“You see?” I said to Zee, but she was watching Gentry like she was waiting for him to finish a phone call. Like it was totally normal.

CHAPTER 40

Zee

   I took Gentry into the bathroom, but once we were alone in there with the door closed, I felt stupid. I should have said what I wanted to say in front of everyone.

“My lady, thou art troubled,” he said.

“Yeah, I don’t think your friends want to go, and that’s probably a good thing. Maybe just Dirk and I should go.”

“Sir Rhys and Sir Edrard may do as it please them, but I am thy champion, and methinks more ready to do battle than Master Dirk.”

“I keep thinking about what you said about never hitting anybody in anger before, and I’m afraid this might turn out to be more of that,” I said.

“I am not afraid.” He’d had his head down, but he lifted it and said, “May I kiss thee?”

“Now? No. You need to seriously think about this.” It was nice to say no and have him listen, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

“Nay, I hear thee, but thou speakest naught I know not already,” he said. Not to me, because he cocked his head to the right. If it had to be one or the other, I’d take the black knight over that bitch Hildegard any day. Gentry took a step closer to me, so that he was actually in my personal space. Face-to-face, looking down at him from only a couple inches away, I watched his eyelashes flutter when he blinked.

“It’s not that I don’t like kissing you, but that this is serious,” I said.

“I ken ’tis no light matter, my lady. I swore to serve thee howsoever I might, and I would kiss thee to remind thee I am bound to thee by my oath and my flesh.”

And I had let him make that reckless oath both ways. I’d opened my legs right up, and let him make some solemn vow to me that I barely understood.

“Is it okay if I touch you?” I said.

“Yea.”

I brought my hands up to his jaw, to hold him. Then I kissed him straight on, my lips against his lips. The most sincere kiss I had ever given anyone in my life. The same way he shook hands. Before we could get distracted, I let go of him and stepped back.

“Okay,” I said. “Whatever you think is best.”

“My bond to thee abideth. If thou goest, I shall go.”

“Then you’re going.”

Rhys, on the other hand, was not going. When Gentry and I came out of the bathroom, Dirk was leaning against the dresser, eating a piece of leftover pizza. Rhys and Edrard were huddled together, whispering. They broke apart when we stepped into the room.

“Please, tell me you talked some sense into him,” Rhys said.

“I am sensible of the danger,” Gentry said, but that was all.

I didn’t say anything. I laid my backpack out on the bed and started deciding what to leave and what to take. Gentry did the same.

After a minute or so, Edrard unzipped his bag, and he and Gentry started talking about what weapons to take. Dirk picked up an axe from the things Gentry had laid out on the bed.

“Holy shit. Y’all are some crazy motherfuckers. All’s I brought was this.”

Dirk pulled a 9 mm out of his belt. Dane’s, if I was guessing. Like he had with my gun, Gentry took it apart and oiled it. While he was wiping down the bullets and reloading them, Rhys had a meltdown.

“Jesus fucking Christ! You cannot do this!” he said.

“You don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” Edrard said.

“I swear, I’ll call the police. You walk out that door, I will call the police and tell them what you’re doing.”

“What wilt thou tell them, Sir Rhys?” Gentry didn’t even look up to say it.

“That you’re going on some half-assed rescue mission, armed with guns and swords.”

“What do you think they’ll do?” I said, as I loaded the money into my smaller backpack.

“Stop you.”

“Yeah. They’ll probably arrest us, so if that’s what you want.”

He wasn’t going to do it, but he stood there for a few minutes before he came up with his next threat: “Fine. I’ll call Gentry’s parents. Let’s see what Mr. and Mrs. Frank have to say about this plan.”

I wondered if Gentry was about to hit somebody in anger for the second time in a week, because he had his jaw clenched when he turned to Rhys.

“Thou must do as thou wilt, Sir Rhys, but I called upon thee to help me, for I believed thou wert true and brave. Call me not thy brother, if thou wouldst be my nursemaid.”

Gentry was probably the nicest guy I’d ever met, but I was relieved to find out that wasn’t all he was.

“Edrard, you’re not really going, are you?” Rhys said.

“Yeah, I’m going. Gentry is my brother and, for once, I’d like to go do something without you or Rosalinda making me feel like a bumbling idiot.”

Rhys sat down on the edge of the bed, watching Edrard and Gentry pack. Once we were finished, I did what I knew had to be done.

“Give me your phones,” I said. “We can’t take anything that can be used to prove we were there.”

“Oh, shit, for real?” Dirk said.

“I didn’t even think of that.” Edrard took out his phone and looked at it.

Gentry didn’t hesitate. He laid his phone on top of his iPad on the dresser. Whatever notes we needed were on the map. I turned my phone off and added it to the stack. Dirk shrugged and did the same. Edrard fretted and sent one last text message before he gave his up.

“We’ll stop at Walmart and buy a couple burner phones, so we can—”

“And you’re just going to leave me here?” Rhys said.

“The room is paid for tonight,” I said.

“We’ll come back and get you,” Edrard said. He looked embarrassed, but then he was Rhys’ ride.

* * *

—

WE DROVE STRAIGHT south out of town, Gentry and I in his truck, Dirk riding with Edrard. We made two stops, at a Walmart across the Arkansas state line to pick up a pair of burner phones and, once we got to Murfreesboro, to get some dinner. In the parking lot of a Sonic, we double-checked our plan. The map was at least fifteen years old, and it had been unfolded and refolded until the seams were worn white. But between it and the satellite images we’d looked at, we knew where we were going.