Billy?s chin pointed down toward the barrel of the gun. "I'll give you one answer up front: you put a single bullet in me and you won't live to see the other side of these four walls." Her features hardened, all traces of sunlight and open country left behind.

"And I may or may not be trouble, but I know for sure you are, Glenn Douglas. So why don't we make a deal. You give me the answers I want, and I'll probably give you some in return. We can part ways and go back to being virtual strangers."

"I already walked on the other side," he said. "I ain't afraid of doing it again. Start with your name. What is it?"

"Nice to know. No one'll feel bad about sending you over again, then." Her chin tipped up just as the corners of her mouth did. "Billy Yahzzie. I was hoping to keep it to myself for a little while longer. But here we are."

"My turn. How long have you been back in the city?"

"What's that matter to you?"

"If you just hopped off the turnip truck the other day, then I suspect you're not going to be much use in regards to any further questions I have, in which case we can just skip ahead to Part B, which is probably going to be less than pleasant for one or both of us. It's hard to say, though. So answer the question or don't,? Billy said, ?In the end, it might not matter either way."

"Been back after a fashion for the better part of a year I suppose."

"What's your interest in me?"

"Alright, good, we're still on track then. It happens that my interest isn't really in you?though you're an interesting side dish in your own right, considering the bounty on your head. But I don't plan on spending that long here and I'd guess you to be more trouble than you're worth. I'm looking for a woman named Bethany. Skinwalker." Billy?s eyes fixed on Glenn for any sign of recognition, any flinch, any twitch.

"Bethany what?" his face was stone, all hard lines and dark shadows.

"Bethany Martinez. Only Bethany associated with the Sarcina that I've ever heard of." She looked directly back at him as if she might see between the lines and behind the shadows. "I'm going to shoot this Jameson now," she warned him as her fingers slid forward and around the base of the glass.

That broke his stoic visage. Glenn frowned deeply at the word Sarcina, something he'd not heard on many lips even when the group still went by that name. He didn't lower the gun though, ignoring her warning as he moved on. "Why you lookin for Bethany?"

She followed through with the Jameson, knocking it back efficiently, exposed arch of her throat tan, a simple leather cord visible that disappeared behind the second button of her shirt. When she was done, she held the empty glass close at eye level, looking at the bottom like doing so would summon up another round. After a few beats, she lowered it and replaced the empty foreground of the bar's surface with the rugged terrain of Glenn's face. "I thought we might catch up on our girl talk," she shrugged."What's your interest in it?

"Well..." Glenn leaned his shoulder against the door, still keeping the gun trained on Billy. "Ain't many who know that name or connection," he said. "And I've had more than a few run ins with her ilk and the people who might come looking for her. So tell me the fucking truth."

Billy watched Glenn?s lean take shape against the doorframe, squinting at the mass of shadow that didn?t fall quite right behind him. On the edges of the room, the windowpanes rattled a warning that earned a glance before she settled on Glenn again. She wasn?t much for winter, but the wind listened all the same, whipping itself into a howl that charged around the corners of the building. Her thumb ran back and forth along her jaw. ?I?m after her head. Actually, I don?t intend for there to be much of anything left of her when I?m done. She?s marked and she?s left a hell of a mess in her wake. You can go ahead and tell her that if the two of you are friendly. I can manage her head start. You want to point me in her direction, that?s great, too. Either way, it?s about time for me to be going, so figure out if the next shot?s going to come from your gun or a bottle and let?s get to it.?

That thin line that was his mouth parted and showed a sharp smile. "You want her head, huh?" he pushed from the door and holstered the gun. Glenn crossed the room with a few long strides and went back behind the bar to punch at the register, tallying up the cost for the coffee and shot of Jameson. He set a bill down in front of her, leaning with his palms flat against the bar and his arms spread wide to hold the burden of his weight.

"You're a shit hunter then, ain't you? Bethany's been dead a while now."

Billy didn't budge, either in body or expression. Maybe there was a barely perceptible movement at the corners of her eyes. Wasn't quite a flinch, but it added a certain stoniness to them. She flicked a look down at the tab and added a coin to the stack she already had on the counter. "Says who, you? You see her yourself?"

The coins were scooped into a waiting hand and dropped into the till. His smile grew sharper, wider, and more violent. "I saw her die, yeah."

"You have any proof of that?"

"Not really," he shrugged. "The Sarcina's dead and gone, girl. Hexx's all that remains and they're just a shadow of what they used to be, too. Don't know where you came from but you wasted your trip. Bethany's been dead and gone a while now, I ate her myself."

Billy didn't want to be there any longer. It wasn't even the plethora of things that seemed off about him, she didn't think, and not something she could categorize or calculate in her current state, but she suspected she'd pinpoint it later. "I guess I did," she said, in a low and slow sunset drawl while she slid from the stool and turned for the door. She hadn't even gotten around to taking her coat off.

It took her one step and half of a second for impulse to kick in and uproot her cool, and then she was turning with the thud of her heart, back to the counter and the sullen cloud of a man behind it. She moved faster than she should have, faster than she needed to, probably, one palm splaying wide on the bar for leverage while the other made a vicious fist that she aimed in an arrow-straight shot for the bastard's face. She didn't care if she landed halfway across the bar or behind it. Her thought processes led her only as far as putting an end to his smile.

Billy woke up as a beam of sunlight crept through a split in the curtains and landed across her forehead. She wished for traveler?s disorientation, for that cotton-soft moment of confusion where she wasn?t sure which (or whose) bed she was in. But she knew exactly where she was. And why.

Billy got up and got dressed, avoiding the mirror above the basin with its fault-line crack running between two fogged halves. She knew what colors painted her jaw and cheek, didn?t need the reflection to know that the bruises had spread like an infection over her back and ribs. A single touch of her hand delivered an assessment of days for her face, weeks for the ribs. That the nailbeds of her left hand were misted at the edges with a dead, gangrenous black was the only thing that worried her. She rubbed the tip of her thumb briskly along the line of them, trying to stimulate blood flow. Nothing.

Not for the first time, Billy cursed Glenn Douglas?and that was the only thing she?d allowed to become attached to his name over the course of two days. The second curiosity started in, she had only to look at the length of her left forearm, where the white scar tissue of ancient symbols had blackened. Billy eyed at the clock on the nightstand. In 10 hours time, she planned to be nothing more than an unpleasant memory. To Douglas and any others she?d encounter along the way.

Having learned well enough from her encounter with Glenn, Billy didn?t plan on leaving the room without a gun that morning. The pistol she snugged up against her hip was a modern, sleek contrast to the antique Glenn leveled on her the day before. The magazine was loaded with bullets tipped in white ash. Billy left her duffel bag on the end of the bed, packed up her few belongings, and locked the door behind her. Stuffing the room key in her front pocket, she ignored the polite ?Ma?am,? and hat tip from the pair of gentlemen who stepped aside with her as she exited the Penny Moon and met the daylight.

****

The junkyard had gained some sprawl in the years since she?d last been here?that was the only thing she noticed was different. And the Trash N? Treasure?s proprietor, when he came shuffling out as she rattled the gate, had a new glass eye, its red crosshairs landing dead center on her forehead as Job smiled.

?I?m not here for a social visit,? Billy said before he could get his jaw cranking. Her fingers curled over the top of the sign warning trespassers against the dogs.

?You never even let me get out a proper hello.? Job?s smile widened to become a humored grin. When he winked, she looked away.

?Because they?re unnecessary with you and me.?

?Alright, so what do you want??

?That?s more like it.?

?Always was.?

?Mm-hmm. I?ll keep it quick because Dixie?s going to pick up on my presence soon enough and I don?t feel like talking down the end of her shotgun.? Billy gestured that he should open the gate and let her inside, and after eyeing her for a long half minute, his mouth working over silent questions like a wad of tobacco, Job pulled the key from his pocket.

?Her jealous streak has settled down some,? he said as he fit the small key in the lock.

Billy smiled, the first genuine thing she?d done that day. Her fingers dropped from the gate as Job opened it and she walked inside. ?That?s what they?ll all say, but it?s not true.?

Job pulled her into a hug that Billy weathered with a stiff spine, teeth gritted against the streak of pain that raced over her ribcage, then they stood and looked out over the yard.

?The Reaper?? Billy figured that was an easy starting place.

?He?s got it.?

?Fucking glutton, as usual. I just need something to get me out of town a ways and then back today. That?s it.? She set the bar low, but guarded against any hope in the look she sent aside to Job.

Job scratched his forehead and pretended to consider before pointing a thick finger in the direction of an old Datsun pickup resting in the shade. ?She?s not pretty,? he said of the old black paint and dayglo orange and yellow stripes that ran along the sides.

Billy shrugged and strolled towards the little truck, glancing over the tires and poking her head in the cabin. ?I never really was one for pretty,? she said, her declaration that it passed inspection. She trusted Job on the engine only because time was short.

?That was lucky for me,? Job grinned, large forearm dangling over the hood of the car.

?Don?t start. Dixie hears more than you think she does.? Billy?s chin ticked down at the old machine. ?What do you want for it??

?An explanation.?

?Nope, next??

Job?s eyes narrowed in thought, and Billy met the little circular red target mildly with a patience she didn?t really possess.

?You?re going out to that place, yeah? Bring me a few buttons back. Haven?t ever seen that level of trippy shit.? Job dug around in his pocket, pulling out a large leather strip from which a dozen keys hung by small clips.

?You?re too old for that ?trippy shit.??

?Too old to be worrying about it one way or another, you mean.? Job grinned and handed Billy a key.

?I didn?t say where I was going.? Billy flipped the key end over end in her palm and took a couple of backward steps in the direction of the driver's side door.

?I?ll be telling him I saw you,? Job said, grinning again so guilelessly that Billy retraced her steps, kissed a few fingers and rose up on her toes to smack her hand lightly across his cheek. Job's grin brightened and held.

?Go ahead. I?ll be gone by then.? Billy tucked herself into the cab and listened to the sound of the engine turning. Cranking the window down, she leaned out as the truck crept over gravel to the exit, coal black banner of her hair whipping over cool metal siding. ?You can give him another message, though. Tell him I know what he?s up to and that it?s his own funeral.?


Fifty miles of road and a couple of hills later, RhyDin?s skyline had collapsed behind her. What few rooflines rose from the beige monotony of the land vied with unkempt scrub grasses and scraggly trees on one side and lush fields of wind-bent wheat on the other. Billy counted the turnoffs and gravel shoulders. The orange caution tape wasn?t wrapped around the fence post where it was supposed to be, but she spotted it fluttering from the dead limbs of a squat mesquite, orange dye sunbleached to near whiteness. She frowned, counting backward on her fingers, but the tally of days elapsed came up right every time.

After parking the car, Billy walked up to the old archway where a sign used to hang. One of the chain links was missing, the other still hung empty and rusted, no wind from any direction to move it. She dropped to her knees in the dust, leaned over and spat on the ground. Her index finger pulled shapes from the wet dirt, then Billy settled back on her haunches and rubbed her palms together briskly the way her grandfather had taught her to do with kindling. Cupping the pale grey ball of smoke, she leaned forward and blew it over the pictures in the dirt.

Then she waited.

Time passed, the sun moved across the sky, and no one came. After another half hour, Billy stood up and crossed through the archway.

The Datsun, the faded orange ribbon, the symbols in the dirt all vanished, and the desert landscape she expected to stretch in front of her as it had a hundred times before was changed. The air smelled of rot and fire. What little vegetation that had existed before was gone. The desert had the look of a nuclear testing site, all scorch and the scent of flesh burning. Billy?s boots sank a quarter inch into the dirt, each step leaving behind a footprint in black ooze that spread over the ground like cracks on the surface of a mirror.

Billy walked for miles, finally arriving at the settlement only to discover it abandoned. Not that she should have been surprised given the state of everything else. A sourceless flutter of tattered curtains filtered through the empty window of one of the squat adobe houses. A pot hung over a dead fire pit, the contents indeterminate. In the middle of one of the worn dirt paths was a single, hand-tooled leather sandal. Billy dropped to a knee beside it, running her hands over the braided leather, but it had no stories to tell her. The ghosts seemed to have fled along with everything living.

Dena, the old medicine woman?s, house was also vacant, a Navajo blanket tucked neatly into the end of her bed, a book with a broken spine lying open her kitchen table. Billy flipped it over to stare at the cover of a dimestore paperback romance. Then she backed out of the door, refusing to turn until her boots hit the black sand once more.

On the fringes of the settlement, Billy circled the ceremonial grounds where the fires were usually kept perpetually stoked. They were all dead now, hardly even a pile of ash left behind. Near the border of the Western-most pit was a darkened swathe of earth. Billy leaned, touched it, and snatched her hand abruptly back. Then she sat down cross-legged next to it and put her chin in her hand.

A single black feather swayed in a spectral breeze from where it was stuck in a roasting spit. Billy plucked it free, turning it between her fingertips before stuffing it in her back pocket. She sat for another half hour, unsure of what to do next. Nothing would speak to her. Nothing even seemed to be listening. The entire place was no more than bones of a former civilization decaying.

She might have fallen asleep, she?d never be certain. She knew only that she blinked and a rangy shadow peeled from the side of a building in the distance. Billy watched the blurry approach grow clearer until she could make out the stark white fur tufting the coyote?s muzzle. His body was too lean, his ribs visible as he panted. His steps came in a slow stalk. Eyes narrowing, Billy reached for her pistol and aimed it between the animal?s eyes. ?Don?t come any goddamn closer unless you?ve got something to say.?

The coyote paused, snout dropping low to scent the dirt in front of him before his head rose and he licked his chops. He took the long way around the ceremonial grounds, staying just on the edge, his eyes locked with Billy?s as he approached. Billy lay the gun down next to her and reached out her hand as the coyote sat. His feet kneaded the ground below, and then he put his nose to her knuckles and chuffed. ?Tell me,? she said, and he whined, lying down next to her as her hand fell across the back of his coat. Billy?s eyes closed as he began to speak.

****

The coyote walked with her all the way back to the outpost, then stood staring at the archway as if considering passing through it until Billy gave him a rough shake of her head to dissuade him. ?Don?t come this way,? she warned, then stepped from the tar black night through the archway back into blazing mid-afternoon.

Once she was inside the Datsun with the engine cranked, she stared at the faded orange ribbon spread over the dash, then balled it up in her fist and stuffed it in the truck?s ashtray.

After that, she drove back into the city and the Penny Moon.

Glenn's eyes stung from the water that lashed at them like heavy whips of cold as he drove through the rain, following the cab at a distance. Had he any understanding of common traffic laws he might have thought twice about not using the headlight on the bike, but he was counting on the darkness of the storm clouds and heavily set night to hide him from the cab driver and passenger, and a headlight would give him away for sure in all this darkness. So, he drove after the red taillights with only a vague understanding of the danger he was placing himself in.
It went on until his new jeans were soaked through, but his upper body was kept blissfully dry and warm thanks to the thick leather jacket that stretched across his shoulders. His hair was matted to his face, even as the wind tried to blast it back out of his eyes, and he had to squint past rivulets of water that ran over his eyes. But he didn't crash.

Billy had no intention of looking behind her, not literally and not metaphorically, either. Her attention held tight on the windshield of the cab where streamers of rain poured around wiper blades too small or old to effectively clear the glass of the deluge. The city passed in amorphous blurs and indistinct blobs of colored lights. The cabbie was quiet, as well, his shoulders hunched over the steering wheel as he concentrated on the five feet of road ahead that he could see.

They moved through West End slowly.

In the downpour, the way station appeared as little more than a couple of rectangles of weak fluorescent light. The station's sign had been reduced by burned out bulbs to a single red 'X' that flickered on and off in no particular pattern. The cabbie pulled beneath the rusted metal roof that made a poor umbrella for the four gas pumps it was supposed to protect. Only two of them worked. Or used to. Rain slid from the car, the silence within different now without the insistent drumming of rain. Billy pulled a handful of coins and some bills from her back pocket and dropped them into the cabbie's open hand before grabbing her bag and sliding out of the backseat. She stood there next to the car for a second, looking at old Em inside, then she started in that direction as the cab pulled slowly away.

It was only after the cab driver pulled away and left the way station behind that Glenn walked his motorcycle over to the gas pumps and let it lean on its stand. He ran fingers through wet hair and watched as Billy slipped inside. He went to go lean on the wall beside the door and pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket and a match, these were blissfully dry. He lit up and waited.

With her bag slung over her shoulder, Billy leaned against the counter, speaking with Em as she handed her fare over to him. For the handful of bills, she gave him, he returned a single bronze coin the size of a silver dollar. His eyes kept flickering from Billy's hand to a spot over her shoulder.

"What?" she said finally, craning her head to look over her shoulder.

"Fella' out there smoking," Em shrugged and dropped the coins in the till.

Billy could only make out a shadowy figure and the orange ember of a cigarette as it rose and fell. Her eyes narrowed as she straightened and headed out, another wave for Em sent over her shoulder. "Don't expect me back anytime soon," she said.

"I never do." She could hear the grin in Em's voice.

The bells on the door chimed as she exited, steps taking her from the light splashed across the building's stoop to the shadows where Glenn lurked. The orange glow of the cigarette deepened the lines on his face. Billy's hand made a fist around the coin within it as she stopped in front of the gunslinger.

"We not done yet? You want to pull your gun on me one last time for posterity?" Her tone lacked the edge to make the words bite like they were supposed to.

"Not quite," he spoke around a cloud of smoke. Glenn took his time in meeting her gaze, his eyes taking a ponderous journey over the lot of the waystation, over the darkened lines of her face all cast in shadow by the storm.

Then he stared at her for a while, unabashed unblinking. Then he looked away and inhaled another drag.

"Bus coming out this way?"

Stubbornness kept Billy stock still under Glenn?s scrutiny. Not even the wind tempted her when it sent black whips of hair across her cheek, nor did she speak until he looked away. Glenn was a man who existed as bullet points on a sheet of paper for her, as both fact and speculation, the latter being the more prevalent. She supposed she was much less to him-- some unknown variable he kept encountering. Whether it was curiosity or boredom or desperation motivating him she couldn't be sure.

The straps of her duffel slipped from shoulder to elbow and were at last caught by her hand just before dropping to the wet cement. Billy found a dry patch of wall alongside him and leaned, looking out over the dark gas pumps.

"It could," she said, "You pay Em enough and he'll find whatever it is you want to pick you up and take you wherever you want to go. That's not my favorite method of travel these days, but to each his own. You have a destination in mind?"

Glenn pushed from his lean and went over to the motorcycle. He dug through the bags, his cigarette stuck to his lower lip, and came out with a pillow case full of cash. This, he dropped at her feet before resuming his lean against the wall. He didn't answer her question. A finger-flick sent ash scattering away, he breathed deep, inhaling the wet air like he might be able to drown himself in it if he tried hard enough. It felt heavy in his lungs.

"I don't pay for things," Glenn said after a time. "My hands ain't meant to hold nothing of value at any rate, nothing to pay with excepting maybe these guns," he tapped a finger against the worn sandalwood grip of one of his old Colts. "But thems all I got left of a lifetime that seems more like dreams than memories. I can't let them go. Tried once, didn't keep."

Billy looked down at the pillowcase darkening as wet ground soaked through cotton. Her brows pinched as she leaned over to retrieve it, a quick, inscrutable glance over at Glenn retaking his lean before she pulled the ends apart to peer at the bills inside. One finger vanished within to stir the bills around, a quick estimate made of what was within, then she withdrew her hand and cinched the fabric closed again.

Billy dismissed everything else he said, all the parts that invited more speculation or might make him more than the piece of paper with bullet points and a bounty tacked on at the end, and stuck to the first part, "Are you asking me to go get you fare somewhere?"

"How much is my head worth these days?"

"A shit ton more than what's in here," she said, hefting the pillowcase.

"Hmm..." he nodded and flicked the cigarette to the wet pavement. "Probably is. You gonna collect?"

"I thought about it," Billy said, degree of her lean diminishing as she stretched a toe out and brought the rubber sole down on the last orange spark of his cigarette.

"I wouldn't blame if you if you did," he said with a half-hearted shrug. "I probably would."

She matched his shrug, though hers had a little more emphasis in it. The motion pulled at the skin stretched over her ribs, an aching reminder of his knuckles. "Yeah, well the weather's not optimal for a showdown, I don't think. And maybe neither am I." Billy blew at a strand of hair caught on one side of her mouth, finally plucking it free with a quick swipe of her hand. She was still holding onto the pillowcase.

"You'd die," he said it so calmly, so simply. Like it was a matter of fact. Not a boast. "I'd hate to have to do that."

"Maybe," Billy said, unwilling to fully concede to him. She did a decent enough job calling him to heel their last encounter, even if she was the one still paying for it. "You wouldn't hate to do it, though. That's a lie."

"I would," he said, his head went back and rested against the wall. He looked at the ceiling of the waystation's overhang, wondering what lives had passed beneath it.

"I'd still do it."

"Maybe," Billy countered again. "But no need to mess it all up with false pretenses that'd you'd hate it."

"You think I like killing folk?"

"I don't think you hate it."

You know I ain't much of a liar, slick."

"What I know--" she said, the rest of the sentence dwindling to nothing, the frayed thread of thought that created it elusive. A curt shake of her head seemed to clear the rest of it away--or maybe she was just shaking off more rain. Billy hoisted up the pillowcase again. It twisted slowly around in the wind. "So what am I doing with this?" she asked.

"I don't really care," he answered, staring out at the dark road leading to and from the waystation. He could only just see its edges under the heavy veil of rain. "Take it, leave it. Take it and shoot me and collect your bounty or take it and leave me here. Take it and take me wherever you're going, I don't really care."

Billy dropped the pillowcase at Glenn's boots, the first step in a series of actions she'd laid out for herself while he was talking. The next step was meant to be around him, leaving him there on the stoop like the carved sentinels posted up at gas stations along route 66. A slender beam of light falling across her hand kept her still, though, gaze dropping to her nails where the blackness had spread, occluding the natural pink undertone. The way she clenched her jaw spread shadows over her lower face. She bent, picked up the pillowcase, and turned to go back inside the station without a word.

She returned, the pillowcase lighter by a couple of ounces, and held up a bronze token. "Give me your guns," she said.

Glenn didn?t look at her. He drew the Dragoons without any measure of grandeur, without flourish. One by one he ejected the bullets from the guns' cylinders. They sounded like metal rain on the wet concrete. Then he offered the pistols over to her, grip first.

By her pause, it was clear Billy hadn't expected an easy acquiescence; even her mouth had parted, readying itself for an argument. The bullets dimpled the sheen of rain collected over the concrete as they fell. She counted them, then dropped her bag, unzipping it and laying the pistols inside. A shirt got tucked around them before she zipped the bag up again and put it on her shoulder. Flipping the coin in Glenn?s direction, Billy stepped off the curb, heading for the side of the building. "Come on."

Snatching the coin out of the air, Glenn pushed from h is lean and followed her. He studied the coin as it rolled across his knuckles, feeling keenly the weightlessness of the empty leather holsters bumping against his hips as he walked. He diverted from her path briefly to return to his motorcycle, removing his rucksack from one of the larger saddle bags, and then went to follow at a calm, measured pace.

Glenn moved Trip bodily to press against the side of the truck as he opened the door. He climbed in, half-dragging the man up behind him. Once he'd settled in, Glenn drew the Dragoon at his right hip -- the one nearest Trip, and cocked the hammer. "Close the door," he told the man, the gun resting comfortably in his lap. His finger was on the trigger and the barrel was level with Trip's belly, should he try anything stupid.

Trip closed the door and angled himself in the corner between it and the seat so he could see the entirety of Glenn and the Dragoon he had pointing at him. When Billy tossed him an old towel, he wrapped his hand in it. There wasn't much he could do about his foot, though. Blood welled through the hole in his boot and puddled in the floor of the truck. He stared at Glenn, premature lines etched deeper along his cheeks and forehead with the strength of his anger.
Billy climbed into the truck next to Glenn, produced the keys from her pocket and cranked the engine. Twilight was starting to leach some of the heat from the day, but she still sat there for a minute with her hands on the wheel and an air vent angled at her face blowing stale, lukewarm air. "Alright," she said after a bit, some decision made. Throwing the truck into gear, she backed up, then pulled out of the parking lot onto the long, lonely ribbon of asphalt that led back to Yuma.

Glenn studied Trip with unabashed amusement, the dark and almost playful glint in his eye almost daring the man to try something worthy of a bullet again. He never took those eyes off their newfound companion, never moved his finger from the trigger. "So, what's this pool of piss' story?" he asked Billy, keeping his attention on the subject of his question.

"He try and come on to you and got mad when you poured beer down his pants?" Glenn asked.

Trip maintained his gaze on Glenn in return, dark eyes cruel and cold behind their sheen of ire. He blinked slowly at Glenn's insult, mouth wadding up like he was desperate to open it and just managed to hold the impulse at bay in the last minute.

Billy spared a look over at Trip. He'd been better looking once, maybe even charming. She was more certain about the former than the latter. But he'd been neither for a long time now. "He used to be less of a piece of shit," she started, but was interrupted by Trip.

"Other way around, slick," he sneered. "It was her hand down the front of my pants."

"I remember those pants better than I remember what was in them," Billy said. "Wasn't much, I suppose. Glenn, go ahead and shoot his other hand. He doesn't need either of them to take a piss."

She didn't look away from the wheel, but Trip shook his head, good hand waving like a flag of surrender in the air as he tried to back step, suddenly contrite. "It's just fucking around Billy, Christ. Don't shoot, boss." That last part directed at Glenn.


Glenn reached out, and with inhuman strength, slammed Trip's hand against the back window of the truck. Then he pressed the barrel of the gun right up against the man's palm.

"You shot me," he reminded the man. "To kill. Ain't many men who get away with that. You're lucky I ain't torn out your fucking throat at this point. Walk soft."

There wasn't enough room in the cab for the size of Trip's scream as Glenn seized his hand. The back window was left with a spider web of cracks that Billy eyed through the rearview but didn't comment on for the time. Trip's hand flopped uselessly on his wrist, a number of fine bones broken. He threw his head back against the window, squeezed his eyes shut and panicked. But he was done speaking.

A half mile later, Billy pulled into the parking lot of a motel, the facade crouched low to the ground, L-shape crowded around an empty oval pool with a peeling liner. The vacancy sign blinked on and off. There were two other cars in the lot. Billy parked at the far end and turned the car off, sticking the keys in her pocket as she opened the door. "Wait here."

Glenn released trip when he quit speaking and screaming. He lowered the pistol to his lap again, barrel pointed at the man's stomach once more. When Billy parked, he didn't acknowledge her command, but just sat and watched the wretch beside him. Once they were alone, he de-cocked the gun and holstered it.

"Tell me about your boss and I won't eat you."

Trip opened his eyes as Billy exited the truck, head swiveling to follow her as she walked across the parking lot and opened the door to the lobby. Only once he couldn't see her did he turn back to Glenn.

"Fuck you," he said, snorting derisively and wincing in pain at once. "You won't eat me because she wants me alive. And who the fuck are you anyway?"

Glenn closed his fingers around Trip's throat and slowly began to squeeze.

"I don't give two shits about what she wants, slick. She's just my ride out of town," he paused at the question, wondering if his name meant anything out here. He wasn't entirely sure where he was. "Glenn Douglas," he said, because he'd never been terribly worried about lying low anyhow.

Blood mottled Trip's face in deep purple patches as Glenn's fingers tightened around his throat. He gasped and sputtered, eyes lolling in their sockets. He might have flailed his hands at the man, but neither was working all that well. However, there was a distant flicker of recognition when Glenn spoke his name--one that soon ebbed as Trip purposefully averted his eyes, watching the window again as Billy crossed the lot back in their direction. Fuck you. His mouth shaped the words, but his voice didn't supply any sound.

Glenn gave the man a coyote smile, pushed his head back, and let go. "Go ahead," he said. "Enjoy it while you can. I'll have an arm first. I ain't had fresh meat in a long time."

Trip gasped for air once Glenn released him, his head slumping back against the window, mouth gaping open as he sucked wind. He still didn't have voice enough to reply to Glenn but gave him a hateful look all the same.

Billy wrenched the door to the truck open, a flicker of a look assessing the two men, the atmosphere, before dismissing it. Trip was still alive, after all. That Glenn still had part of that feral hook to the corners of his mouth shouldn't matter. Still, she gave it longer consideration before abruptly nodding her head at the pale blue paint of the door in front of them. Number 15, read the sticker on the door. She left them behind to go unlock and push it open. "Bring him in," she said, grabbing their bags from behind the seat.

The air in the room was stale and musty, the carpet a dark brown. The king-sized bed sloped to the left side and was covered in a spread featuring stripes in the mustards and oranges popular in the seventies. The was a low, polished wood dresser topped by a boxy television set with two knobs. Beyond the bed was a doorway leading to a green-tiled bathroom from which Billy could hear the toilet running. None of it mattered to her in the least. She unlocked the door that connected this room to the one next door, which was configured mostly the same.
Both bags were set on the floor next to the bed.

Glenn reached past Trip to open the door. Then, with a hand on Trip's chest, shoved to send him tumbling out -- he was careful not to break the man's ribs. Glenn followed him out of the truck, closing the door behind him. He reached down, grabbing the man beneath the arm, and dragged him to his feet.

"Come on, Trip," he said, his voice suddenly jovial and friendly. "Let's get you inside. Had one hell of a day. Bet you'd like to take a load off."

Trip landed flat on his ass only to be hauled up by Glenn. By then he'd gotten the use of his vocal chords back. "You might as well go ahead and fucking shoot me. I'm not telling either of you a goddamn thing," his voice was raw, but managed to be scalding in its righteous finality. He stumbled once and then let Glenn drag him the rest of the way inside.

Billy closed the door behind them both and bolted it, pulled out a chair from beneath a small writing desk, and indicated that Glenn should put Trip in the chair. Then she reached into her bag for a roll of duct tape. Looking up at Glenn, she said, "He's still human. That's what I'm getting. You should be able to tell too, yeah?"

"Yeah," Glenn said, pushing Trip down into the chair. "He smells like cats," he took a step back and let Billy bind the man to her heart's content. He reached around his back to draw the pistol he'd taken from Trip and examined it with a cursory glance, then he ejected each of the bullets into his palm.

Billy was probably more thorough than necessary, given Trip's state. She bound him from ankles to kneecaps, then taped his ankles around the bottom rungs of the chair. While she was at it, she went ahead and wrapped the toe of his shoe. It wasn't bleeding much anymore, but she wouldn't have to worry about the carpet if it did. Trip started cussing at her around that time. Billy ignored it, focused on her work. She did the same with the towel he'd wrapped around his hand, encasing it in an extra, silver layer of duct tape before it and his other hand were tugged behind his back and taped wrist to elbow, which then received an additional bit of security by weaving the tape through the back spindles of the chair and looping around his wrists. At the least, he wasn't going anywhere without the chair.

Billy took a step back, considering Trip with a critical eye before deciding to throw a few turns around his torso for good measure. Last was his mouth. She gave him a smile as she leaned in a stuck a rectangle of tape over it mid curse. She added two more strips and then dropped the tape back into her bag. "We're going to talk, but I need a little peace and quiet first." After picking up her bag, she carried it into the adjoining room and dropped it, then came back to the door frame, standing there until she could see whether Glenn was going to join her or stay with Trip.

Glenn pocketed the bullets in his hand, save one, which he dropped in Trip's lap. Then, giving the man a final smirk, Glenn turned to follow Billy into the adjoining room, unbuttoning his shirt as he approached her. "Got anything to clean this with?" he gestured at his shoulder with a jerk of his chin in that direction.

"You enjoying yourself?" she asked, backing through the doorway to let Glenn pass through. He smelled of blood and sweat, cigarettes, booze, matches--a laundry list of bad news and bad habits. Billy crouched next to her bag, rummaging through it, and then sent an upward glance in his direction for the question. "Not a whole lot," she said, rising slowly to approach him. She ignored the view of skin that appeared and focused on the mess of his shoulder. "There's soap and water in the bathroom." A glance up at him to find his eyes, a request in them underlined with a "Can I?" and a tick of her chin to his shoulder.

"There's a store down the way. I was going to go in a few minutes, get something to eat and drink. A six pack. Maybe a whole case. I can get everything else, then."

Glenn set his shirt aside. The hole in his shoulder was surrounded by dried blood. The wound itself was angry and red, but smaller than it should have been given the caliber of the bullet that had torn through his muscle. It pained him, as made evident by a faint grimace, but the change in his expression was a flicker before being washed away.

"Why do you ask?" he countered for her question. The request for permission gave him pause, but his nod granted it. "You been eying me like you're expecting a bullet," though a statement, the way he looked at her made it seem like a question.

"I've noticed you have a habit of not answering the questions I'm actually interested in," Billy said, dark lashes dropping low, narrowing her field of vision to the hole in Glenn's shoulder. That didn't mean she didn't catch a glimpse of the rest. He had enough impressions and scars and history carved or shot into his body that she imagined that if she put her hand upon it and closed her eyes, it'd be a palpable account of violence. Now he'd added to it, so she kept her eyes locked on the red-tinged, swollen flesh, stubbornly defying her own curiosity over the large bite mark on his collarbone. The pad of her thumb pressed hard against the edge of the wound and then retreated before she ever considered answering him. "I don't know why I asked, actually. It's not like we've got some established foundation of manners and being polite between us, is it? Maybe I wanted to make sure some of that darkness that's so fond of you wasn't going to try to jump ship into me again." She knew that not to be the case, but she said it anyway, and then in a petulant moment of tit for tat, didn't say anything for his last bit.


"What haven't I answered that you are interested in?" he felt the flare up of pain on the edge of the wound, where she pressed down. Felt it burn. But he didn't hiss or gasp or make any sound or sign of discomfort, just leveled a flat stare on her. "I'm an open book."

"I asked you if you were enjoying yourself for one. But really you started doing it back in Charlie's." She felt his stare like a wave of heat or a flush rising in her cheeks, but didn't grant it so much as a look until she'd put a couple of feet between them. "Uh-huh," she said mildly to his comment about being an open book. "A little alcohol or peroxide should do you just fine. I can get some while I'm out. Hole's already closing up."

"I always enjoy a fight," he unbuckled the belt at his hips and swung it around, his guns coming with it. This he laid out at the foot of the bed, and then he took a seat on the edge of the mattress. "I don't remember what you asked me at Charlie's, just a lot of punching."

"Unsurprising, ?she said. "Plenty of evidence of that all over your chest." Billy peeled off her Henley, the tank top underneath a dingy blue. Scooping up a wrinkled button-down from her bag, she slid it over her shoulders, studying the belt and holsters he laid across the foot of the bed. "I don't remember now either, too busy trying to defend myself against your cheap-ass gut shot. Do you want anything from the store or not?" Part of her wondered if he'd even still be around when she got back, could imagine him just wandering off into the desert. He seemed more like a passing breeze than a man rooted to anything.

"Cigarettes," he said, looking up at her from where he sat. He smirked. "Cheap ass? What about that fucking sucker punch across the counter?" he snorted. "Lucky I didn't shoot you that day. But I ain't never been a fan of killing women. I'm old fashioned that way."

"Smells like we're going hunting," he said, though by then he'd turned away.

"Not old-fashioned enough to show a woman some manners; you deserved that punch and you know it," she said briskly, pulling a bank envelope from her bag and counting out a few bills that she then tucked into the back pocket of her jeans. She didn't appear to care that Glenn might be watching.

"What brand?" Billy asked of the cigarettes, stepping in front of the dresser next and bending slightly so that the full of her face was reflected in the mirror as she combed fingers through the wealth of black hair and began plaiting it into a single, thick braid. The lines on his face were easy traps for her gaze, but better those as focal points than what lay below his chin. "You know, for a guy that claims he isn't afraid of death, you sure put a hell of a lot of effort into staying alive," she said, tying off the end of her braid with a rubber band and flicking the long length of it over her shoulder as she started for the door. "We'll talk about the hunting part and the 'we' part when I get back, if you're still here."

"Just 'cause I ain't afraid of it don't mean I want to die," Glenn said. "I ain't afraid of snakes but I'm not about to let one bite me, am I?" he watched her braid her hair and started to rise by the time she was turning for the door. He took the two dragoons from the holsters at the foot of the bed and went to a small table tucked into the corner of the room to set them down, then went to pick up his bag from by the bed. "I'll be here."

"Looks like plenty of other things have gotten ahold of you already, anyway." His assurance that he'd still be there when Billy returned met the back of her head as she shut the door behind her.

Sleep evaded Billy that night. Despite the beer and the whiskey and exhaustion that extended beyond just her body. All those bullet points kept coming to mind with a thin wash of the artist?s sketch of Glenn?s face in the background for company--all stark lines and precarious angles. It was easier to despise a man rendered in black and white than one in the flesh, who had a voice. And story that didn?t always add up right. The air conditioner worked in fits and starts and at 4 am, when it shuddered ominously, Billy finally got up and turned it off, fingers flicking the curtain aside a half inch until she could see the back of the chair Glenn dragged out there and a triangle of fabric that meant his shoulder. Another check into the adjoining room showed Trip, shoulders slouched, chin resting close to his chest. After that, she kept count of the hours by the number of times she heard Glenn light up a cigarette.

Billy got up when the rectangle of sunlight she?d been watching finally made it from patchy revelation of dirt on the carpet to stirring dust motes on the bedside table next to her. She showered and dressed then opened the door, wet hair hanging in coils that loosed little runnels of water to run down her bare arms.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked, squinting through rays of sunlight that filtered down through a cloudy sky. He had around his feet a ring of half-finished cigarettes. The pack was crumpled up on the window sill. He didn't move when the door opened.

"I slept fine," Billy lied, looking down at the half moon of cigarette butts like the ashes and scald marks on the pavement contained some kind of prophecy. She collected her hair in the sweep of a hand and wrung it out before tousling her fingers through it. "Do you drink coffee?"

"Sometimes," he said. "If it's extra greasy," he stood then, moving as though he'd been sitting there for years, not hours, with stiff bones and jerky motions.

Billy squinted at his back. "Extra greasy," She had no idea what that meant. "Alright. Looks like you could use it. You're moving like an old man."

She left the door open, turning away to flip the switch on the small coffee maker. Billy had no intention of trying to interpret what extra greasy meant, she just planned on handing Glenn the cup when it was ready.

He snorted -- a sound that was probably meant to be a laugh -- and turned to follow her inside. While she was making coffee, he grabbed his bag and carried it with him into the bathroom. The door shut behind him, she'd soon hear the sound of running water.

Billy didn't spend much time trying to decipher what the sound was. She hovered at the coffee pot, watching steam rise as the styrofoam cup filled, a look flicked over her shoulder as the door closed behind Glenn. Once the first cup was finished, she stuck a second one under the drip, refilled the filter and took her cup over to the door that separated them from Trip. Nudging it a little wider, she leaned in the doorway, slowly sipping her coffee and looking over the slumped figure.

Glenn's shower was short. He came out soon after in fresh jeans and a gray t-shirt, heading over for the little coffee maker to pick up the recently filled styrofoam cup. He took a testing sip and cast a glance toward the dividing door and Billy. "He awake yet?"

The hemline of Billy?s dress hit at a mostly respectable level a couple of inches above her knees, her legs coltish and lean, but not without definition. The fabric was a patchwork of patterns, scoop necked and sleeveless, and meant to go with something more along the lines of an open-toed sandal than the motorcycle boots that hit mid-calf. Billy's arms were folded across her chest, her coffee cup resting near the bend of her elbow. She shook her head, damp hair swinging. "I think he's half-dead, actually."

"Lost some blood," Glenn said, taking another taste of coffee as he crossed the room. "Gonna get an infection if them wounds aren't seen to. Best get what you want out of him before the fever sets in."

Billy nodded absently, the thought having crossed her mind a couple of times already. Glenn voicing it seemed to spur her into action, though. The small of her back bowed outward and carried the rest of her forward, deeper into the room where the air was stale and blood-tainted and heavy with the forewarning of death. Billy pulled out a chair and sat down in it across from Trip. Her coffee cup was a warm impression upon her bare knee as she looked hard at the man across from her, resolve building. Then she put the cup on the floor next to her and leaned forward, laying her hand almost tenderly across Trip's cheek until he jolted upright with a sputter.

Glenn stepped into the vacated doorway and leaned sideling into it, looking just around the corner to where Billy now sat in front of Trip. He drank his coffee, his left hand dragged across his abdomen to rest at the gun at his right hip in as comfortable a pose as he'd ever be able to strike.

Billy didn't waste any more time. Once Trip's eyes rose and focused on her, she retreated just far enough to rest her elbows on her knees.

"What does Ez want with me?" she began.

Trip shook his head, mumbling something she couldn?t decipher. This time Billy's hand found his knee. His body shuddered and went rigid in the chair and when he opened his mouth next, the answer came out in a pained pant. "I don't know, Billy. He didn't say. We just got orders to follow, so we did."

Billy's knuckles whitened over his kneecap and Trip jolted again, teeth gritting before he grated out, "Fuck, woman, that's all I know."

Her gaze flicked up to Glenn framed by the doorway, lower lip bisected by a neat line of teeth as she considered, then looked back to Trip.

"You're being vetted, yeah? How many's he got so far?"

"15 turned, maybe, 10 on the line." Trip slurred the words, chin slumping back to his chest as his breath rattled within.

"Where?" When Trip didn't respond, Billy caught him by the jaw and asked again.

He mumbled a pair of words that Billy's closest interpretation translated as "Dry bed." Then Trip lost consciousness again.

Billy stood up. "He's done. Ez isn't a quiet type anyway. There'll be someone talking somewhere. It's just a matter of finding the right one."

Glenn finished his coffee during the brief interrogation. He tossed a crumpled paper cup into the trash bin as Trip slumped back into unconsciousness and stepped further into the room. He nodded, hooking his thumbs into his belt as he looked at the mess of a man.

"You decide what you're gonna do with him yet?" he asked.

"Mm-hmm," she said, stepping around Glenn in the doorway. Just beyond, she stopped to tip up her cup and downed the rest of her coffee, then tossed it in garbage before bending to pack up her bag. "I'll need to stop and get a couple of shovels somewhere."

He back-stepped after her, turning on his heel to watch as she picked up her bag. "Sure there's a hardware store close by," Glenn said. He tossed a look in Trip's direction, a hand coming back to rest on his gun. "Want me to put him down?"

"How do you know that?" she asked when he mentioned the hardware store, a keen-eyed glance tossed over her shoulder as the hiss of the duffel bag's zipper broke the into the cocoon of morning quiet.

"Maybe. Not here, though." She couldn't tell if Glenn was offering out of some kind of generosity or of his own desire. It shouldn't have mattered, but Billy still found herself wondering over it.

"Educated guess," Glenn said, hand slipping from the gun. "Where?"

Billy turned the resulting frown away from Glenn, and then breezed past him again, pocket knife in hand to go work on Trip's bindings.

"By my rough estimate, 85 percent of the time your answers are either unsatisfying, evasive, or lead to more questions. At this point, I should probably assume that's on purpose. Is this a skill you've fine-tuned for your own entertainment or something that rose out of necessity considering how the bounty on your head has grown over the years?"

She bent to Trip's wrists and sliced through the tape.

"My answer's honest," he said. "Ain't my fault you're looking to take issue with every word that comes out of my mouth," he said, the hint of a sneer curling his lips.

"You're just making that assumption," she said, curtailing a huff of sound as the knife melted through the adhesive over Trip's knees next. "That's alright, though, because I think you're going to be the one that gets fed up and wanders off first."

Glenn's smile was full of sharp teeth. "Betting on the wrong horse, kiddo."

The knife cut through the air too fast to even glint in the morning light filtering into the room. She'd sent it flying intending for the tip to embed itself close enough to Glenn that it could've snagged a stitch on his shirt en route. If he got nicked, well Billy wouldn't be all that disappointed either.

Glenn's hand shot up to snatch it out of the air. The timing was wrong, and instead of closing his fingers around the handle, the tip of the blade bit straight through his palm. The sound he made was more surprise than pain. He looked at the wound, briefly, and then wrenched the knife free. The blood leaking from his palm was added to by fresh cuts on his fingers when he put his hand around the blade, his other around the handle, and with a snap and a twist, broke the blade free of the knife's tang. He tossed either piece aside and, back to smirking, went to gather up some of the left-over gauze and first aid supplies she'd bought the night before.

"Showoff," Billy muttered, peeling back the rest of the tape so that Trip was essentially free, aside from a few strips she'd left around his wrists. They seemed almost unnecessary now. His pulse was weak when she laid a couple of fingers across it, so she left him where he was, catching up with Glenn as he dug through the impromptu first aid kit. "I'll get everything loaded. Bring him out when you're done." She started to the door, then stopped and retraced her steps to pick up the broken knife. It got tucked into her duffel bag, which she picked up along with Glenn's to take to the truck.

He snorted a response as he wrapped his hand in white bandages until the outermost layer was only a pale pink instead of the violent red that the inner layers showed. Once secure, he turned to step back into the room where Trip sat half-falling out of his chair. Glenn bent down to hoist him up, tossing the man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before going to join Billy at the truck.

Billy leaned to push the car door open as the pair emerged from the motel room, and took ahold of Trip's elbow to ease him in. "No nicknames. No kiddo, no slick. I'd rather you just not call me anything."

She adjusted the vents of the struggling AC, aiming one directly at her face, where a sheen was already dappling the crest of high cheekbones.

"Sure, boss," Glenn said, climbing in after loading up the unconscious man. He closed the door. "Just as soon as you start paying me enough money to give a shit."

Billy twisted fully in her seat, a hard-eyed squint dropped dead center between Glenn's brows. "Not 24 hours ago you handed me a sack full of money and said you didn't give a shit where it or you ended up. You want me to hand it back to you now? Have you lost your fucking mind? You wanted to come, and you're not doing me any favors by still being here." She closed her mouth with effort. It promptly flew open again a second later. "You're right. I bet on the wrong goddamn horse. Hopefully I'll be quicker on the uptake next time. Get out."

"Face facts, Billy," he said, turning to meet her hard-eyed squint. "You heard the numbers. Ez's got fifteen turned, ten coming. Maybe those numbers have gone up in the last few hours. Tough as you may be, you ain't tough enough to take on more than twenty men all by your lonesome. And pretty as you are, I doubt that personality of yours is endearing enough to enough folk who'd be willing to put their necks out to give you a hand with this shit storm you've walked into."

"I ain't going nowhere. 'Cause if I do, you'll end up dead."

Billy had her eyes on the door handle, waiting to see Glenn's hand wrap around it and yank. She thought if she saw it, then the knot in her chest would loosen and the air cranking from the vents might somehow feel cooler.

"Doesn't sound like to me it's any of your concern whether or not I'll end up dead. Especially when I'm telling you outright there's no money in it either way for you."

"The money's purely for the luxury of getting to tell me how to conduct myself in your presence," Glenn said, reaching for the door. "You send me away and I'll just track you down. I can feel that darkness in you as easily as I can smell you sweating in that seat there. So, I'm involved one way or the other. It's up to you if we're on the same page, is all."

"You know what I think?" Billy?s gaze fixed on the back of Glenn?s hand as he reached for the door, and then made a steady arc up to his eyes. "I think just about anything right now seems better to you than being alone with yourself. Maybe you're not scared of death, but maybe the prospect of sitting by yourself, with that darkness in you and the things that meant something to you dead in the ground, maybe sitting there with all the echoes of that bouncing around you is worse than anything else. So no, I don't think we're on the same page. I don't even think we're reading the same book, Glenn Douglas."

Glenn studied her for a long moment of silence following that outburst. During this time, his expression did not change. It remained calm, collected, implacable. He opened the door. "Yeah," he said, climbing out. He reached over the edge of the truck bed for his bag, one hand still on the door. He stood there for a moment, looking like he had something else to say. Then he closed the door and tugged the rucksack up onto his shoulders and started walking toward the road.

There was no sweetness in the victory of his departure, it was as bitter as the aftertaste of coffee lingering in the back of her throat. The air from the vents didn't get any cooler. Then knot in her chest didn't loosen.

Billy put the truck in gear and drove past him without slowing, refusing to look in the rearview mirror until she was out of the motel parking lot, and then she watched until the heat rising from the pavement bent his figure and finally erased it from view.

Billy's shovel came to a halt, gaze roving over Glenn while her eyes narrowed, trying to figure out whether the moniker was just a reflex or if it was intentional. "How old do you think I am?"

"Young enough to still act like you own the ground you walk on."

"Old enough to get punched when that attitude pisses someone off."

She wanted to say something as clever as he had, but being taken aback didn't mix well with parrying insults. A handful of seconds passed, then some more, long enough that Billy knew the window of retaliation had passed.

"After we get done with my aunt, we can work on getting your dark stowaway back in its proper place," she said with a reflexive glance down to her wrist.

"Hmm..." he paused to lean on the shovel. "Got ideas?"

"A couple, but my aunt will have more. It's not anything I can take care of myself. Believe me, I tried."

"Then we best hurry," he said, resuming. "It's evil. Poison, it'll kill you."

"You're not dead yet."

"I don't take to dying the same way most do."

"And how's that?" She asked. Their dirt pile was growing sparse.

Glenn smirked, tossing a few more shovels' worth of dirt before turning to walk back toward the truck. He tossed the shovel over into the truck bed and then turned to lean against the side of the vehicle.

"You're doing that thing again," Billy pointed out. She tamped down some dirt unnecessarily, scraped a few droplets of blood into oblivion and then trailed Glenn to the back of the truck, tossing her shovel in behind his.

"Three years ago now, Madison and I were cornered by the Hexx, what the Sarcina devolved into," he said. "At a bell tower near a town called Decrepit. Brought the whole thing tumbling down on myself and the coyotes to get her out. I died, I guess. Spent a time in-between it all, and then one day I woke up all twisted and hurting, but alive."

"Where were you when you woke up?" She asked and then, when she realized she'd leaned up against the truck next to him, Billy?s spine stiffened and she pushed away to head to the passenger side. "I need you to drive for a while," she said, digging out the keys and tossing them in his direction.

Glenn caught the keys and pushed from his lean to circle around to the driver's side. "The bell tower, what was left of it. Crawled out, found my way back to the city and started putting it all back together. I couldn't make sense of nothing. Couldn't tell what was memory, dream, death. Wasn't sure I was alive for a while. Tried to kill myself, didn't work."

"How long were you there, in-between?" Even with the windows opened, the air in the cab of the truck still felt stale and still. Billy rested an elbow against the sill and made a thick coil of her hair until it was wound around her wrist and off the back of her neck. "Gunshot?" she asked when he mentioned trying to kill himself. "Does that mean no one else can or just you?"

"I been shot, stabbed, beat to a pulp, nothing stuck," he started the engine and rolled his window down. Putting the truck into gear, he backed up and turned around before heading back the way they'd come from. "It was all Leo's shit though. He's the reason everything that happened went down the way it did, and I figure he's the reason I couldn't die. Now that he's gone, I don't know what that means for me. But I got bored of trying to eat my own bullets, so I'll just wait until someone gets the drop on me to find out."

"Those are all physical solutions, though, and I think maybe you've got too much other shit in you for something typical to work." An offhand comment as Billy watched him from where she'd wedged herself into the corner, one leg tucked underneath her, and her right hand with its coil of hair, still stuck on the sill venting the nape of her neck as the truck picked up speed. "If you call me 'kid' one more time, maybe you'll find out what kind of effect Leo's death has had."

Glenn, Billy might notice, sat rather stiff-backed as he drove the truck over the rough and uneven patches of dirt road crossing over the desert, looking awfully uncomfortable. He glanced at her, briefly, from the corner of his eye. "Leo could hurt me," he said. "Stabbed me once, with a knife made of wood. Everything else would heal up in a few hours. That took days."

Billy noted Glenn's stiff posture but chalked it up to being unfamiliar with the area. Her gaze settled on the clench of his hands where they curled around the wheel. "So, if he's the one that infected you, and now some of that's jumped to me, seems possible that maybe I could hurt you. Unless you're saying it was all dependent on that particular knife he had."

"But I already suspect there're other avenues I didn't tap into. I'm better with those than bullets, anyway."

It wasn't a threat, but more along the lines of rumination.

"Maybe you can. Time will tell," his smirk, which seemed at odds with his discomfort, said he wasn't terribly worried. "Knife was nothing. Just fancy, old. I tried it later, nothing."

Billy started to retort. After all, she had a smirk she thought was as good as his, but she felt the tell-tale tingle at the ends of her fingers as a field of tiny lightning bolts that ran up the length of her forearms and settled in her chest. Loosing her hand from her hair, she shifted in the seat abruptly to face forward and plant both feet flat on the floor.

Her back bowed abruptly outward as if she'd been shoved from behind, her next breath was a ragged, pained, open-mouthed gasp that sounded too coherent for the way her eyes rolled up in their sockets. In her lap, her hands formed tight fists, knuckles bled white, veins standing in relief. The whole episode lasted maybe a half a minute and then her spine snapped backward and Billy curled against the side of the truck as the road before them swam back into focus.

"The fuck? You having a seizure?" he asked during the onset of the episode. He kept stealing looks at her from the corner of his eye as guided the truck to a jolting stop so he could turn to look at her in full.

She didn't answer him for a while, waiting until her muscles unknotted and the breaths she took didn't feel like they were scalding her lungs. A tremor had settled in her hands, so she laced her fingers together and buried them in the bunched-up fabric of her skirt. "It's a thing that happens sometimes," she said, refusing to commit to calling it a seizure. "It's like a umm..." she dropped off, thinking of how to explain it, "psychic aftershock."

"Aftershock means an explosion. I didn't hear no boom," he watched her a moment longer, his suspicion palpable. Then he put the truck back into gear and they were bumping along soon after.

"Aftershocks happen after earthquakes, too," she argued, a deeper exhale sending up a puff of black strands which she caught and wrapped around the end of her index finger. "Besides, there wouldn't be any reason for you to hear anything. It's fine. I'm good now. It's not anything new."

"Earthquakes got a boom, too," he muttered. "You gonna direct me or what?"

"Yeah, we go another 20 miles on this highway and then it'll be on our right. All the fences and barb wire are hard to miss." Billy smoothed the hem of her dress out with the side of her hand and looked out the window. "I guess you can just wait in the truck."

Glenn nodded and focused his attention on the road ahead. Sometime later, he took the turn and started following signs and fences. He pulled into a space and killed the engine, removing the keys from the ignition to drop them in her lap as he opened the truck door and stepped out.

"I'll be an hour, maybe less," Billy said, scooping up the keys automatically as she got out of the truck, then leaned back in to dig around in the duffel bag for a leather pouch. She emptied the contents into her hand, which turned out to be a simple leather cord with three beads strung on it. After looping it around her wrist to make an impromptu bracelet, she closed the bag back up and shut the door, turning to head toward the visitor's entrance.

Glenn's answer was noncommittal. He watched her walk away for a few steps, then pushed from the lean he'd taken up against the side of the truck and followed her, hands shoved into his pockets with a slouch in his spine and a slump in his shoulders that made it look like he'd just crawled out of bed for the first time that day. He eyed the prison warily, he'd seen the inside of one a few times. They always made him itchy.

"What're you doing?" Billy asked, cutting a look aside at Glenn as he fell in step beside her. His posture caused her attention to linger.

"Coming inside."

"Like hell you are." Billy stopped, catching him by the elbow, using him as leverage when she spun to face him. "For starters, you've got no proper ID, which'll cast suspicion on me. Second, you already look like a goddamned convict the way you're walking right now. Third, this meeting is important and it can't get fucked up. I told you I wouldn't be long. Go smoke a pack of cigarettes or something."

"I'm out," he said, pausing. "You gonna keep me out? How are you gonna do that without causing a scene out here in the lot?"

"Well, I'll give you the keys back and you can go hunt some down." Billy opened her fist, offering the keyring over to him. "You don't have any business in there, Glenn, and besides, like I said, they won't let you in anyway."

Glenn pulled himself free of the grip on his elbow and shot a sly wink her way before turning to continue toward the prison, ignoring the keys. "They'll let me in."

Billy's teeth clenched until the muscles of her jaw popped into stark relief, and she shook her head as Glenn pulled out of her grip. "When they turn you away, you just go back to the truck and don't make a scene. If you do, I swear to fuck I will make it my life's work to kill you for good."

"Relax," Glenn said. "You think I been through all this shit and come out ahead 'cause I don't know what I'm doing?"

Billy shrugged but couldn't help an ornery, "Who's acting like they own the ground they're walking on now?" as she pulled open the metal-framed door that led into the visitor's lobby.

The rectangular room was composed of non-descript grays, hard plastic chairs, and a thick glass window, behind which sat a bored female attendant. To the left of the window was the first entrance with a metal detector and a guard posted next to it.

Glenn's laugh followed her into the lobby. He stepped through the door and went immediately toward the metal detector, staring curiously at the machine and the guard posted beside it like he'd never seen anything so strange or otherworldly.

Glenn's laugh earned a glare, but soon enough Billy turned away to approach the attendant behind the glass and the sign in sheet that lay on the counter in front. She gestured between herself and Glenn and she pushed the button on the intercom and leaned in to speak. "He and I are here for visiting hours. Dezba Creeley."

The attendant nodded, looked up and then leaned forward herself, looking to either side of Billy. "You're waiting for someone else, then?" she asked, though she was looking right at Glenn.

"No, he's--" Billy stalled out, and then struggled to figure out how to fill the silence in her confusion until she decided not to fill it at all. She picked up the pen to sign herself in, dropped it, and bent to retrieve it. The attendant had fixed a stare upon her that flustered Billy unreasonably. She took a breath and set the ballpoint atop a line on the sign-in sheet scrawling out her name, brows frozen in a deep frown.

Glenn, who in all his life had never actually seen a metal detector, found the large metallic frame interesting but pointless. He glanced at the guard, who seemed not to acknowledge him, and then walked right on through. The subsequent series of beeps, the small yellow lights that flashed on top of the metal detector, did nothing to stop him from continuing through and shoving through the door on the other side.

Beside the detector, the guard jumped, bewildered, and was staring with palpable puzzlement at the malfunctioning machine.

Billy's head whipped to one side, too late to call out anything to Glenn and besides, she didn't know what she might have said. All she could do was watch as the alarms went off and the birth of the guard's confused expression as he rose and looked over at her. Behind the glass, the attendant stood as well, boredom shed from her pinched features and replaced with suspicion.

Billy shook her head, "I've been standing here the whole time."

The guard tipped her head, indicating Billy should come closer, which she did warily.

"Nothing on you?" The guard asked.

"Nope," Billy said, lifting each arm to the side before spinning slowly.

"Come on through, then. I'll have to search you, too."

Billy stepped through the machine.

The moment his hand touched the old woman's arm, Glenn felt that darkness inside him uncoil and lash out. He felt it moving through his arm and into hers, a primordial force that sought to bring ruin to everything it met. It leapt between them, and though Glenn hardly understood the entity that had poisoned him, he could sense the desire to tear away at Dezi's soul. Glenn recoiled, but found he couldn't pull his arm away.

It happened in a second. He saw, through the black eyes of Leo's curse, two entities. Where it rushed toward one, Glenn used every ounce of will he could muster to steer it another way. Instead of trying to snatch away her soul, it grasped for the invasive entity that had latched itself onto her.

Dezi wasn't without her own defenses, weakened though they were. She felt the infringement immediately and acutely, felt what it wanted and, for a second, she entertained the thought of handing it over before recognizing that that was just her husband's influence. A strange tug of war occurred between the trio during which Dezi felt the black ooze of force from Glenn wrapping her bones and coating them in darkness. Afraid of what might happen if Glenn pulled away too quickly, Dezi reached out and grasped him by the wrist in turn, making a closed circuit of their connection. Darkness met weak light, but it began building slowly the longer she held onto Glenn. It wasn't enough to keep the curse from binding to the entity attached to her, but it wrapped her soul and kept it bound properly until she had enough strength to push free of the invasion.

"Didn't have enough troubles of your own, so you thought maybe you'd add one more?" Dezi asked, looking up in time to see the exterior door close behind Billy.

Glenn frowned at what was happening, at the grip on his wrist and the sensation of that other-part of him, which felt more like an extension of himself rather than the remnants of Leo, at that point. He sensed something inside of Dezi and it didn't make one lick of sense to him, he'd never been able to make heads nor tails of this spooky shit. So, he jerked his hand away from her arm and took hold her wrist, meaning to pry her grip free. He hesitated a moment, and instead of tearing her away like he might have a man or woman a few decades her junior, he carefully pried her fingers from his wrist and stepped back, feeling the connection snap, feeling the presence of that dark passenger settling back within that burrow it'd hollowed out in his soul. He felt something else there, too, something more foreign, something just as vile, he thought.

"What?" he asked after a pause. It took him a moment to process, but Glenn soon made sense of what had just transpired. "Offer stands," he said. "This shithole ain't a place for an old woman to die."

"I won't die here," Dezi said, rubbing sensation back into the hand she'd had around Glenn's wrist. She spoke with conviction, though it'd be hard to say whether it was genuine or some kind of subtle well wish she meant to send Glenn on his way with. "You consider Benjamin. That thing in you is looking for outlets, and it's hungry, too. In case you hadn't noticed."

Glenn nodded at her. "I'll think on it," he rubbed his hand on his thigh and then took a step back. "My old man was a piece of shit, you know," he said. "I remember wanting to take that gun from his belt and empty it into his belly. My mother, she was too patient, too kind for the likes of him," he rubbed at his jaw, studying her again for a long moment. "She used to keep after his guns for him, was real familiar. She had all the opportunity to put him down, and I always wondered why she wouldn't do it. Suppose she was scared, same as me. But I can't help wondering, what might be different if one of us had the grit to do what needed doing."

Again, he paused, frowning at the old woman in front of him. "It's your business. But, way I see it, you done your time for killing him long before you put him in the dirt. You're just serving someone else's sentence, now. And it don't have to be that way."

Seeming, at last, like he'd said what he'd meant to, Glenn clucked his tongue and nodded curtly, hands on his hips. "So, don't die in here," then he turned and walked away.

Dezi remained where she was as Glenn spoke, fingers resting lightly atop the scarred wood of the picnic table. She didn't need to be absolved by anyone else, but she understood too that with Glenn it wasn't as straightforward as that anyway, even if he thought different. Folding her arms over her chest as he finished, she returned his nod with one that was slower and more contemplative. Once his back was to her, she watched him walk away. It wasn't until he was out of the yard and beyond sight that a small, clandestine smile shadowed the corners of her mouth as she turned around, looking through the links of the fence to the land beyond.


*********

Glenn's departure was just as noisy as his entrance. And like before, the guard posted beside the metal detector had no idea what was going on. He walked through the doors that spilled out into the parking lot again and crossed with that same slouch to his step on over to the truck, where Billy waited. "Where to next, boss?" he asked, reaching up for the passenger door.

Billy was leaned up against the truck's fender near the driver's side door, gaze fixing on Glenn sharp and flinty as arrow tips when he appeared and started across the parking lot. By the time he reached for the passenger door, Billy had jolted upright and stalked the distance between them, aiming a shove at his shoulder with the flat of her hand. There was more than just physical force behind it, though Billy was careful this time to keep things moving outward, away from her body, rather than pulling inward. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Mostly rhetorical since she kept going, "Who the fuck do you think you are to just go in there and talk to a woman you've never met in your life like she's your goddamn charge and you know what's best for her. Asking her about her son, making threats when you don't know shit about shit." She had every intention of seeing him sprawled on his ass on the ground before she'd relent.

Glenn grit his teeth and took a slow, steadying breath. "You want to do this shit in the fucking parking lot of a prison?" he asked. "Want to hash out your problem with me right here and now? Just 'cause they can?t see me don't mean they ain't gonna come throw cuffs on the crazy shouting and throwing shit around in their lot."

He'd moved back a step from her shove -- and though he'd felt the added pressure of something more than her hand, he felt too its diminished effects, like something was eating up the power she was trying to throw at him. He kept his hands at his sides, fearing what might happen if he took hold of her. There wasn't any dark passenger hanging out in her soul, far as he could tell. If what happened with Dezi happened with Billy, he'd have nowhere else to direct that flow of malice.

The direction of the wind shifted, cold drafts rushing from the north, cutting across Billy's shoulders and ballooning the bottom of her dress. She was heedless to it, and to most of Glenn's caution. This time it was her fist that came flying in his direction, but she hadn't given much attention to her aim, it was all wild swing and fury. "Good, they can drag me off in cuffs for all I care. I probably am crazy, turning around and coming back for you, thinking that maybe--" she swatted at the air, "I don't even know. I don't even know what I was thinking. I just know I should know fucking better by now."

Glenn's hand closed around her fist with a vice-like-grip that stopped it just before meeting his face. He yanked down, hoping to pull her off balance. "You know what I just did for that woman?" he asked. "I just took the fucking parasite crawling around inside her. Made it my problem, so it don't gotta be hers," he let go of her hand, one way or the other. "I don't need you to understand why I came to see her. It wasn't to make no fucking threats, not toward her or that shithead cousin of yours. If I mean to hurt a man I sure as shit ain't gonna go warn his momma for him. So back the fuck off, Billy. Get in the fucking truck and leave, if that's what you want. Hell, you can stand here and yell at me 'til your throat's raw for all I care. But you keep your goddamn hands to yourself if you know what's good for you."

"You did what?" Billy wrenched her fist to get it free of his grip, and shoved at the tangle of hair plastered to the side of her face as she tried to catch her breath. Confusion etched lines in the corners of her eyes while she processed everything Glenn had just said. "Why the hell would you take that on?"

"Ask me after I've had time to figure it out," he said, watching her warily. "Are you done?"

A vague nod for the first part of what he said transitioned into a brusque shake of her head for the second. "I don't know." Her fist was still balled up tight against her chest, like it was just waiting to lash out again. With effort, she relaxed her fingers, scooped up the end of her braid the baby fine hairs along the nape of her neck so the breeze could blow cool across it. Her cheeks were flushed as if fevered. "Do you dislike me as much as I dislike you right now or are you just beyond investing anything in the living anymore?"

"Does it matter?"

"No. Yes. Not really. Mostly I said it to distract myself from wanting to hit you again."

He smirked. "No."

Billy's lips went from purse to full on compression that bled them of their natural pink tint. "That's probably worse," she said, releasing her braid and swiping the palm of her hand across the side of her dress. Then she spun abruptly around and marched back to the driver's side of the truck, climbing inside to crank up the engine before the sky opened on them.

"You always this tightly wound?" he asked as she rounded the truck. He considered climbing into the truck bed again, but the sky was looking ominous and he decided against it. Glenn opened the passenger door and climbed in.

"No," Billy said, a second glance sliding back in his direction as he climbed in the truck. "But there's no reason for you to believe that, is there? Guess it's a special gift of your presence. You have that effect on most women or just the unlucky few?"

"They get over it," he ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window at the prison. "Most of the time."

"Oh yeah? Do you get them hammered or do they get worn down and apathetic over time?" Billy pulled from prison lot onto the road just as the rain started to fall.

"Neither," he smirked broadly, glad he was facing away so she couldn't see it. "Usually stop getting mad right around the time they decide they're ready to sleep with me."

Billy's laughter was as brittle as the paint chipping off the side of the old truck.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Glenn said. "Just remember that in a week's time."

Billy's foot accidentally hit the brake--not with enough force to send them skidding over the wet asphalt, but enough so that she was thrust into the steering wheel. A surprised gasp escaped her that quickly turned into more laughter, some of the bitter edge burned away with genuine humor. "A week, huh?"

Glenn's hand slapped against the console to keep him from jolting forward in his seat. "Yeah. If that."

"Alright, yeah, I'll remember that." Her laughter died down to a snicker, posture straightening in her seat so she wouldn't knock the brake again.

"I robbed Madison the first time we met. Held her at gunpoint, emptied the safe," he said. "Hung around town and she came, found me, demanded her money back. I put her out on the dirt and kept on, and she just kept coming after me. By the time I was willing to give her anything back, I'd spent every last penny."

"So were you a born bastard then, or a made one?" Billy asked. "Is there someone in this universe that'll tell a story about you that doesn't end in their regret?"

Glenn glanced at her. "First and last thing my old man ever did for me was give me a gun and teach me how to shoot. Biggest regret of my life is not turning it on him and sparing us all the trouble of his existence. That's why I like Dezi. She had the guts to do what I didn't, what my mother couldn't. Damn stupid of her, if you ask me, to rot away in there."

"Well I didn't ask you, and neither did she, though I'm inclined to agree with you, and she knows all that. She's stubborn and she'll do what she wants when she's ready." Billy slowed to turn onto a highway that would take them west of Yuma. "You think we're fated to become what we become? Say you killed your dad and things went differently. Maybe you'd still end up right here the exact same man by different means."

"I don't think we're fated for shit."

"So we're just blowing in the wind, then?"

"I just don't think we're smart enough to see where things went wrong. We tell ourselves it was here or there. I say my pops, but I left home at nineteen and didn't come back for five years. A lot happened in that time."

"I don't know if I think that, either," he shrugged. "Doesn't matter one way or the other. It is the way it is, no changing it."

"I'm not sure. I can definitely pinpoint a few places I went wrong." Billy's shrug mirrored his. "And I'm about 80 percent sure that you still being in this truck is a royal fuck up waiting to happen. I think you're wrong about not being able to change it, though. Maybe."

"What's there to change? What's happened happened. Go forward, but you can't ever know if you're right or wrong until the dust settles."

Rain pelted the windshield and forced Billy to slow. It hardly ever rained that hard in Yuma, which was probably why the windshield blades were out of date and insufficient; they smeared more than they wiped away. "Alright, guru," she said, a little distracted as she fiddled with the knob to the wipers again. "That could easily become an excuse for not trying, though. That's all I'm saying."

"Another 45 miles and we'll stop again. Motel I know where we can spend the night. And then tomorrow...tomorrow we go see someone else about getting your mess sorted from mine."

"Could be," he said. "But the people who take that route are gonna take it no matter what road you put them on. If you're gonna try you'll try, damned what others say."

"So now you've gone from answering nothing to having an answer for everything. Can't say which I prefer, yet."

"You're the one asking the questions," he reminded her. "You don't like what I got to say, don't ask."

"Fine," she said, and went quiet for a few seconds before, "It's not that I necessarily have a problem with what you're saying, but just that you say it likes it's the damn law."

"What can I say?" he shrugged. "I believe what I believe."

"So that means everyone else should, too?"

"Ain't that the common consensus? Be strong in your convictions and shit?"

A little chuff of sound escaped Billy, the feminized version of one of those grunts she was so often subjected to by men like Glenn. She ticked a look over to Glenn, quick because the driving rain made the road nearly indistinguishable from the steely sky above. She decided she had nothing more to add.

"What? You think everyone?s beliefs should be shakable, flimsy? Think conviction should go by the wayside?"

"Did you hear that come out of my mouth?"

"No, but I hear the judgment in your tone."

"Oh, well good. Less work for me in the future then, now that I know you can read between the lines." Billy squinted at a sign up ahead as the truck slowed to a crawl. "You just have an awful lot of conviction for an outlaw, murderer, thief. I can't decide which one should take top priority there."

"Don't act like you know me or what I've had to do just 'cause you seen my face on a poster with a dollar-sign next to the name," he said. "That shit's in the past, at any rate. Only reason I'm still wanted is 'cause what remains of the Hexx and Sarcina got it out for me, and always will. I killed my brother to save his family, save York. Leo burned it to the ground anyway. Bethany caged me like an animal and forced me to eat half-rotted flesh for thirty-seven days, until I agreed to eat a man alive. So fuck off."

The sign in front of them was legible intermittently between the sweep of the wipers: Spindrift Inn--a misnomer if there'd ever been one, though Billy found it a strangely appropriate displacement that had echoes in her current frame of mind. Pulling into the lot and under the awning that slanted out over the lobby, Billy put the truck in park, Glenn's diatribe all the louder for the sudden quiet that descended now that the rain no longer offered competing decibels.

"Yeah, well maybe if you grant that POV to strangers like Dezi, people like me might be more inclined to grant it to you," she said, unbuckling her seatbelt and opening the door. Billy slid from the seat, catching the bottom of her dress as it tried to stay behind. She smoothed it out, then made a pass at her hair for good measure. "Besides, you're the one who said you can't change anything anyway, not me." She closed the door behind her before Glenn could get a word in edgewise and turned away to walk into the lobby.

She returned ten minutes later with two keys, one of which she dropped onto the seat between them before cranking the truck again and driving to the other side of the lot.

Glenn spent the time she was away in silent introspection. When she rejoined him, dropping his key onto the seat cushion, he shifted where he sat and studied her profile with an inscrutable gaze. When the truck was set in motion again, he asked, "You ever sit alone in the dark with another person, Billy? Sit there when that black is closing in all around them, and talk?"

"You mean someone dying?" Her voice was cautious, and she didn't look at him even though she could feel his gaze upon her. When she'd walked into the lobby, she'd had the benefit of distance to conceal what she'd felt when he'd spoken of his brother's family, of his time with Bethany. But Billy didn't have a natural poker face. It took effort on her part, and she was tired in a way that she felt down to her bones. So instead, she just evaded, kept giving him her profile even after she'd pulled into the parking spot and the truck was idling.

"No," he shook his head, turning his attention elsewhere. "You don't need the dark to get the truth from the dying," Glenn said. "People get right honest when they see their maker coming for them. Most times, anyhow. I mean someone alive and well. You sit in the dark and talk. You cut out all light and sound and it's just you and them and the sound of their breath, sound of their heart thudding in their chest. They can feel and hear it, too. Hear yours in you, become aware of how loud their bodies are. How fragile. Everything becomes more personal in the dark, the answers to your questions are more real. Even if they're lies."

"I... maybe. A long while ago." Even as Billy said it--and the words came out haltingly as if she'd had to pull them reluctantly from the well of her throat--she realized her answer didn't matter. She turned the keys quietly, pulled them free of the ignition and let them slide with a muted jingle from her hand to her lap as she tilted her head back against the seat and studied the tobacco-stained upholstery of the ceiling.

Glenn's answer was a noise caught somewhere between a hum and a grunt. He opened the door and got out, reaching over the edge of the truck bed to snatch up his bag. Turning, he scraped the key off the seat and closed the door.

Billy didn't move. She could see him from the corner of one eye, watch the shadows pour from the creases in the back of his shirt as he moved and form anew. And if she tilted her head ever so slightly, she could catch in a tiny sliver, hardly more than divided fields of color: skin and shirt, chestnut hair. She waited until the truck door shut, and then longer still, to the softer close of the motel door, fingers moving back and forth over the row of teeth on her keys. Forearms folded over the steering wheel and her chin followed, resting there as she stared blankly at the green paint of the door Glenn had disappeared behind.

Another five minutes passed before she let out a deep breath that fogged the base of the windshield in the humid air. Then she reached for her bag, got out of the truck and vanished through the other door.

The key to the room was placed on the small dresser. His bag on the bed. He kicked his boots off and unbuckled the guns and belt slung around his hips. These he spread out at the foot of the bed, just in front of his bag. He opened the bag, grabbing clean clothes to wear after his shower. Then he went into the small room's smaller bathroom, turned the water on to as hot as it could go, and stripped down as the bathroom started to fill up with steam.

Ten minutes later Glenn stepped out, dried, dressed, stared at himself in the mirror and haphazardly combed through his hair with his fingers. He wished he had a razor then, something to trim with. Out in the room again, he balled up his dirty clothes and set them on the bed beside his bag, which he once more dug through until he found, packed down at the bottom, a wooden puzzle box just shorter than his forearm, and just about as wide.

The walls were thin and the pipes were old and though Billy couldn't hear Glenn's footsteps, she'd swear for a second she felt them, like the floor sank a little beneath them. It was a ridiculous thought, one she physically batted at the air for, like something she could swat away. Listening to the water run through the pipes, she put her bag on the bed and unzipped it, pulling out the pillowcase Glenn had dropped at her feet in front of the waystation. She dumped the money out on the bed, sat down on the edge of the bedspread, and started counting the bills. When she finished, she collapsed backward, a stack of money in her hand that she fanned through with the tip of her thumb over and over, feeling the puff of air it sent across the underside of her chin each time. Billy wondered if a man like Glenn ever felt clean or if he was just scrubbing at layers of dirt. And then she thought a man like Glenn probably didn't think about that much, not the way she did.

She drifted off like that, boots still on the ground over the side of the bed, a stack of bills fanned across her chest.

A few minutes after his shower, Glenn was outside Billy's door. He had his bag lying against the wall just out of reach -- and perhaps out of sight. He knocked, the sound loud as his knuckles rasped against the door. In his other hand, he held the wooden puzzle box.

Billy didn't jolt upright when Glenn knocked. It was more like layers of sleep were peeled back until she was deposited gently into consciousness again. Fingers stroked through the sea of bills spread over her chest until they were swept free. She stumbled once over nothing on the way to the door, and when she unhooked the chain and opened it a few inches, the first thing she smelled was soap and the first thing she looked at, unintentionally, was the place near his collarbone where she remembered gouges. Billy opened the door another few inches, half of her body wedged into the frame, her eyes still glassed over with sleep. Her gaze dropped to the wooden box in his hand warily.

Glenn held it out to her, silent.

She traveled the curve of his thumb where it held the box all the way up to the lines on his face, where she looked for an answer. Nevertheless, she accepted the box. "What is this?" Billy wasn't even sure if she meant the box.

Glenn shrugged. "It's a puzzle box," he said. "Think of it as...an apology," he nodded. "Night," turning, Glenn stepped back over toward his door.

Billy's lips parted, but there wasn't a single syllable she could will out, at first. She shifted on her weight from the doorframe, reaching out to accept the box, eyes still on Glenn as he turned and stepped away. "Alright." Hardly more than an exhale, the word came belatedly.

Glenn picked up his bag from beside the door to his room, slipped his shoulders through the arm straps, and shrugged so that its weight settled properly against his back. Glanced briefly around the parking lot, eyes moving from her truck to a handful of other cars present. These, he considered breaking into. Instead, Glenn crossed the lot and headed for the road, hands in his pockets. The guns he normally wore were suspiciously missing from his hips. The silhouette he cast seemed lacking for their absence.