From the moment Glitch leaves to Janx’s appearance feels like an eternity. I stare through the scope, waiting for any sign of the man I’m here to kill. The waiting stirs up worries inside me. What if Janx isn’t the bad guy? Am I the bad guy? Why did I agree to do this? Can I possibly be a good mother one day when I’ve spent my life doing evil shit like this?

Panic grips me until a single image flashes through my mind.

Duffy Jones.

Cayenne’s been in my bloody position before, yet she loves her daughter with all her heart.

For the next few minutes, I think of Cayenne and Duffy. I’ve watched the little girl grow up, and I know she has an amazing mom. Evil deeds don’t always make an evil person. After all, Glitch is out here with me, and I know he isn’t evil. He’s as decent a man as I’ve ever known. And he loves me, flaws and all.

Relaxed now, I stare through the scope and wait for my shot that finally comes when Janx stumbles out the front door wearing only long johns, a flannel top, and slippers. He carries a gun in his hand, but he looks more scared than on the warpath. For a second, I let myself pity him.

Then I pull the trigger, taking off the left side of his face while he stands on his porch.

Exhaling roughly, I can’t believe it was so easy. My heart beats faster, and I wait for the other shoe to drop.

I scan the area through my scope, waiting for trouble. Janx’s body doesn’t move. Smoke billows from the back of the cabin and I catch sight of fire moving through the main room.

I’m still scouting the area with the rifle when I hear approaching footsteps and turn the weapon toward Glitch. Smiling might not be appropriate in our current situation, but I’m so fucking relieved to know he’s safe.

Dropping to his knees next to me, Glitch reaches for my face.

“You’re okay?”

“I’m okay. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Though I nearly burned off my balls.”

“Balls or not, I love you.”

Glitch lowers his mask to reveal a smiling face, and I do the same so our lips can meet. The kiss is interrupted by a small explosion in the cabin. Startled, I point my rifle at the sound.

“Seems Oz was right about Janx having weapons and explosives in his place.”

Another small explosion rips through the quiet night. Flinching, we watch the fire fully engulf the cabin including the porch.

“Let’s go,” Glitch says and picks up my pack.

“Do you think the fire will spread?”

“Doubtful, but just in case, we ought to put a little distance between us and the cabin.”

I slide on the pack, hating the weight pulling me down again. We move through the woods, able to see between the moon peering through the clouds and the blaze.

We walk for nearly five minutes, losing our light as clouds grow heavier. I manage to keep up with Glitch until my boot slides on a rock, causing me to stumble to my right. Before I can regain my balance, I’m stunned by searing pain.

I think I scream, but Glitch doesn’t slow. On my ass now, I reach for my leg.

“Glitch,” I whisper as loud as possible.

His crunching footsteps stop and a moment of silence passes while he searches for me. I spot his flashlight and then hear his footsteps rushing toward me.

“I stepped in something,” I whimper. “I dropped my flashlight. Do you see it? I don’t know what my leg is stuck in.”

My panicked voice makes me sound ready to cry, but I’m more pissed than scared. I can’t lift my leg, and my gloved hands can’t figure out what’s holding me still.

“Deep breath,” Glitch says, sounding absolutely calm. “Let me see.”

I pull off my gloves and take his flashlight. His now bare hands study the metal wrapped around my ankle.

“It’s a bear trap,” he whispers. “I don’t think it broke through your boot.”

“It hurts so fucking much,” I mutter through gritted teeth. “Can you get it off?”

“Yep, just hold on.”

Glitch wrenches open the trap, and I lift my leg free. The pain changes immediately. Rather than sharp pain, now I deal with throbbing pain.

“Can you help me stand?”

The throbbing pain returns to a sharp screaming agony that lands me back on my ass.

“Fuck,” I growl. “What now?”

Glitch stands up, and I hear the metal trap jangling followed by a loud crunch in the distance.

“We’ll set up camp here and figure everything out in the morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumble, immediately defeated to be so useless.

“I can’t see you in the dark. I hope you’re smiling to know your man will handle shit.”

“I am smiling,” I lie. “My man is the fucking best.”

Holding the flashlight where he directs, I watch him put together the small tent and unroll the sleeping bags. I again try to stand, but my ankle can’t hold any weight. I put my gloves back on before my fingers freeze. Crawling into the tent, I remove my boots so I can squirm into the sleeping bag. Glitch takes the flashlight and searches for my missing one.

“Found it.”

“I’m sorry,” I instinctively say. “I can’t believe I stepped in that shit.”

Glitch climbs into the tent and hands me the second flashlight. He zips the fabric, cutting down the cold wind.

“Could have been me. No way to see it in the snow.”

“My ankle and foot feel numb.”

“Either broken or sprained. We’ll find out tomorrow,” he says, keeping his tone light. “Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Thirsty?”

I sip the water, afraid to drink too much and need to pee soon. The wind picks up, ripping at the tent.

“This is the pits,” I mumble while Glitch attempts to get his large frame comfortable in the small tent. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Tell me about your father.”

Frowning in the darkness, I ask, “Why?”

“Bad memories will distract from your current crap situation.”

“Is that really your plan?”

“Yes, Clove. I have it all planned out.”

I laugh at his tone and hear him chuckle in response. “You don’t have to, but you’ve never told me, and I shared about my mom earlier.”

“It’s not a competition,” I tease.

“I know, but my balls are frozen, and I’m worried as fuck about your leg. I need a distraction. Oh, and I’m worried the beef jerky from earlier will give me the runs.”

Laughing again, I reach for him in the darkness. “I’ll tell you about my father if we can keep a small light on. The dark is freaking me out.”

Glitch switches on a flashlight. “I assume your father is dead.”

“Yes.”

“When did he die?”

“When I was fourteen.”

Glitch adjusts his position, causing pain in my otherwise numb leg. I keep my mouth shut so he won’t feel guilty for wanting to find comfort on the hard ground.

“How did he die?” he asks after a minute of trying to find the right position.

“It’s complicated.”

“With no sex or TV, feel free to take your time explaining.”

Exhaling deeply, I rest my hand on his chest. “I don’t know how to explain his death except to explain the reason he died. My parents met when she was nineteen. He quickly married her and brought her to the US for what she assumed was a better life. She obviously thought he was a good man, so I assumed he must have shown her a side of him besides the raging asshole I knew.”

“Raging about what?”

“Everything pissed him off. Work. Neighbors. Where we lived. He once took a belt to us because planes were flying too low and he couldn’t hear the TV. Life disappointed him, so he disappointed my mother. Their disappointment killed them both, I guess.”

“How exactly did he die?”

I search for the right words, but only honesty makes sense. “My pimp killed him.”

“Why?”

“My father got hooked on heroin and needed cash, so he pimped out my mom. When she died, he got clean, stopped raging, and started dating women. For a while, he seemed happy. He ignored me for the most part, so I was happy too. I missed my mom, but I didn’t miss the beatings. Mostly, I didn’t miss the fear. He hated her so much, and she pissed him off all the time. Sometimes, I think she did it on purpose because she hated him. They fed off each other’s misery.”

Shivering, I remember the way my mother glared at my father while he beat her. I often expected to wake up to find she’d killed him while he slept.

“Once she was gone,” I continue after the wind quiets down, “I got a break from his bad moods. The women he brought around were usually nice, and I spent a lot of time at my friends’ houses. Then one of those women cheated on him. He probably cheated on her too, but I remember the night everything changed. The father I grew up with was back, and he had no one to beat on except me. Those women wouldn’t put up with that shit, so he demanded I stay at the house all the time. He needed someone to yell at. Soon, he was drinking and then I found him high on heroin again. I knew he’d need money, and I understood I would have to get it for him.”

I change positions in the dark tent but make sure my hand remains nuzzled in Glitch’s jacket so I can find his heartbeat.

“I tried running away. One of those times, I hooked up with an older guy who let me stay at his place. That’s how I lost my virginity. I didn’t want to fuck the guy, but I wanted him to take care of me and had nothing of value except my body. When my father showed up looking for me, the guy walked away as if I was nothing to him.”

“That’s when your dad pimped you out?” Glitch asks, and I hear the tension in his voice.

Patting his chest, I sigh. “Yeah, and I actually liked it for a while. I know that sounds crazy, but I was out of the house, and I got to keep some of the money. Sure, I wasn’t supposed to, but if I made a hundred and twenty, I’d tell him it was a hundred. Hooking gave me power, and I had value to my dad. He didn’t hit me as much. It wasn’t a happy life, but things were better. For a while anyway.”

“So how did the pimp get involved?”

I think back to the night I met Pharrell. Had he seen the rage in my eyes like I’d seen in my mother’s?

“Pharrell pimped other girls who hung around the streets I worked. He was really nice to me and asked about my bruises. Pharrell wanted to know if customers did it. He seemed so concerned. I knew it was a con. Everyone lied to me back then. Teachers even told me I did a good job on schoolwork because they felt sorry for me when I showed up tired and looking like shit. Even if I knew Pharrell was lying about being a nice guy, I didn’t care.”

“Did you want him to kill your dad?”

“Yes,” I say immediately before asking, “Does that make me a monster?”

“No,” he answers without missing a beat.

“I didn’t want to give up like my mom. She was all alone in a country she didn’t understand. Her English wasn’t strong, and she had no real skills. She was trapped, so she gave up. But I knew I could make it on my own if I could survive until I was eighteen. With my dad, though, I wasn’t sure I’d last that long.”

Pausing, I think back to how terrified I was of my father. “Some nights, I caught him standing in my bedroom’s doorway while I slept. At first, I worried he’d rape me. Then I realized his hands were in fists. I’d lie in the dark, pretending to sleep and watch him through mostly closed eyes. I’d see his fists open and close, clenching over and over.”

My breath catches. I remember how prepared I was those nights for him to enter my room. The mix of panic and preparation kept my body painfully tight until he finally walked away.

“I knew he would kill me. Even having value, I disappointed him. One day, he would snap, and I didn’t know if I’d survive his wrath.”

I surprise us both by laughing. “I got the idea to kill my dad from George W. Bush. Isn’t that funny? In school, I learned about Iraq and the Bush Doctrine of a preemptive strike. I wasn’t a good student, but I got the basic point. I needed to preemptively kill my father before he killed me.”

“Did you ask the pimp to kill him or just let him know he should?” Glitch asks, and I feel his lips against my forehead.

“Does it matter?”

“Not really, but I like knowing how your brain works. These days, you’re blunt, so I think you’d just tell the pimp to do it. Back then, though, you were younger and powerless. You probably had to be sneakier to survive.”

“I don’t care what you think of me,” I blurt out, wishing I still had the power to protect my heart from him.

“That’s a lie.”

Sighing, I say, “I know.”

“Did you hint about killing your dad to the pimp and he got the point?”

“Yeah.”

“How did he do it?”

“Pharrell beat him to death with a tire iron while I was at school. I found my father and called the cops. Before I left that morning, I hid a bag of my stuff in a nearby drainage pipe for when I would run away from child services.”

“Did you ever think of staying with them?”

“No, because they would have hooked me up with my father’s family,” I grumble, offended by Glitch asking an obvious question. “I didn’t know those people, but I sensed they weren’t safe. An asshole like my father isn’t born out of the blue. Someone makes him that way. Plus, his family lived in Texas, and I didn’t want to end up like my mom by getting stuck in a strange place. My plan was to survive until I turned eighteen. In Little Memphis, I felt safe, so I ran away from the first foster house and went to Pharrell.”

“Was he good to you?”

“We lived in a rental house with a few other girls. He never hit me, but he did hurt a few of the older girls. I behaved, and he took care of me. No beatings or fear. I mean, sure, with the customers, I worried about my safety. I’d take them into an alley where Pharrell could keep an eye out, but I still worried. I needed to stay alive until I was eighteen and had more power.”

“What happened to your pimp?”

Despite our current situation and talking about bad times, I can’t help bursting into laughter. “What do you think happened? He underestimated Ginger,” I say, giggling. “Though to be fair, I did too. She was a fucking teenage girl when she took over blocks of territory. She demanded a say with the whores and drugs. Everyone thought killing her would be easy. Instead, she killed Pharrell and the others, taking over their territory and girls. That’s how she ended up being my pimp.”

“How did you go from hooker to one of the crew?” Glitch asks, and I hear the amusement in his tone.

Reaching up to find his face, I discover a smile on his lips. “Unlike most of the other girls working for Ginger, I was a teenager. She asked if I wanted to do something besides fuck losers. I could be a lookout or an errand girl for less money, but she’d give me a place to live and keep me safe. Of course, I jumped at the chance. After that, I watched and learned from her and the other girls in the crew. When I turned eighteen, I remained with them. I liked how she ran things. I also had a taste for the same kind of violence my dad liked except I didn’t pick on kids and women. I wanted someone who could fight back. I liked the idea of defeating my enemies. The crew became my family, and I decided to follow Ginger wherever she went.”

“What would have broken many people, made you stronger.”

“Don’t be so dramatic.”

“My mother became an addict because life bored her,” he says, and the hurt in his voice breaks my heart. “She didn’t have a bad childhood. If anything, hers was too easy. She never had to struggle for anything. She never knew loss or the pain of working hard without succeeding. I don’t hate her, but I can’t respect how willing she was to hide from herself.”

“Does it ever make you feel bad to sell the kind of drugs your mom took?”

“No. I don’t push anything. I sell a product people want. I don’t make them take it.”

“Everyone has a vice. Booze, cigs, sex, drugs, food, shopping, it’s always something. Any vice can destroy a person.”

“I don’t think the banker loses sleep over taking someone’s house or business,” Glitch says, and I swear his hand is searching for my ass cheek. “The government doesn’t shed a tear over those it taxes to pay for dumb shit. Everyone needs to make a living. I make mine by selling something people want. If people wanted to buy paintings, I’d learn to paint. Or find someone who can paint and sell their shit like I pimp out the girls who want to sell their bodies. It’s not a pretty business, but most aren’t. Behind a restaurant is the slaughter of animals to make delicious steaks and burgers. Nothing comes without a cost.”

“You sound like me.”

“I am like you. In this way, I guess. It’s why we make sense,” he says and sighs when his hand finally locates my butt.

“You say that about everything. When we aren’t the same, you tell me it’s a good thing because opposites attract.”

“I’ve never coveted money or power. In my entire life, I’ve only coveted you, Clove Jones.”

“Louisa,” I whisper in the darkness. “My birth name is Louisa.”

Glitch chuckles and kisses my forehead. “More proof we’re meant to be.”

“Matchy names are lame.”

“We both go by something else.”

“Why do they call you Glitch?” I ask, now reaching around for his butt to keep us symmetrical.

“Check me out when I’m drunk some time. I apparently act like a robot glitching out. I’ve seen a video, but I think I look like I’m having tiny seizures.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I balk, cupping his ass. “I thought you were good at electronics or something.”

“I am, but that’s not why they called me Glitch.”

“Oh, well, I most definitely need to see you drunk now. It’s the only way for me to be certain about your explanation.”

“Then we know what we have to do once we get back into town.”

I try to imagine us at Rusty Cage with our friends. The bar is overheated and smells of beer and body odor. I close my eyes and feel Glitch against me in a booth rather than trapped in a wind-beaten tent. Simple joys suddenly have value in a way they didn’t weeks ago. Calm replaced my restlessness.

Then I adjust my leg, sending blinding pain through me. “I fucked up tonight.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I’m scared we won’t get home. I don’t want to die out here.”

“You won’t. We’ll be home tomorrow night.”

Resting against Glitch, I struggle with my tears. My leg hurts so much, and we didn’t think to bring pain meds. We’re fucking morons.

Overwhelmed with hopelessness, I feel like we’re a million miles away from home. No way can I walk back to the snowmobiles in the morning. We’re doomed fucking morons.

Glitch wraps his arms around me and begins to sing a child’s song. Smiling now, I cuddle closer. Like his mother, he’ll never get a recording contract, but his singing warms me even while the world freezes outside.