The only thing blotting out the darkness is the two beams coming from my headlights. They’re enough to give me a headache. They’re unnatural. They shoot out straight ahead and I should cut them off. I’m not far enough from the road, though. If I cut the lights and a motorist veers off the road, another car could careen into ours. So I leave the lights on as I get out of my SVU.

She’s sleeping in the front seat, her eyes closed softly and her head leaning against her window. God, what the fuck am I doing? If it weren’t for her, I’d probably sit in my car on the side of the road in total darkness and let whatever the fuck happens to just happen.

I take out my pack of cigarettes and light up, taking a long drag. I fill my lungs completely and fully with the hot, soothing nicotine, and exhale, letting the smoke out in a straight stream into the sky above my face. It’s like a fuck-you to whatever’s up there.

Because now I have her, and I don’t want to let her go.

We’re about a forty miles out from where we need to be. I have a job to do, but it can wait. Plus I have a drop to make - I have to get Cherry to my house where I’ll stash her until my uncle forgets I ever had a girl who made me want to get down on one knee.

My house out in the desert is small, but it’s comfortable. I don’t know if I’ll be able to give her permission to leave once she’s locked safely inside, though. I have the place souped up with security, but once she’s out, my fortress won’t be able to protect her. It only protects what’s inside the four walls of the house. It doesn’t extend out to the garden and the fountain where I have my red and white roses growing. She won’t be able to see what I’ve created, what I’ve grown. She’ll only be able to see what my work has been able to buy - a security system to keep her, my guns, and my money safe.

Her father and I are opposites in a lot of ways. He had delusions - big ones, and in that regard maybe he could have made it in my world. Uncle would have liked him, in a small way, had they ever met and if it had been under different circumstances. Cherry’s father thought he could edge out an advantage over the house and that he could win. And I know he was always chasing that win. That’s why he got mixed up with me and my family. But I know he couldn’t stop once he won enough...nothing would be enough for him. He would have wanted more. Not because he was greedy. He wasn’t. But he did it because he wanted to believe he’d beaten the system. He wanted to know he was smarter and better and stronger. Than what, he wasn’t sure, I don’t think. Not smarter and better and stronger than another person. I think he wanted to be better than some machine, some system that he knew was stacked against him. He wanted to transcend. He wanted to prove something.

I don’t think he ever thought the consequence of his vice would land on his daughter’s shoulders.

There’s a town up ahead, and I think we’re almost there. It’s through muscle memory that I’m getting us where we’re going. Memory is leading us to where we need to be.

My uncle sent me there to see him when he got sick, try to determine our exposure. I don’t know how the hell he knew the old man was sick, but I can guess. There’s good people all over who will do bad things for a price. It doesn’t make them bad. But everyone has their price.

The hallway wasn’t putrid when I entered its wide berth to check on him. That’s the worse part. The smell was overpowering like alcohol, but it didn’t smell like death. That’s how I knew they were trying to cover up so much misery. It reminded me of mom, but I pushed those thoughts away. Instead, I thought about my old man. I thought about how he was there for me. I didn’t focus on why he had to be, though.

I saw Cherry huddled over a low table with a little girl, coloring. Her father never told me his little girl had a little girl. He would have told me that. Cherry was in the waiting area of the hospital taking care of someone, but who was taking care of her? Everyone around her was being cared for, getting the best treatment in the state; but who was looking out for Cherry, besides herself?

Her eyes were so red, and heat rose with pain through my body as I looked at her. She never looked up, though. Her eyes were trained down at the little girl. Cherry looked like she’d been crying, but her cheeks were dry. Her eyes were dry.

Her old man told me that she didn’t cry when her mother left. She was too young to know. She cried after that, when she was a teenager, though. I imagined those hot tears streaming down her face, but in this hospital, I couldn’t see any tears on her face. I only saw the evidence that they left behind. Her eyes...they were so red. It made my heart clench up. It hurt me.

And the sounds. It was too loud. She looked confused. I could see that she didn’t know where to look, what to focus on. So she just focused on the little girl she was with.

I don’t have delusions. My cousins have told me I’m too pragmatic. That I’m too practical. But wanting Cherry right now is not fucking practical. Doesn’t matter, though.

I make a call and get in touch with my contact in the hospital. I make the plan and tell him the price and he confirms that it’s a done deal.

I look at Cherry. She’s motionless. I want to carry her away from all of this. All of it.

I walk around my car and slice the beams from the headlights as I pass around the front. I get into the car and slam the door closed. Cherry doesn’t move. I don’t say anything. I let her sleep.