“Two.”
With the heel of her palm, Reagan stuffed the mouth guard between his lips. Seabass curled forward, twisting, squirming, electrified by pain. She grabbed his chin and his forehead, shoving his head backward, into the headrest. As she forced him to bite down, bloodied yellow clay oozed between his lips like a human piping bag.
Pressing his skull into the headrest, Seabass did everything he could not to yell, howl, or scream. He clenched his jaw tighter than ever, breathing hard through his nose with frantic huffs like he was in labor. Fffff . . . ffffff . . . ffffff . . .
For nearly thirty seconds, he swallowed the pain, pretending it wasn’t there, leaning backward and biting down. He focused on an old memory, back when he first arrived at Fort Leonard Wood. He could do this . . . he had it, he told himself, his huffing getting softer and softer, until . . . like a leaky balloon, he let out a high-pitched indistinct wail that brought matching tears to both his and Reagan’s eyes.
“I can make more jokes about the Peruvian girl,” Reagan said. “That’s who you were thinking of, right?”
He nodded over and over, his sad blue eyes staring straight up, like he was trying to will himself out of his body, out of existence, out of sight from the only woman he ever honestly thought about—Reagan.
“Sebby, if the pain’s too much, I can take you to a hospit—”
He shook his head, pointing to the other bloody mess, the bullet wound in his cheek. The swollen black slit was barely a centimeter long, but still stinging from all of Roddy’s punches. It definitely needed closing.
Just finish, he said with a glance, Reagan quickly shaking the last items from the shopping bag: a pack of sewing needles and a spool of silk thread.
In the movies, homemade stitches were made with fishing line, but as her dad taught her, fishing line unravels. If you want the knots to grab, you need texture.
“Okay, in that fantasy with Ms. Peru, here’s where she takes her top off,” Reagan finally said, lowering the threaded needle to his cheek. “On two. One . . .”
Seabass grabbed the center console with one hand, the car door with the other. Talk to me, he told her with his eyes.
“Have we worn out the Peru bit, or should I just tell you the fifteen different ways I’m gonna murder Zig and that runt cop who did this to you?”
Seabass nodded, holding a pretend phone to his face. She knew what he meant. Their handheld GPS. Back when they ran out of the funeral home, Reagan put a tracker on Zig’s car. Where are they?
“Jersey,” she said, pushing the needle into his cheek and looping it into a quick mattress stitch. “At a bar, of all places.”
For the next two minutes, Seabass sat there, eyes shut, as Reagan made another few loops and pulled the thread tight. That’s all it took. Compared to the mouth guard, the stitches were the easy part.
Fighting to sit up in his seat, he lowered the sun visor, checking her work in the mirror. His face was bloated and swollen, but at least the bleeding stopped.
He pointed to the GPS. How far?
A small grin lit Reagan’s face. She did stupid things when she was angry. But so did Seabass. “Not far at all, Sebby.” She started the car. “We’ll be there in no time.”
67
Wonderly Square, Pennsylvania
Nola wanted to draw, though now wasn’t the time.
Hitting the gas and weaving through the afternoon traffic, she blew past a fortysomething dad in a minivan, no kids in back, blaring nineties hip-hop as he bounced to the beat. She was trying to put as much distance as she could between herself and Zig’s funeral home. But that didn’t stop her from drawing in her head.
It was her brother Roddy who she mentally started to sketch, still kicking herself for letting him get so close. Careless. Another damn mistake. It was happening over and over, like she was a noob grunt again. Yet as she replayed the sound of Roddy banging on the door—just hearing his voice again . . . and then to be standing there face-to-face, to finally see him . . . the deep-set eyes, the polished uniform, worn like a costume to make him look helpful and good.