It doesn’t look like Zeth even knows Ernie’s there. He just lets the dog rest his head on his leg, which seems to please Ernie immensely. He huffs out a shallow breath and shuffles in closer, so he’s as close as he can physically get without actually climbing up into Zeth’s lap. After a while, Zeth starts absently stroking the tips of his fingers against Ernie’s head, and the dog goes to sleep.
Eventually I fall asleep, too. It’s not the physical stress that’s exhausted me. It’s the crying, like I’ve cried out my entire energy reserve for a year and now my body is demanding rest. My dreams are quick and dark, and mercifully empty.
In the morning, I wake up in bed, stripped down to my underwear. The sheets are almost black from the filth that’s rubbed off my body. I find Zeth in exactly the same position he was in when I passed out on the sofa, Ernie now curled up at his feet. He must have moved at some point though, since I sure as hell didn’t put myself to bed, and he also looks like he’s had a shower at some point.
“Zeth?”
He’s awake. He glances over his shoulder, and I see the briefly unguarded pain in his bleary eyes. “Hey,” he whispers. “You should sleep some more.” The sun is just rising over the city, though the cloud cover casts a cold light over everything, making it blue and gray and sad.
“Have you slept at all?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t need to.”
“Zeth, you absolutely need to sleep.”
“I don’t need to sleep. I need to move.” He stands quickly, rubbing his hands over his face. I notice despite his irritated tone that he’s careful not to disturb Ernie as he steps over him and paces across the room.
“Do you want breakfast?” I ask softly.
Zeth shakes his head. “I’m okay. Really. I just need to…” He never finishes that sentence. He looks down at the floor, eyes seemingly fixed on some irrelevant point on the tile as his brain races. I wrap my arms around my body. Zeth looks up at me and his hard expression fades. He closes the gap between us and folds his arms around my body.
“I’ll be back soon.” Placing a careful kiss against my forehead, he gives me a tight squeeze and then lets me go. I watch as he collects his leather jacket and a set of keys off the kitchen counter, and then he leaves the apartment. The door clicks quietly closed behind him.
******
Michael comes by an hour later wearing black leather gloves and what looks like running gear. I’ve never seen him wearing gym stuff, though it’s obvious he works out from the sheer size of his arms alone.
“I took him to a fighting gym. We both needed to smash the hell out of something, and that seemed like the safest bet,” he tells me. “He wanted to stay. I said I’d go help Rebel with Julio now, but if you want me to stay here with you, then all you need to do is say the word.”
I don’t want him to stay. To be honest, all I want to do is curl up on the couch and try and work out this whole mess we’re in, but I have to be pragmatic. “Am I in danger if I’m here alone?”
Michael shakes his head. “Charlie’s gone. None of his boys are stupid enough to bother us now. They have no reason to. There’s a power vacuum now. The gangs of Seattle are going to be far more concerned over who’ll be filling that vacuum than over Zeth and the rest of us.”
That makes perfect sense, even if a part of me is still on edge. “Okay, fine. Then I’ll be okay here. I won’t go anywhere.”
Michael leaves, and then it’s just Ernie and me. I spend my morning replaying the moment where Charlie said he wanted O’Shannessey to kill me, and Lacey lunging at him with that fork. I’ve imagined it from every angle, wondering if I could have helped her, if I could have stopped her before she acted. The conclusion I’ve come to is, no, I couldn’t. She’d said it herself. Lacey had made the decision to kill Charlie long before she accomplished the task. She’d already tried it once before. She would have tried it again, one way or another.
It’s almost midday when there’s a knock at the apartment door. When I peer through the spyhole, my heart thundering away in my chest—was Michael wrong? Is it one of Charlie’s men?—I don’t have the energy to be surprised or upset or anything whatsoever.
The sight of Pippa standing out in the hallway, looking very anxious, is just another straw balanced precariously on the camel’s back. I open the door and she rushes in, throwing her arms around me. “Oh, god, Sloane, I am so sorry. Seriously. Zeth texted me; he told me what happened. He said you might need me. Are you okay? Holy…you look like shit, Sloane.”
Out of all of this, the one thing that sticks with me is what she said about Zeth. “He texted you?”
She looks perplexed for a moment, delicate frown lines forming between her eyebrows. “Yeah. He sent me a very rude message about being a good fucking friend for once. When I asked why, he said…he said because his sister had died, and you needed someone.” She looks down at her hands. “I’m so sorry, Sloane. I just can’t believe it.”
“Of course you can,” I tell her, swinging the door closed behind her. “You’ve been telling me for weeks now that I’m in a dangerous situation. That someone’s going to get killed. Well, guess what? You were right.” Out of habit, I head straight for the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. It was always our ritual whenever we visited each other—tea was top priority.