Page 78 of Wraith

A date. He wants to take me on a real date. Not just sex in a motel room, or running from danger, or having fraught conversations about survival. Just... normal relationship things.

I can’t remember the last time we did something normal. Can’t remember the last time he suggested doing something just because it would make me happy instead of because it served some strategic purpose.

“Are you serious?”

“Completely serious. Look, I know things have been intense. I know we’re dealing with a lot of heavy shit. But we’re here, we’re together, and for once we have a few hours where nobody’s actively trying to kill us. I want to spend that time making you happy. Taking you somewhere nice. Treating you the way you deserve to be treated.”

Something in my chest loosens.

The doubt that was coiling around my lungs like smoke dissipates.

This is new.

“I’d like that,” I say, and I’m surprised by how much I mean it. “I’d really like that.”

His smile gets wider. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” He pulls his hand back to shift gears as we merge onto a bigger road. “There’s a steakhouse I saw on the way in. Looked decent. After that, we can walk around downtown, check out the shops. Maybe catch a late movie if anything good is playing.” He glances at me again. “Whatever you want. This is your date. You call the shots.”

My date. I call the shots.

The words wrap around me like a blanket.

I’m smiling. I can feel it happening on my face, this genuine, ear-to-ear smile I haven’t felt in so long that I forgot what it was like. The worry about Wraith controlling me, the guilt about turning down Evan, the fear about the Sons hunting us — all of it fades into background noise.

Because right now, in this moment, I’m just a woman being asked on a date by a man who loves me.

Normal. Regular. The thing I haven’t had in years.

“Can we get dessert?”

“We can get whatever you want.”

“This is going to be good,” I say.

“Yeah,” Wraith says. “It is.”

We drive toward downtown Evansburg, and the sun is bright through the windshield, and his hand finds mine across the seat, and for the first time since this complete nightmare started, I let myself believe that maybe things really will be okay.

Maybe New June can have this. Can have love and happiness and normal dates. Can be independent and capable and also let someone care about her.

Maybe I can have everything.

Chapter Thirty-One

Wraith

Downtown Evansburg looks like a prosperous small town — brick storefronts with fresh, bright paint, antique shops that are really just junk stores for guys like me, a coffee place with chalkboard signs advertising drinks that might as well be in a foreign language. I drive slowly down Main Street with June beside me, and she’s got her face pressed close to the window like a kid looking for something specific. The sun catches her hair and turns it the color of burnt honey.

Suddenly, she points at a restaurant with burgundy awnings.

“There! Bistro Bellisimo,” she says. Her voice carries an excitement I haven’t heard in years, except for the times she’s really gotten into her bondage gear.

I look at the place. White tablecloths visible through the windows. A hostess stand. People in actual clothes instead of the road-worn shit we’re both wearing.

Then I look down at my jeans — the same ones I’ve had on for two days, stained with blood at the knee. My t-shirt smells like sweat and Morrison’s veterinary clinic and the musk of two people who’ve been fucking and running in equal measure.