Page 10

He gives me the plant. It’s so small, the green leaves shaky under the heavy rain like they were also unwillingly dragged into my traumatic plotline. Our fingers meet around the roots. And suddenly, everything inside me goes quiet.

His touch is cold, dirty, and steady. The contact zips straight up my arm, crackling like lightning, so fast, I almost pull away.

Instead, I stay with him, the rain falling over us, a dead man under the earth, and this fragile, living thing caught between us.

And then, without warning, I start crying. Not cute or cinematic crying. My face completely crumples like a wet paper bag with a disorder. A sob breaks free.

All the easy looseness leaves his body. “It’s okay,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “You’ve had an ordeal.”

I shake my head hard, trying to swallow the sob. “That’s not—” My breath hitches painfully. “I’d do the numbers again if it was that.”

He takes me in, patient—unfairly patient for a man who keeps emergency roadkill in his vehicle.

“This,” I whisper. I dig deeper into the muddy soil. Feel the grit slide under my nails. Feel the cold, dark earth hold me without demanding anything, without taking anything from me. “This feels…good.”

His gaze moves slowly over my face. I stare at him through the rain and the tears and the wreckage of my eyeliner.

“It’s not blood,” I choke out. “It’s earth. It can grow on top of the death. Like…” My throat closes up tight.

Gage’s mouth curves in the shadows. “A perfect cherry on top of an arsenic sundae?”

I clamp a muddy hand over my laugh, which immediately makes everything worse because now there is wet dirt smeared across my lips and probably my teeth. Wonderful. I survived an attempted murder, but I can’t survive a hot guy seeing me muddy after we buried a body together.

Gage’s attention settles on my mouth. But he turns away, like he is trying very hard to be a gentleman and failing in a quiet, interesting way. He smirks wryly. “You’ve got a little⁠—”

“Do not,” I hiss.

“I wasn’t going to.”

I stab a finger at him. “You absolutely were going to.”

He chuckles. “I was going to say you look terrifyingly resilient.”

He watches me for a long moment, the rain sliding off the hard angles of his face. Then he regards the oversized hoodie wrapped around my shivering frame. “We need to deal with that,” he says, a clinical tone.

My arms instantly lock around my middle. “No.”

He pauses. “I can get the stains out. Or I’ll burn it.”

I shake my head, backing up an inch.

“Jubilee.” He sighs, his shoulders moving with his persistence. “It ties you to what happened.”

My speech comes out in pieces. “Do w-we ha-have to?”

Everything about him goes rigid. Like his rational brain is warring with whatever the hell he sees when he considers me. “Why?” he asks finally.

My fingers dig into the thick cotton. “Because it’s proof.”

The quiet humor leaves his face. He’s impossible to read. “Proof of what?”

I hug myself tighter and whisper, “Proof I survived.”

He stares at me for a long, heavy beat. And then he nods. “Keep it.”

I breathe like I’ve surfaced. My soul re-enters the building, even if I’m near boneless.

The ride back to my neighborhood is a blur of exhaustion and adrenaline crash. I don’t give him my actual address. I have him pull up beside a sprawling cluster of brick apartment buildings arranged around a courtyard. There are dozens of identical side entrances. Smart. Or, at least, I hope it’s smart. Depends on how good his computer skills are.