Chapter 636
Frushed
nyone looked at Kael.
I looked at the road ahead.
sponsible.” Jordan said.
:were,” Kael said.
el,” Jordan said.
were responsible,” Kael said.
ere are thirty-seven entries in this section. Jordan said.
at’s-” Kael started.
fourteen months,” Jordan said.
were responsible each time,” Kael sand.
sponsible,” Jordan said again.
sponsible-” Kael started.
1,” Nina said.
ryone said it simultaneously.
sponsible-ish.*
: car erupted.
lan was making a sound that was not quite professional. Nina had her hand over hertice
h the specific quality of someone trying to contain something and failing complete
- who did not offem produce visible amusement, was doing something in 1
the closest I’d seem to Elite laughing. Killian had the expression of som
his car for twenty minutes and had already received more informatio
ected.
ry reached forward and turned the radio on.
4:05 pm
harcer
M
Bis turned it up.
Finished
—
The song came through the speakers with the specific quality of something that had been waiting for exactly this moment the upbeat rhythm, the specific melody that I recognized from the playlist that had been playing in the common room for the past two weeks and had lodged itself in the pack’s collective ear
Ivory started singing.
Not performing – actually singing, the real version, the one that existed when she’d decided the moment required it. Her voice was-
I hadn’t known.
I hadn’t known that Ivory sang.
–
She sang the way she did everything that she was genuinely good at with complete competence and zero performance, the specific quality of someone who was doing the thing rather than demonstrating the thing.
Nina came in immediately.
*You hit like a drunk cigarette,* Nina sang. *The feelin’ amplified-*
Jordan from his section: *By sayin’ things we never meant, oh, yeah-*
Ivory: *You leave me filled with regret-*
They knew all the words.
They knew all the words in the specific way of people who’d been singing together for long enough that the songs had become part of the shared language, the specific vocabulary of a group of people who’d built something together and had the songs as part of the evidence.
Ivory: *Do you got plans for life? ‘Cause I don’t wanna just romance tonight-*
Killian came in on his verse.
I turned to look at him.
He was singing.
Killian was singing in the back seat of Kael’s car with the photographs in the door the journal in Jordan’s hands, and his voice had the quality of someone who hadn’t do in twelve years and was discovering that the ability was still there, waiting, the same way
4:05 pm
M
Finished
Henings waited.
ith rhythm, there is rhyme,* Killian sang. With you, the always can be I-*
e chorus came and everyone who had been in this carb biore came in together and the ether had the specific weight of people who’d sung thisis before, in this car, in a version of ngs that had been and was now something else but still underneath, had the same bones.
Hon’t wanna talk down on your lover-*
don’t wanna be a homewrecker-*
ust know I can be better, be better, be better+-*
el was silent.
was driving with both hands on the wheel and the expression of someone who was eiving something they’d been not-receiving for three years and was letting it arrive.
me on,” Nina said.
n the Alpha,” Kael said. “I don’t do childish-”
AEL,” everyone said.
e song moved to the bridge and Killian came in again and Elite came in from the backk
h the specific unexpected quality of Elite doing something no one had expected, and there prus built back up and this sitine-
wanna kiss you on the bedd and on the floor-*
el said:
Then I’m poor, whead fini bored-*
said it quietlyy
en less quiesity
7
4:06 pm
Chapter 636
M
full volume, on the way to do something dangerous and important and necessary.
Silver said: *This is what they are.
*I know,* I said.
*Not just the briefings and the plans and the battles,* Silver said. *This too.*
*Yes,* I said.
*Both things,* Silver said.
*Both things,* I confirmed.
Finished
I was in the back seat between Killian and Elite with the quilts and the photographs and the moon bullets in the boot and the journal with thirty-seven entries in Jordan’s lap, and outside the window Shadowmere’s territory was becoming the wider world, the roads opening up, the trees changing into the specific landscape of somewhere else.
And the car was singing.
I came in on the chorus.
*I don’t wanna be a homewrecker-*
Nina’s head turned.
She looked at me.
I looked back.
I just know I can be better, be better, be better-*
She smiled.
The real one.
And I sang, in Kael’s car, with the inner circle of Shadowmere, on the way to somer!:
4:06 pm
Chapter 636
All things.
M
*Be better, be better, be better.”
TIME SKIP
The
Finished
gas station appeared at the side of the road four hours into the drive like something that had been placed there specifically for people who needed to stop being in a car for a few minutes.
Nina pulled in with the efficiency of someone who managed security operations and therefore had a relationship with fuel levels that involved never letting them get below a certain point. Jordan in the passenger seat had been in the specific position he’d been celebrating for approximately forty-five minutes – the position with Ivory’s name tag behind it, which he’d been enjoying with the particular satisfaction of someone receiving a small victory they’d been waiting a long time for.
Ivory had been booing him since the gas station came into view.
“You’re going to have to get out of that seat eventually,” she said.
“Not yet,” Jordan said.
“We’re stopping for fuel,” she said.
“I’ll get back in after,” he said.
“That’s not-there’s a specific order of operations-”
“You have your name tag,” Jordan said. “I have the seat. These are not the same thing.”
“The name tag confers-”
“Nothing,” Jordan said. “The name tag confers nothing. It’s a piece of laminate.”
“It confers permanent shotgun,” Ivory said.
“Confers to whoever is sitting there,” Jordan said. “I’m sittin
me.”
4:06 pm
Chapter 636
M
Finished
you two can sort it out,” Nina said, turning off the engine with the composure of someone who’d been listening to this for four hours and had achieved a specific kind of peace with it.
“Fuel and snacks,” she said.
“Snacks,” Jordan said, with the quality of a man who’d been in the passenger seat for the past two hours and had been waiting for this word.
“Jordan,” Nina said.
“I’m getting out now,” Jordan said.
“We get fuel first,” Nina said.
“I’m getting out and then fuel,” Jordan said. “I have been sitting in the same position for two hours and I need-”
“The same position that I offered to rotate you out of forty minutes ago,” Nina said.
“The same position that I was very comfortable in forty minutes ago,” Jordan said. “My comfort threshold has since changed.”
“Get out,” Nina said.
Jordan got out.
Kael was already out – I’d noticed that he moved before the car fully stopped, the Alpha’s reflex of not being contained for longer than necessary, the wolf’s relationship with stationary positions in enclosed spaces. He stretched in the forecourt with the specific quality of someone whose left side was significantly better than it had been but was still informing him of its continued existence.
The formation that developed was organic.
Kael went to the fuel pump. Ivory appeared from the side and went directly to the convenience store without discussion, which suggested that the division of responsibilities – Kael fuels, Ivory handles the snack procurement – was something that had been established through years of exactly this kind of ston and didn’t wan
4:06 pm
Chapter 636
M
Killian got out beside me.
Finished
Killian stretched with the expression of someone who’d been in a confined space with the inner circle for four hours and was updating his understanding of what confined space with the inner circle meant. He was fine. He’d been fine. But there was a specific quality to someone who’d been in close quarters with people who had a great deal of shared history and had spent the time observing how that history expressed itself in small spaces.
“How are you,” I said.
“I learned things,” he said.”
“About the journal,” I said.
“About many things,” he said.
“Responsible-ish,” I said.
“That’s going to be a long time getting out of my head,” he said.
Nina was already heading toward the door.
“Aria,” she said, over her shoulder. “Get what you like. Not what you think we want or what seems safe. What you actually like.”
“What if I like something strange,” I said.
“Then it’s yours and nobody else’s,” she said. “That’s the rule. Nobody shares. If you hate whay you picked, that is your specific burden.”
“Same for Killian,” Jordan said.
“I know what I like,” Killian said.
“Good,” Jordan said. “Because I’m not sharing my-” he looked at the station’s facade, “- whatever they have. I’m not sharing it.”
“Nobody asked you to share,” Nina said.
“Preemptive
4:06 pm
Chapter 636
M
Those were communal snacks,” Ivory said.
“They were my snacks, Jordan said.
“They were on the communal shelf,” Ivory said.
Finished
“Because I put them on the communal shelf,” Jordan said. “For storage. Not for communal-”
“The communal shelf is communal, Jordan,” Ivory said.
“I’m calling it now,” Jordan said. “Whatever I get in there is mine. Not communal. Mine specifically.”
“Noted,” Ivory said.
“Ivory,” Jordan said.
“I heard you,” she said.
“Ivory,” he said again.
“I’m not going to eat your snacks,” she said.
“That’s exactly what someone who was going to eat my snacks would say,” he said.
They went through the door.
I followed, and the gas station received us with the specific indifference of a space that existed to be useful and had no opinion about who was being useful in it.
The interior was one long aisle running parallel to a refrigerated section on the back wall, with a secondary aisle branching off toward the hot food counter that was producing a specific smell that was coffee and something fried and the specific combination of both.
Kael had a basket.