Page 96 of Caution to the Wind

They went up instantly, flames cracklin’ in the air at our feet. The boat deck was fibreglass, so we didn’t have to worry about the fire spreadin’.

Only after that did Z give me the nod.

I stepped forward, boots almost in the flames, and stared down Jiang Kuan. “The Fallen MC isn’t for sale, now or ever. You want what isn’t yours, you better be prepared to die for it.”

“This didn’t go well for you last time, trying to stop our progress,” Jiang reminded me.

“No, but I got a whole different brotherhood at my back, and they’re the kinda men who are happy to live free and die hard for what matters. Now get the fuck outta our town.”

MEI

I didn’t knowwhy I thought visiting Lin’s Beauty Emporium would be a good idea, except that Cleo desperately needed some pampering, and I hadn’t seen Lin in years. I wasn’t as apprehensive about seeing Lin as I had been about seeing Axe-Man because she’d actually responded to my letters and emails over the years. We weren’t close like we used to be, and she’d only come with Cleo to visit me in Vancouver once before declaring she felt wrong keeping it from Axe-Man. Still, she seemed to understand without me having to cut myself open and bleed myself dry that some fairly…awful things had kept me from the Axelsen’s side in those eighteen months after Axe-Man went to prison. She still sent a massive box of Raisinets along with Cleo for my birthday every year, too, which had to mean something good.

So maybe I thought it would be, I don’t know,fun. Going to the salon with my bestie and getting our nails done while we caught up with Lin. We used to do it in high school, Cleo choosing something pastel and pretty while I waffled between red and black. Lin’s old salon had these huge faux leather massage chairs we could lean back in while we got our toes done, and we’d sit facing each other for our manicures afterward. It was so innocent and fun, a little ritual we’d done every month to pamper ourselves, but mostly, to bond.

I wanted that again even though I should’ve known recapturing such a thing was like trying to bottle smoke.

Cleo wasn’t in a good place that day, either. She’d never been a grumpy girl, always sweet, a little shy even though she was social and personable, and eager to laugh and enjoy. Now, she was sullen, lower lip curled under, hands caught up in the overlong sleeves of one of Axe-Man’s old Street Ink Tattoo Parlour hoodies. The cast fit beneath it, but I thought she’d chosen it as a way to hide her body. She’d always loved pretty things, but since the attack, I hadn’t even seen her in colour-coordinated pajamas. It was like she felt beauty had betrayed her.

“Do you want to go home, Glory?” I asked as I helped her out of the car and passed over her crutches. “We don’t have to do this. It’s supposed to be fun.”

That lower lip wobbled before she curled it between her teeth. “No. No, I need to get out of the house. It’s starting to feel li-like a prison. A mental institution.” I winced because both settings hit a little too close to home. “I need tobreathe, you know?”

“Even if it’s stale beauty salon air?” I teased.

A little grin. “Even then.” She sighed so heavily it stirred the uneven locks of hair over her forehead. “It’s just that…I feel so tired all the time. Not just from lack of sleep but like I was fundamentally exhausted of being myself. Of being in my body and but also just of beingme.”

I swallowed the whimper in my throat at the idea of that kind of pain and self-loathing. Stepping closer to crowd her against the car, I gently cupped her face and pressed a kiss to each cheek. I’d never been a physically affectionate person with anyone but the Axelsens, and even though it’d been eight years since we’d spent any kind of real time together, the impulse surged through me like rain over a drought-dry field.

“Why don’t we pretend for an hour or two, then? You can be whoever you want to be. We both can.”

“Who would you want to be?” she asked, that inquisitive personality that made her such a good journalist peeking through her misery. “Why would you want to be anyone else when you could be you?”

I laughed so loudly that a mother putting her child into a car seat in the minivan a few parking spots away from us startled.

“Oh Glory, you’ve always had such a skewed vision of me.”

Her face spasmed with horror, and she ducked her head. “I guess I’m not a great judge of character.”

“No, no.” I tipped her chin up and smiled with a healthy dose of self-mockery. “I’m the problem here. I guess it’s hard to see yourself the way other people do when all you can fixate on are your mistakes.”

Her eyes widened, head reeling back as if I’d hit her. A little gasp escaped her mouth before she swallowed thickly and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that feels true.”

“Okay, so for this next hour, why don’t you pretend to bemyGlory. The kindest, sweetest, brightest, and most curious woman I know.”

“And you’ll bemyRocky?” she asked suspiciously like she didn’t believe I’d go for it.

Which, I mean, was fair. I hadn’t felt like Cleo’s Rocky in such a long time. It seemed like a beloved shirt I’d outgrown and forgotten.

“Yes,” I agreed, holding out my hand in the shape of half a heart, waiting for Cleo to mirror and join it with her own. “I will.”

“MyRocky is a smart-mouthed badass,” she reminded me with arched dark brows. “But she also has the most loyal and loving heart.”

It was my turn to swallow thickly, forcing the self-disgust I’d felt for the past eight years down my gullet where it burned in my belly.

“Okay, let’s do this.”

“You know,” she said as she manoeuvred on her crutches up the sidewalk and over to the glass front entrance in the middle of the shopping centre. “I used to come here with Bea.”