Page 40 of Dark

“Ellie’s okay. August is with her.”

She chewed her lip. Nodded. Taking my fingers in hers, she turned my hand over, her callouses from years of guitar practice rough against my palm.

Hayden drew my wrist to her lips and kissed my claiming mark. I closed my eyes, feeling the rush of relief as our pulses synched, the heady warmth from the night before when we’d made love flooding through me in a rush. With each passing day, the bond between us grew more intense, more… intimate. And harder to imagine severing, if it ever came down to that. I caught myself staring in the mornings when we were trying to work, couldn’t keep myself from watching the way her hair spilled out over her cheeks when she fell asleep on my couch at night. Hayden Crowe was like a drug. And I didn’t know if I ever wanted to get clean.

When I looked up, she was brushing a finger under her lashes. Leaning in, I pressed a kiss to her throat. She curled her arms around my neck, and more than anything in the world, I wished we could stay right here, like this, together, soft and sleepy. Safe.

Pulling back, I kissed the tip of her nose. “Pancakes?”

Sundays were the one day I always took off. If you got up early enough and beat the weekend crowd coming up from Austin or San Antonio, the streets were quiet, the heat index wasn’t yet bad enough to make you sweat through your clothes, and you could pull out a sketchpad for a few hours and watch the eastern sky slowly change color.

At Guillermo’s, the menus were a little greasy. Good luck finding two chairs that matched. One wall was strung with Christmas lights and a bulletin board featuring pictures of everyone who’d finished an order of their ghost pepper enchiladas, including West and River. Hundreds of faded photographs gazed out from beneath plastic vinyl table covers where you could find everything from pictures of the Howlers marching out on the field at halftime to aerial shots of the town’s nationally famous corn maze.

Hays flipped her hair over one shoulder, looking hot as hell in a black leather moto jacket and ripped skinny jeans. “Did you hear anything from Brody?”

I took a sip of coffee. “He just texted. Says he’s got someone working on it.”

“Someone?”

“One of his contacts.”

She rubbed her temples. “Maybe we should find out where she is, go over there—"

“I think we should give Brody some time. It’s been twelve hours and he’s having to use back channels. I can’t ride his ass on this.”

For that, I got flipped off under the table. Which kind of just made me love her more.

Her chocolate-chip pancakes arrived with a side of breakfast tacos slathered in verde sauce. I got the same thing every week. The migas here were hands-down the best in town, smothered in diced tomatoes, avocado, Monterrey Jack, chopped onion and cilantro.

“Tell me about your show.”

Hayden swirled a piece of bacon through her syrup. “It’s at this club downtown called The Craze. We’ve been trying forever to get in. Austin has hundreds of venues, but between national acts and established locals, it’s hard to break onto the scene.”

“But you got in.”

She nodded through a mouthful of pancakes. “We submitted clips. It’s taken forever for us to work our way up, establish a fan base. Jake, our booking agent, got us a huge break opening for Skittle Days next weekend. They’re out of Seattle.”

“That’s awesome.”

She traced the indigo petals of the daisy tattoo peeking out from the edge of her sleeve. “I think we should use it.”

“Come again?”

“He’s tracking me, has to know I’ll be up there on stage in a week. We set him up. Make it look like I’ll be easy to grab. Just like last time.”

I reached across the table and laced my fingers through hers. “Could get ugly.”

“I want this over.” She blew out a breath. “Whatever it takes.”

Ben might have been Sheriff, but before she put away her knives in order to wrangle an infant Cal and Brody into diapers, Sofia was one of the Southern Territorial Council’s deadliest Tracers. Ben might have been the one to take us out to the back pasture to learn how to hotwire a car and shoot, but it was Mom who taught us to fight, throw a knife, break a hold, track someone with at least two senses compromised, and get out of any binding, whether it was silver, ropes or cuffs.

Her most important lesson? If one of us ever underestimated a girl we were dating, she would kick our ass.

I nodded. “Okay.”

Hayden chewed her lip ring, staring out at the lone truck coughing its way down Main. “For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you, Ethan. I can’t even imagine what you must have gone through back then. You were just a kid. It wasn’t your fault Ben—”

The server walked by and she quickly lowered her voice.