t supposed to have them out, and pulled up the next work ticket on my monitor.
“Now what is it you do again? Like live action D and D, is that what it is?”
“No, it’s called buhurt. It’s historically accurate medieval combat.”
“But that’s basically LARPing, right?”
“No. It’s not LARPing,” I s
aid. I was sick of people acting like we were out in the woods cosplaying. “You wanna see a video of it?”
“Yeah, sure.”
It was against the rules, but he was my boss, so I took my phone out and pulled up a video from a one-on-one joust. For a couple seconds, my boss leaned down to watch it and then, without even asking, he took the phone out of my hand.
“You’re the tall one, right?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Son of a bitch!” He laughed. “Who’s the guy in the black armor?”
“That’s my sparring partner, Gentry.”
“Your man Gentry is nuts. Dude is a berserker.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not exactly the goal,” I said.
“That’s some hobby you got there.” He handed the phone back before the video ended. Before I beat Gentry, because that was the time I clocked Gentry with my shield hard enough he went down like a post. We’d taken him to the hospital, but it turned out he didn’t have a concussion. He’d just got his bell rung.
“Butt hurt? That’s not really what it’s called, is it?” my boss said.
“Buhurt.”
He walked away laughing, and there were forty minutes left on the clock, so I started on the work ticket. My phone was still out on the desk, so I saw the text notification from Edrard pop up.
Ok seriously. Are you going?
I hesitated for a minute, but it was 4:23 on a Friday afternoon and what else was I doing?
Sure, I said. How do you feel about leaving in the morning?
* * *
—
EDRARD PICKED ME UP at dawn. He had his truck loaded down with way more equipment than we could possibly need. It wasn’t like we were actually going into battle, but he seemed to be having fun, so I didn’t burst his bubble. Rosalinda called him twice as we were leaving town, and the second time he put it on speakerphone, so I got to enjoy the sound of her seething with rage.
“I’ll be back Sunday night,” Edrard said. “Why don’t you go visit your folks?”
The Reckless Oath We Made Page 24
