Page 37

EIGHTEEN

M ilo

Leone said he put Fallon in the car; I open the door and find it empty.

Moving to the next car, it’s the same. I peer around and Leone, catching sight of me, points to the correct one and I wander over.

For one second, everything holds: the headlights cut through the night, the forest’s pulse on pause.

Then—one blink, and the rear door’s flung open, empty.

She doesn’t.

Instead, Leone’s now wrestling Nathan, who’s half-collapsed and trying to crawl toward Rebecca, who’s being scooped up by one of Santos’s guys and Rocco. I catch sight of a blur—a pale, raw-footed comet racing into the trees.

“Fallon!” I yell, and Leone drops Nathan like a sack of wet laundry, looks at me, and I point toward her. His gaze follows my hand, and we both tear after her, my shoes chewing up wet leaves, my breath ghosting into the air. “Fallon!” I shout. “Where are you going?”

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t even look back. What the fuck is she doing?

The woods close in. I can barely see more than ten feet without the flashlight, still I don’t dare slow down. I catch snatches of movement up ahead, the flash of long blonde hair, the pale crescent of a bare shoulder. She’s fast.

She finally stops. Not because she’s winded, because there’s this massive, gnarled thing—a tree that looks like it’s been dead since the dawn of time.

The trunk split open, a black cavity staring back at her.

Fallon’s kneeling at the base, hands pressed to the ground, whispering into the hollow, making me pause at what she is doing.

Leone pulls up beside me, panting. “What’s she doing?”

“Either summoning Satan, or she’s lost it for good,” I mutter, and we both stand there, two idiots with no clue if we should intervene or just catch our breaths while waiting for her to explain what she is doing.

Then a hand emerges from the hollow. Small, grubby, shaking.

Then another. Fallon pulls, and there’s a child, maybe four or five, with wild blonde hair tangled with spiderwebs, eyes blinking like she’s never seen light before.

Fallon tucks her under one arm and reaches back in.

Another girl, identical down to the dirty face, wriggles out and clings to Fallon’s side.

“Jesus Christ,” I say shocked. I’m not sure what I thought she was doing, but pulling kids from a dead tree wasn’t it.

Fallon stands, a kid on each side, and looks at us with these huge, hollow eyes. “This is Anya and Mila,” she says. “My sisters.”

The words whack me in the face. I didn’t even know Rebecca had any more kids besides Fallon and Emma.

Leone doesn’t say anything at first. He just walks forward, slow, palms up like he’s approaching a spooked Doberman. Fallon plants herself between him and the girls. “You won’t hurt them!” she warns, and her voice is more animal than human.

Leone stops, hands up. “No one’s going to hurt anybody. I have no reason to hurt children, Fallon.”

“They’re Mikhail’s. And Mom’s,” Fallon hisses, like this explains everything. Maybe it does.

I cut in. “Fallon, we aren’t monsters,” I remind her. We would never hurt kids; Leone may be a prick but even he lives by a code that children stay out of it, no matter what their parents have done.

The twins stare at us, one trembling, the other hiding behind Fallon, clinging to her shirt. Anya and Mila. I commit their names to memory.

Leone takes another step, then crouches, eye-level with the girls. “Come on, I won’t hurt you,” he murmurs.

The one on the left… Mila?… edges forward. Leone scoops her up, careful as you’d handle a live grenade. She doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight. Just slumps into his shoulder, letting him brush cobwebs and twigs out of her hair.

Fallon relaxes a fraction. Anya clings to Fallon’s shirt, breathing in tiny shudders.

We stand there for a minute, the four of us (five, if you count the kid now half-asleep against Leone’s chest), catching our breath in the humid dark. I have a dozen questions, none of which matter right now.

Instead, I peel off my jacket and hand it to Fallon, who wraps it around Anya, still staring at me worriedly like she is afraid Leone will order me to kill them.

“We should go,” I say.

Leone nods, and for once, there’s no argument.

We walk back through the woods. When we reach the clearing, there are the cars, the barn, and the distant flicker of flashlights.

The barn’s still visible through the trees, a black tooth in the gray predawn.

Smoke’s thinned out, drifting in lazy, tired ribbons.

The body’s gone—Santos’s cleanup crew must’ve zipped Rebecca into a bag and made her vanish.

Fallon sees this, and her shoulders drop an inch.

Nathan’s still standing where we left him, hunched and hollow, hands covered in dirt and blood, eyes locked on the dirt in front of his boots. He doesn’t even blink when we step out of the brush, two kids in tow. It takes a full thirty seconds for his brain to process what’s coming toward him.

“Dad,” Fallon says, her voice a dry rasp.

Nathan jerks up, blinking fast. His gaze jumps from Fallon to the girls, and he just stands there, mouth working like he’s chewing glass. “They—” he starts, then stumbles forward and stops, like he hit an invisible wall. “They look just like you,” he says. “Like her.”

Fallon nods. “I know.” She’s crying and still not making a sound. It’s all in the way her mouth trembles and how the tears won’t stop dripping from her chin.

Nathan closes the distance in two long strides and pulls her in, smashing all three of them into a lopsided, shuddering hug.

The twin in Fallon’s arms squirms and then settles, arms wrapping around Fallon’s neck.

I look away, not because I’m polite, because it’s too much. I never liked seeing people fall apart.

Leone hovers awkwardly. He glances at me, like maybe I have some manual for this. I don’t. My entire emotional toolkit is a bottle of bourbon and a pack of cigarettes, and we’re fresh out of both.

Nathan finally peels away, knuckles scrubbing his eyes. He kneels as Fallon lowers the twin in her arms to the ground, and so does Leone. Even kneeling, he is still a head taller than the twins. “What’s your name, sweetie?” He keeps his voice soft, like he’s afraid they’ll explode if he raises it.

The girl who was in Fallon’s arms blinks up at him. “Mila,” she says. “Have you seen my mommy?”

Nathan freezes, his whole body going rigid. “Yes, sweetie,” he whispers. “I know your mommy.”

Anya—the other one, standing in front of Leone—looks up, eyes wide and wet. “Can we go see her?”

Leone looks at me, and I shrug. There’s no good answer. Nathan manages a smile, and it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen. “Not right now,” he says. “However, I know someone who would love to meet you. Her name’s Emma.”

Mila tilts her head. “Emma?”

He nods. “She’s your sister.”

Fallon sways beside me, her knees buckling. I catch her elbow to prop her up. She’s barely there, running on fumes.

Rocco appears out of the gloom, two of Santos’s guys trailing behind. “We’re clear,” he says to Leone. “Let’s move.”

Nathan takes a twin in each hand and lets Rocco steer him toward the cars. He glances back once, checks that Fallon’s still standing. She is, barely.

“What is it?” I whisper because she’s staring after them like she’s watching a firing squad.

She shakes her head. “I just—” Her words jam up, and she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I thought I’d never see him again. Any of them.”

She looks at Rocco, watching the way he gently guides Nathan and the girls. “He won’t let anything happen to them, right?” she asks.

“Santos’s men,” I snort. “Definitely not.” Which is true, and the first real comfort I can offer.

She nods, still her eyes keep scanning like she is waiting for someone to come out guns blazing to take out her sisters.

“Where is she?” Fallon whispers. It’s not clear who she means until Leone crouches down and tilts her face up.

“Santos’s men will bring her home,” he says. “You’ll be able to bury her.” The words sound weirdly gentle, coming from a guy who’s snapped more necks than bottles of scotch.

Fallon nods slowly. “She never left us,” she croaks out. “I hated her all this time, thinking she abandoned us. She did it to keep us safe. I spent so long hating her, I forgot how much I loved and needed her.”

“She’s home now,” I say, because it’s the only thing that feels true.

Leone leads her toward the car, hand firm on her lower back, not forceful. I expect him to climb in the back with her, instead, he holds the rear door open and jerks his head for me to get in first.

I peer up at him. “You’re better with emotions,” he deadpans. “I’ll say the wrong thing.”

I stare at him like he’s gone mad. What part of me looks better equipped to deal with tears? “You sure about that?”

He just stares at me, so I slide in after her, her head on my shoulder before the door even shuts. Leone gets in front. Rocco comes over and slips behind the wheel.

Fallon’s quiet. Not the sullen kind, the empty kind. I want to tell her it gets easier. Nothing ever gets easier, not for people like us.

Out the window, I see Santos’s men dragging Igor, zip-tied and limp, toward a trunk. Fallon’s eyes lock on the scene, and something sharp and bright flickers back to life in her.

“Where are they taking him?” she asks as Rocco starts the car.

Leone glances at her over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

She sits up, glaring at Santos’s men. “Igor. Where are they taking him?”

Leone looks at me, and I shrug again. I know my face must be identical to Leone’s, wanting to know what the fuck this man did to her for her to speak so coldly.

Leone turns slightly, considers her. “Where do you want us to take him?”

“I want his arms, and you won’t kill him,” Fallon says, like it’s a completely normal thing to request. Had it come from Leone’s mouth I wouldn’t bat an eye at it. However, coming from hers, though, seems harsher, unnatural?