I show up at the forensic laboratory and a grief counselor immediately greets me. A woman in her mid-thirties, thin with perfectly applied makeup and a haircut from the magazines. She shakes my hand, the grin that graces her face confirms blue blood runs in her veins. She explains that I’ll need to identify him by a photograph. I was his only contact person. Me. How sad is that?

The last time I saw him was the day shit went down, and I dread the idea of seeing how he spent the last few years while I was eating four bangers and trying (yet failing) to stay out of trouble.

She sits me down and shows me a picture, and I nod, my face blank. It’s him, all right. The last person who resembled family in my life is dead. No mom. No dad. No neighbor who showed me the ropes in prison. No one.

If I die on my way back to Stockton, no one will give a rat’s ass. Just like no one gave a rat’s ass about Frank. The grief counselor breaks the self-pity party I’m throwing by rubbing her palm against the back of my hand.

“Hey. I don’t usually do this, but I’m almost done here. Give me ten minutes, and we can grab a drink?”

Everyone wants to f*ck Nate Vela, but no one offers a shoulder to cry on.

I stand up, and she scans me up and down, her throat bobbing with a swallow. “Sorry,” I say and pick up my keys and wallet. “Gotta go.”

I spend the ride back home trying to come up with legitimate reasons to wake up tomorrow morning. So that. . .what? I could work a shitty job I hate under the supervision of a woman who pinches my ass and giggles, make minimum wage to try and escape a life I don’t even have so the Aryan Brotherhood wouldn’t kill me? So I could continue on existing, for no reason other than my basic, human instinct to survive?

I’m not even sure why I’m preventing Pea’s escape. She probably has more of a life to live, and she certainly tries harder than I do. I’m just being a greedy bastard, saving my life instead of sparing hers.

Making a booze stop at a bar on the outskirts of Stockton, I come back to the house sauced as f*ck. It’s three a.m. Too late to check on her. Even if she’s not asleep, we’re not friends. I can’t cry on her shoulder. Can’t crawl into her lap. Even though she’d want that. Welcome me with open arms.

But she’d do it to save herself, not me.

I stomp my way to my room, kicking my boots against the wall and shouldering past a sleepy Irv, who wobbles his way back from another night shift.

It doesn’t take a genius to see that I’m upset, but he doesn’t care. We’re practically strangers. Two people who share a roof because we can’t afford not to.

Once I fall onto the mattress, I scrub my eyes, fighting the sting.

I wait for her to talk, because she always does whenever she hears me getting into bed. I can feel that she’s awake. She waits for those fifteen minutes with me, longs for them as much as I do.

Oh, f*ck. What the hell am I saying? I shouldn’t want shit from her.

But right now, I’m too down to care. Don’t care that I’m breaking for her, playing into her dangerous game, and that Irv is likely to hear us.

“Talk,” I order, staring at my mold-stained popcorn ceiling, wishing it was the wood of a coffin. I need comfort, a distraction, and she’s it. I’m Mrs. Hathaway’s dancing monkey, and Pea? She’s f*cking mine. Pea doesn’t answer.

“Goddammit, Prescott. My day was f*cking brutal,” I grunt. “Talk.”

Nothing.

“Fucking talk!” I shout, rolling my body to the edge of the bed and slamming my fist to the floor. Irv raps the wall of his room three times. “Shut the f*ck up, man. What’re you doing drinking on weekdays?”

“Talk,” I whisper one last time, ignoring Irv, knowing she can hear me. But she doesn’t utter a word. This girl who seemed hell-bent on blabbing when I left her last night is now mute. What’s changed? Has Irv done something to her? No. He knows I’d kill him.

Maybe she’s given up on life too. Great f*cking timing, Pea.

Bitch.

I hope I’m betting the right horse.

Nate just begged me to talk to him, and I threw the opportunity out the window, even though the original plan was to butter him up and win his heart, or at the very least, his dick.

Nate.

Ink gave me his name tonight. The idiot.

The mastermind showed up in the basement earlier than Nate usually does, probably before his night shift. I know that because Nate arrives when the owls start singing me my lullabies for the night. I was just marking Day Four with my new chalk on the wall when he came down, bringing canned food, his ski mask reeking of weed. I’m not used to five-star hotel service, but at least Nate—or Beat—brings edible food and snacks to see me through the next day.

“God’s girl, you’ve got fifteen minutes, yeah? Let’s go. I got a shift in half an hour.”

I hated that he came for me. Then again, Nate is airtight and doesn’t let me budge. Maybe Ink would give me more space, and I could run away.

“Okay.” Excitement pushed me up to my feet, and I strode over to him.

“Keep your distance.” He manhandled me, poking me up the stairs from behind. “Beat said you’re a biter. Don’t make me crush your teeth.”

Huh.

Nate was trying to keep Ink away from me. I had a giddy feeling that I knew exactly why.