Chapter Four

Most of the O’Kanes seemed to lose their collective minds whenever Ace cooed at a baby.

Six melted watching Bren teach a wary teenager how to clean a gun.

“Good, slide assembly’s off.” Bren used the tip of a thin bristle brush to point to the recoil spring on the bottom of the slide. “Now get that spring out of there, and you’ll be able to remove the barrel. That’s what we’re after right now.”

A tug on Six’s sleeve drew her attention back to the girl at her side. Dee had crumbs on her shirt and a tiny bit of jam at the corner of her mouth, all that was left of the enormous breakfast she’d devoured. And her thin face was very serious.

Six met her gaze with equal seriousness. “What’s up?”

“Do you have any more paper?” She held up the outline of a horse grazing at a farm that she’d meticulously colored in--the horse a whimsical shade of purple with a flowing blue mane, and the barn behind it bright red against the black sky. “I did mine already.”

“Let me check.” Six hopped off the edge of the stage and snatched up another plate of pastries. She set them on Dee’s other side, closer to the younger boys. The older boy--Josh--still eyed the room warily, but Six knew as soon as her back was turned, he’d pounce on the plate.

Seth, the younger boy, was engrossed in his coloring. The furrow between his brows reminded her of Ace, and there was nothing whimsical about his color choices. By the time he was done, she’d have a photo-realistic piece of art on her hands. If she showed it to Ace, he’d probably swoop over here and try to kidnap the kid for art lessons.

Six passed Bren, who was showing Daniel how to apply solvent to a patch of cloth, and picked up the coloring book from the bar counter. She’d had no idea such a thing even existed, much less where to find one. Laurel had been the one to arrive with a satchel filled with a rainbow’s worth of crayons and a stack of books filled with outlined pictures the kids could color in. Where she’d found them, Six couldn’t begin to imagine. But the coloring had turned out to be a hit, and Six owed Laurel profuse thanks.

She returned to the stage and held out the book to Dee, who took it with sticky fingers and immediately started paging through. She paused with a frown. “What’s this?”

Fuck if I know. The picture was of a woman--kind of. The bottom half of her body was a giant fish tail, and instead of clothes she just had a pair of shells covering her tits, which looked massively uncomfortable. Six turned a couple more pages and found a woman in a flowing dress and a crown on her head. “I don’t know, but I know what this is. She’s a princess.”

“What’s a princess?”

“It’s a woman whose parents were important or powerful people. Princesses have a lot of money, and the good ones like to help people.”

Dee give her a sidelong look. “Are you a princess?”

“Fuck, no.” She handed the book back to Dee. “I grew up like you. But I know a princess. Her name’s Maricela, and she lives in Sector One. She wears dresses just like that one.”

Dee’s eyes brightened in interest. “What color?”

Six had only ever seen Sector One’s princess in the sort of pristine white that no one with sense wore because it would be ruined the first time you stepped outside. But since white wasn’t one of the colors clutched in Dee’s fist, she fudged the truth. “Well, she’s a princess. That means she wears whatever damn color she wants. So pick your favorite.”

Tasha hopped up onto the stage on Dee’s other side and used her napkin to wipe the corner of the tiny girl’s mouth. “Why don’t you do pink?” She gave her dirty sweatshirt a fond tug. “Like your hoodie.”

“Okay.” Dee wiggled back to sprawl out on the stage on her stomach, keeping her crayons clenched tight in her free hand even as she started to color. No doubt her short life had taught her that putting down anything she valued was a good way to have someone else snatch it away.

Six’s chest ached.

Tasha curled her hands in her lap, her gaze fixed on the coloring book. Finally, she spoke softly. “Do you have any with words?”

The ache bloomed into something sharper. “Yeah,” Six said, slipping off the stage again. “Follow me.”

She waited, knowing the magnitude of what she was asking. For Tasha to peel away from the group, with a strange adult, alone. For her to leave the younger kids to fend for themselves.

It took her a moment to nod, and she brushed her hand over Dee’s hair as she slid off the edge of the stage. “I’ll be right back, okay? If you need me, yell.”

She led Tasha through the swinging door and past the posters lining the wall to her office. The original tablet Noelle had given her sat on her desk, filled to the brim with books. Six still couldn’t relax into reading the way Noelle did--most of the time she turned on the screenreader and followed the words, trying to fix the different combinations of letters into her brain.

Reading might never come naturally to her. She’d been too old when she tried to start. No one had been around to offer her lessons.

Or books.

Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Six bypassed the tablet and strode to the bookshelf. Noelle’s touch was visible here, too. Every time she came to visit, she always had a stack of weathered books, the vivid colors faded by time, the corners of the covers creased or torn. She’d organized them on Six’s shelf, rearranging them each time according to some inner sense of order.

“Here,” Six said, waving to the spines. “My friend brings them over. I mostly read on my tablet, but she likes books you can hold.”

The girl approached the shelves hesitantly, but not as hesitantly as the food, as if the lure of the books was stronger. She chose one of the books, running her fingers over the smooth cover before opening it to the middle. Her head moved slightly from side to side as she stared down at the pages.

Reading. Hell, reading fast. “You look pretty good at that.”

She slammed the book shut, then winced as she straightened a wrinkled page. “I can read. My mom taught me, before...” She swallowed hard and shook her head. “Before.”

Six nodded and kept her voice soft. “My mom never got a chance. I only started learning a couple years ago. You got a big head start on me.”

“Yeah, okay.” She slid the book back into its space on the shelf. “I should get back.”

“You can take it, if you want.” Six leaned back against her desk, gripping her hands around the edge to keep from finding a bag and loading it down with every damn book on the shelf. “As long as you promise to take care of it, and bring it back when you’re done.”

Tasha stopped, then shook her head again. “I shouldn’t.”

Six struggled for the words, any words. Something that would soothe her, or convince her it was safe. But the first whiff of manipulation would send the girl running. Nothing would work but honesty and patience. “I get it. I’m not gonna push. It’s there if you want it. Now or tomorrow or next week. Your call, Tasha.”

“You don’t--I mean, it’s not--” The girl sighed and fidgeted under Six’s scrutiny. “I can’t promise to take care of it. I would try, but shit gets stolen sometimes, or just messed up. So I can’t promise.”

Idiot. Maybe she had gotten soft. The condition had seemed like a good way to make the book not feel like charity, but she’d forgotten the harsh reality of the girl’s life. Nothing precious could be protected.

Not out there.

Six pushed off the desk and pulled the book free again. “Then read it while you’re here. You can come back to finish it some other day.”

The yearning on the girl’s face hurt to look at, and an eternity passed before she reached out and took the book. “Maybe just while Dee is busy.”

“Sounds good.”

Six tried not to let her relief show as she herded Tasha back out to the main floor. The girl made a beeline for Dee, hopping back up onto the stage before checking on the younger boys with a quiet responsibility that sent that sharp pain through Six’s heart again.

One look at Bren and Daniel healed it.

The oldest boy was transfixed. All wariness was gone as he watched Bren’s fingers avidly, following each movement as he reassembled the pistol. She couldn’t hear their words from her spot in the doorway, just the gentle rumble of Bren’s voice as he patiently explained something.

The moment wouldn’t last. The lesson would wind to an end and reality would intrude, and Daniel’s walls would return. Maybe even more unassailable at first--backlash for his moment of carelessness. But Bren would still be...Bren. Relentlessly patient. A rock of safety in an uncertain world.

When he’d come into her life, she’d been beyond feral. Snarling and enraged and so far past hopeless, the word hope had barely even existed for her. Bren had brought it back, one painstaking day at a time.

Together, they’d do it for these kids. She knew it in that moment, with irrational certainty. Maybe not today or tomorrow, maybe not even next week or next month...

But one day at a time, one kid at a time, they were going to fix this part of their world. Even if it took the rest of their goddamn lives.