We don’t talk on the way back, or when we finally get into our room. I strip down and shower before climbing into bed, and he showers when I’m finished. We go to sleep together, not talking, not really even touching. There’s like an unspoken truce between us.

In the morning, he gets up first. He dresses quietly and leaves. I stay in bed and watch him, and I wait for him to come back with breakfast. He brings coffee, eggs, pancakes, toast, and a few strips of bacon.

“Decent breakfast,” he comments as he sets it all out on the table.

I join him, sitting down to chew on a slice of bacon and sip my coffee. He watches me, not eating.

“We should talk,” he says finally.

“I know.”

He grabs a pancake and eats it like a Frisbee. I gape at him.

“What are you doing?”

He shrugs. “Easier this way.”

“You’re an animal.”

“You like it.”

I sigh and sip my coffee again. It’s hot and I like that it nearly burns my tongue. “Only sometimes.”

He smiles but we can both tell that this little flirtatious back and forth is somewhat forced.

“How can we find another way?” he asks me bluntly.

I shake my head. “I don’t know. But I don’t trust Alex and I don’t want another death on my hands.”

He clenches his jaw. “Now you don’t trust Alex?”

“I don’t know her,” I point out. “And she was way too eager to try and murder this guy.”

“They have a history.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“A bad history. The sort of history… you kill someone over.” He sighs, shaking his head. “It’s complicated.”

“I know,” I say softly. “It’s always complicated. But, Julian, it doesn’t have to be.”

“Tell me how.”

I look down at the floor. “We had drugs.”

He laughs softly, nearly a cough. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

“No, I mean, left over from that shipment that Leo was trying to sell.” I meet his gaze and he raises an eyebrow.

“I thought he shot it all up.”

“Not all of it. Just enough to put us in a hole.”

“Hm,” he says, frowning. “How much was leftover?”

“I don’t know exactly,” I admit. “Less than half, but still a lot.”

He grunts. “Where is it? Your apartment?”

“No, that’s the problem.”

“Of course.”

“I mean, what do you want from me? We didn’t know this was going to happen.” I can feel my frustration boiling over.

He holds up his hands. “Okay, okay. Sorry. Where is it now?”

“Buried on the beach,” I say. “Like ten blocks north of where we met.”

He stares at me, doing the math, and groans. “You’re shitting me.”

“It was Leo’s idea. He wanted to bury it before we met up with you. He thought some shit might go down, he was really on edge, and so we buried it. He said to keep it safe.”

“Fucking hell,” he says softly.

“We were high, okay? It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That’s his beach. His family controls that stretch.”

“I know.” I must sound as miserable as I feel because he doesn’t chastise me again.

“I’m guessing you want to go dig it up and use it as a bargaining chip.”

“Maybe we can offer the drugs plus our word that we’ll leave forever and never come back. Maybe he’ll take that.”

I bite my lip, watching him carefully. He stares down at his coffee and takes a sip, clearly considering.

“I don’t know,” he says finally. “I’m guessing the whole drug thing left him in a bad position if he was willing to kill Leo over it, but I don’t know how much he’d be willing to give up to get some of that investment back.”

“It’s worth a shot anyway, right?” I feel myself getting eager, almost excited. “We wouldn’t have to kill him. Nobody would have to get hurt. It’s worth a shot. Right?”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “It’s really not. We should just kill him and move on.” I feel a jolt run through me as he sighs. “But we’ll try it anyway.”

“Really?” I ask, blinking with surprise.

“Really. Fuck, Kaylee. I’m not even sure we can kill Hunter, even if we both wanted to. We might as well give this a try before doing something dangerous.”

I laugh softly. “Of course. You’re just being practical.”

“I’m just trying to get us out of this alive.” He glares at me, but he smiles and shakes his head. “Anyway, I know what you mean, about what you said last night.”

“About… coming back from this.”

“And trying to be better.” He picks up some bacon as I feel my stomach rumble for what feels like the first time in a long time. I’ve been so afraid for so long that I’ve been neglecting myself.

“It doesn’t all have to be bad.”

“No, it doesn’t. Just right now, it looks that way.” He eats the bacon in two big bites and chews it as I start to pick at some eggs. “One thing, though. We’re going to need Alex.”

“Why?” I ask him. “You wanted her to get us close to Hunter so we could kill him, but we don’t need her for that anymore.”

“Getting onto that beach won’t be easy. You saw last night, they’re patrolling all over. There’s no way we can dig something up in the middle of their territory.”

“How can Alex help?”

“Well,” he says softly. “Alex is Hunter’s second cousin.”

I gape at him. I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about this... but I guess it makes sense. I wouldn’t have gone to that meeting, let alone listened to her at all, if I had known. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. And she hates him more than I do, which is saying something. She can clear the beach for us, or at least I think she can.”

“What about her condition? She wants to be the one to kill Hunter.”

“We’ll figure that out.” Julian reaches out, takes my hand. “We’ll try it your way, okay? But if things go wrong…” He trails off.

I squeeze his fingers. “I know you’ll do whatever you think is right.”

“Yeah.” He lets my hand drop, face blank. “I will.”

We eat together in silence. My stomach’s doing flips but at least I’m happy with what we’re trying to do. I don’t want to be a monster, not anymore. I don’t want to go down that path.

We’re trying to be better together. It’s just a matter of whether or not the world will let us.