Ellie
I grabbed at Mordechai without looking, taking him by the forearm. His thick, strong forearm. He then pulled away from me, only to put that arm around my body and hold me against him. Even one armed, I knew he could kick ass.
“No need to get defensive,” Fred told me, lifting a hand. “I’m not here to fight.”
“It would end embarrassingly for you if you were,” Mordechai said. “I would hate to kill you in public. What would they say about your family if I did?”
The man chuckled.
“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” the man said. “I’d like to speak with Eleanor for a bit if you don’t mind.”
Before Mordechai could answer for me, I took a seat. He hurried to sit next to me, and I became deeply aware of the gun he had at his side and his willingness to use it. This would be the real test for him, waiting and deciding what to do. What would be the smartest thing and least dangerous.
“You’ve been meeting with my kid,” Fred said. “Tell me why a girl who has never so much as spoken to a single member of my family, started having lunch with my tired, busy daughter? I worry about your intentions.”
I kept a smile on my face, because letting them see you sweat never helped anyone. I waved the waitress over, who had our bottle of wine. She poured three glasses and I didn’t even touch mine. Fred took a big drink, clearly not worried.
“I know your family has been on the outskirts,” I said. “And I know that Jordan’s probably not getting out much with a little boy to watch. I thought it would be nice to get to know her. Let her know she had a friend close by.”
The man eyed me, knowing better. “Things like that don’t happen out of nowhere. This guard of yours is new, huh?”
I turned my head to Mordechai, keeping the smile on my face as I put my hand on his shoulder. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being safe and having fun.”
“Your father doesn’t mind?”
“I’m under control. I think that’s what he cares about.”
The man nodded and I took my glass of wine. One sip, letting me have a little courage to carry on with. If Fred knew about my meetings with Jordan, my father quite possibly know as well. Though if he knew before I left, I would have never escaped the house.
Keeping up my aura of power, I slipped my hand into Mordechai’s pocket. He lifted an eyebrow at me and I smirked as I got his phone out. No password, and he didn’t make any move to stop me. Either this didn’t worry him, or he played along. He would have had a password though.
This isn’t his real phone. Interesting.
No texts from my father. Nothing saying to come home. In fact, he had zero texts at all.
I handed the phone back.
“How’s Jordan?” I asked. “Is she okay?”
“She’s annoyed with me,” the man laughed. “Didn’t like that I stepped in. But I’m making sure she’s safe, so I think she’ll get over it.”
“I wouldn’t get over it if my father pulled what you pulled.”
He smiled at me again, toothy and unworried. The old man didn’t fear me, no matter where I came from. Every word out of his mouth sounded like he spoke to a toddler. I couldn’t be seen as strong, smart, or scary.
Blood on my boots. Blood. Food. Food. It was food.
“Word on the street is your old man is afraid,” Fred stated. “I can see that’s the truth, thanks to your friend here.”
The waitress showed up most unwanted. I didn’t want to eat but I made myself order something. I went with something small, while Mordechai had the balls to just not eat. Fred ordered salad, steak, fries, and a glass of whiskey. I didn’t know how to control my inner rage at his casualness, but it set my teeth on edge.
“Nothing wrong with being cautious,” I said.
“Heard one of your boys got killed,” Fred chuckled. “Left right on your doorstep.”
“Yeah,” I said, missing his amusement. “I knew Harrison for a long time. He was a good guy.”
“Good guys don’t exist in our business, kid. You know that.”
“My father is a good guy.”
Fred laughed at that, and so did Mordechai. He didn’t even stop when I shot him a look. He had no mercy on me.
“I want to know why you’re here,” I said. “Did you really think Jordan was in danger? If you did, then I think you would have called my father instead of me.”
“Is that so? I would rather go right to the source.”
He didn’t call Dad. That meant I would probably live when I got home. “For what?”
“I want you to be honest with me on why you started talking to my daughter. I know you weren’t doing it out of the kindness of your heart.”
Because I had no kindness in my heart. Never had any, never would have any. “We all do things for our own reasons. No matter how kind an act might seem. It’s all for ourselves.”
“A bleak outlook.”
“It’s the truth.”
“As you see it.”
As everyone should have. “I like Jordan,” I said. “She’s sweet, clumsy, charming. I do like her, but I wanted information. Information that I think you can give me.”
“Oh?”
Our food came but I didn’t touch mine. I waited until Fred had a bite in his food before I spoke again.
“I want to know why Harrison is dead,” I stated plainly. “Jordan didn’t know for sure, but I bet you do.”
Fred had to finish swallowing. “I might. That sort of information isn’t always safe to share around. It would really have to be worth my while if I started running my mouth.”
I’d thought Mordechai would stay silent like he always did, but he leaned forward with his eyes locked on this man. “Interesting seeing someone on the lowest totem trying to bargain with someone at the very top.”
Dumbass! Is he trying to get himself killed?
I could see anger brimming on Fred’s face, so I did some quick damage control.
I put my hand under Mordechai’s chin, trying to sound soft, like I didn’t want to start any trouble. If Fred wanted to see me as weak, I could use that to my advantage.
“Thanks for defending my honor, honey, but I have this,” I said.
Now, I had two options. Save Mordechai’s well-meaning ass and risk word getting back to my father that I might have been sleeping with my guard, or I could have let him flounder. If Fred thought I cared about Mordechai, then he would be safe. The risk of Dad finding out seemed low. Fred would have had to have the guts to talk to him, and give him news that he would have hated.
Fred watched me, mind turning as I knew it would have. You had to be calculating if you wanted to build an empire the way this man did. He had no chance of it, but a man could dream.
“What did you have in mind, Mr. Copole?” I asked. “I think you know my reach is limited.”
“But better than mine,” he said. “I know exactly what happened to your guy. I think if you can do me a favor, I can do one for you.”
A dangerous game. It would be easy for one of us to screw the other over. He knew that.
“I’m not in the business of favors,” I said. “You’d have to have something good.”
“I do. And what I want from you isn’t something you can do for me right this second. Which puts me in a position where I’ll tell you what you want to know, and I have to trust that you’ll keep up your end of the deal. I’m giving you the cards as an act of good faith.”
I didn’t buy that for a second. His hands were tied if he wanted an actual favor in exchange for information. My design, I would be lucky.
“Let’s start with what you want,” I said.
“Easy. I have a transfer set to happen down on Wallace and Hamilton in the near future.”
I stopped him. “Wallace is our terf.”
“Yeah. Which means you have the pull to get that street corner cleared out for me. Can’t use the docks for the time being, so this is our best shot. I want you to make sure no cops are near there for six full hours.”
And that was why this man would die without ever having more power than he did right then. He gave me the streets, admitted he had already planned on trying to do something on our spot, and sat there with a grin on his face.
“Disrespectful to do a trade so close to our home,” I said.
“Doesn’t have to be. I see no reason we can’t be friends.”
Ah, so that was what he was getting at. Smarter than I thought. It would have helped if he had the assistance of my father, for sure. That didn’t mean I could hand him that.
“That’s all I want,” he said. “A promise that you’ll keep it clear for me. I know that’s a lot to ask, so I’m going to go make a call while you think it over.”
Mordechai waited until Fred walked out of sight. And oh, the way he looked at me. I got chills that I couldn’t decide if I liked or not.
“What… are you thinking?” he asked me.
I took a deep breath, reaching for my glass. I thought better of it, going for water instead. “I hope he trips on his way back to the table.”
“Miss Locke…”
“Are you going to tell me I’m messing around where I shouldn’t be messing? I already know. I’ve come too far to turn around now. He can tell me what I want to know.”
“What will you do with that information? You’re going to risk a hell of a lot to know something you can’t do a thing with.”
I looked him in the eyes, sure of myself. “I knew Harrison for years. They mutilated him. That man brought me to school on my first day for seven years in a row. He was the one waiting for me with a car on graduation day. I want to know what happened.”
Mordechai’s jaw set.
“Why do you have a dummy phone?” I asked.
His stare turned blank. I didn’t think I had ever caught him off guard before. I almost impressed myself. “I don’t.”
“Password,” I whispered.
That blankness lingered, so I changed the subject. “I can get what he wants done. It wouldn’t even be hard to do it without Dad knowing. He doesn’t watch Wallace. It also wouldn’t be terrible to be friendly with someone who’s scrappy out of desperation. It means he’s watching everything. If there’s danger headed our way, it would be in his best interest to tell us.”
“Unless he can use it to usurp you.”
“As if.”
“You never know.”
“This is a chess game. I have no choice but to play. For this, he wants something small in exchange for something also small. I don’t see much harm in it.”
“Ellie,” Mordechai said. “Let this go.” Not an order so much as a plea.
“Why? What does it matter?”
I’d already made my choice, so nothing he told me would have changed that.
Fred sat back down, still with a wide smile on his face. “What do you think, sweetheart?”
Without missing a beat, I said, “I can do what you want. I have no way of proving I’ll do it other than time.”
“I know that. I’m going to put my trust in you. And hey, if you fall through, I’ll just have to put your dog in a fucking barrel of acid,” he laughed, hard. I did not laugh. I didn’t laugh at all.
“Tell me what I want to fucking know,” I said.
The laughing ended before he took a sip of wine. “It would seem that Harrison was spying for a Mr. Jonathan Lewis. But Jordan might have already told you that.”
“She did,” I lied, “so you better have something good for me.”
“I do. There was an incident with the Lewis organization, as there have been many in the past. Your father had Harrison and at least one other man spying in house for months. They found out about come coke coming in on a ship. Enough that it would have put four million dollars in Lewis’ pocket. He had big plans. He was going to expand. He had his eyes on some buildings near the coast. Your guys fucked that all up. The cops showed up, seized all the product, arrested everyone but the three guys they killed.”
How… the hell did I miss that? “I see,” I said. “Is that all?”
“It’s not all. Your dad keeps doing this. The going theory is that he’s had men with Lewis for years and years and the man is fed up. He’s pissed off and he wants it to end. You didn’t ask about the guy who didn’t come home. Aaron Skylar. You knew him?”
“I knew of him.” I knew that he had been high up there with my dad. I knew that he hadn’t turned up, but no one at home had mentioned it. Not that I would have heard.
“You won’t find his body. I heard they had their attack dog take care of that one.”
“Attack dog?”
Fred shrugged. “They have someone there I hear never leaves a trace behind. That doesn’t matter. What matters is that Lewis did this right under your father’s nose. Now, if it were me, I wouldn’t stop at two. Not for years of humiliation. Something to keep in mind.”
And that seemed to be the end of it there. The meal finished and I realized I had barely touched mine. When I glanced over at Mordechai, he looked stiff as a statue. I might have thought he’d died if not for the look in his eyes. So focused. So thoughtful.
I twisted the keys in my hand on the way back to the car, thinking about what I had been told. I’d been so distracted that I’d only said thank you once to the manager when he’d come by to tell us that the meal would be on the house. I would have to have a nice bottle of something sent to his house.
Sitting in my car, I couldn’t manage to muster the energy to turn it on. My father had texted me asking where I’d slipped off to. I’d lied, telling him I went shopping for a new dress. I sent him a picture that I’d had on my phone for a while, letting it act as my alibi. I didn’t feel any better for having gotten away with it.
Finally, I turned the car on. I still didn’t go anywhere. I thought I would have felt better for having the information I’d wanted. Instead, I could only think about the food stain on my boots.
I tapped on the steering wheel, counting out a four-four beat until I could settle. I could not settle.
“I shouldn’t drive,” I said. “I had wine.” Two sips, but I could use that. He didn’t need to know I was afraid.
We switched seats in silence. The click of my seatbelt sounded off three full times before I let go of it and took a breath. I couldn’t let myself breath until I had done it.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Mordechai said, putting the car in drive.
“What?” I turned my head to him, out of breath.
“You should have left well enough alone.” And he drove off.
MordechaiShe’d taken care of her end of the deal in a matter of two minutes on the phone. We’d gone to her bedroom, she made a single call, and that had been it. Her father supposedly wouldn’t find out, but I personally couldn’t see him being that unaware of what happened in his own house. Then again, the fact that I stood there sort of proved that wrong.I ended up having to watch Ellie organize her book collection of over seven hundred. The idea of that made my head hurt, but she could only look at it with love and affection. She would pick one up, flip through it, and then decide if it went back on the shelf or in a box to be given away. All the books had been organized by color, which also made my head hurt. This organization went on for hours, making me sure she’d started with the purpose of annoying me. But I showed her nothing. In fact, I went as far as to look as unbothered as I could. I bent down to pet the dog when he abandoned her for me. I loved the glare Ellie shot my wa
EllieMy books just laid there, on the floor, not in any order. I had shelves without organization, leaving gaps where I should have figured something else out. I didn’t want to tell Mom we couldn’t leave because I had to sort out my crazy person brain, so I’d walked away. I left, with my mind focused on the fact that my books could have been tipping over. If they tipped over, then it could have caused a massive crash. The weight would press down and everything could come falling over. My things would break, damaging the floor. Then people would come in and have to fix it, being in my space, getting their scent on things, looking around. They would be there, and I would have to watch them. What if they moved something else? What if something got broken so bad that I would have to move rooms while it got fixed? I grew up in that room. I couldn’t just live in another fucking room. I would wake up and it wouldn’t be the same, if I could even get to sleep. If I left that room, then I woul
MordechaiThe sound of my keys clattering against the dish at the table inside my apartment seemed to rattle off the walls. Ellie flinched at it but kept walking. Her eyes found just about everything. As I locked all four locks on the door, she examined my living space with such rigor that it had me wishing I were anywhere else. With everything she stared at, I could picture her judging me. I shouldn’t have cared what she thought about how I lived or what I liked, but I found myself holding my breath.“Can I shower?” Ellie asked, not even commenting on my home.“This way,” I said, taking the bag from her shoulder and leading her into my bedroom. I had another shower, but this one worked better.Again, I braced for her to say something. The exposed brick looked like it had seen better days. At least I’d changed the sheets on my king-sized bed. Not that I’d finished making it. The pillows laid on the floor from when I had kicked them off the last time I’d actually slept in bed. All my d
EllieI woke up with my face against a pillow that didn’t smell like me. My head ached, but only barely. Something I could ignore with ease. I couldn’t ignore the sense that I didn’t belong where I slept.The curtains shut the light out and the door had been closed. Even so, I knew I hadn’t slept at home. Every bit of the bed just felt like Mordechai. I couldn’t really explain it. The apartment felt like him too. The exposed brick, the empty bedroom and the decorated living room. The details got to me. The things I saw in the paintings that he had hung up. Everything had water. Every single picture had some body of water in it. It gave me about a million questions to ask. First, I wanted to know I ended up this bed.I pushed the blankets off me and went to the window. One pull on the cord had the room lit up in seconds. I didn’t like looking at it, feeling like something was missing. No pictures of family. No books. No signs of things that might have brought him joy or passed the time
MordechaiIt had been war last night, deciding who would sleep on the couch. A war quickly won, because Ellie had settled for hopping onto the couch and sprawling herself out. She refused to move, and I refused to carry a sober person to bed. I left her in the living room and went to enjoy my own bed.When I woke up in the morning, I smelled food cooking. The sun hadn’t even risen and my alarm hadn’t gone off. It didn’t annoy me. Not in the slightest, even at the scent of burning eggs. I should have been annoyed. I wanted to be. I wanted to open that door, see her making a mess of my kitchen, and want her out of here. The noise of her did something to me. Even knowing I had another person in my home made me less anxious to be awake.I opened the door, indeed finding my kitchen a mess. Ellie scraped blackened eggs into a bowl, cringing at it as the mess dropped. She sprinkled cheese on it as if that would make things better. Next up came the toast, surprisingly not burnt. She did, howe
Ellie“Please don’t hate me, but I need to go away for a little while. I promise I’ll take you for a thousand walks when I get home.”Dandelion stared at me, doubtful even as he got pet behind the ears like he enjoyed best. I knew I would pay for abandoning him later. Probably in the form of him refusing to sleep with me for a week or so. At least Dad would spoil him rotten the whole time I was away.I had a new bag packed with a week of clothes, desperate that I wouldn’t need them all. Dad gave no indication of when this would end, which left me less than hopeful. We had no threat here. I couldn’t see why he would go this far.I spent more time than I should have fixing my books, putting back every single one of them. Even the ones I didn’t want. It needed to look the same as it had before. When I came home, I wanted everything preserved.Mordechai watched me fix the books and pack up more clothes. He kept looking at the closed door like he thought someone would try and come in. As i
MordechaiI cleaned when I woke up, but I had to do it quietly. Strange, waiting up at four in the morning because I couldn’t stay asleep. I dreamt about her. When I woke up, it left my hands shaking. I couldn’t get back to sleep, and I knew I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want more of it. In my mind, it had been soft. The dream—the whole fucking dream—had been her and I sitting together. She had a dress on, sitting on a big pillow on the floor, sipping tea as she read a book. I sat across from her, with my back at the wall as I sketched. We would look up at each other when we thought the other wouldn’t notice. More often than not, we would catch each other. My heart thudded when I thought about the smile on her face. I hoped it would at least be so kind as to destroy me in an act of mercy. It didn’t, making me feel peace instead. I got up and I left all those thoughts on the mattress. I looked back at it as if I would see one last picture of the dream. I saw a messy bed, wi
EllieJerk. If he hadn’t lied to me, then I could have confided in him all the awful, twisty things in my guts that threatened to tear me apart. I couldn’t very well do that with him lying to me. It probably would have made me stupid. For all I knew, he had that phone for innocent reasons. Or, as innocent as a secret phone could be. He might have gotten the fake one when he got hired on by us, intent on keeping his private life in secret. I could understand that. Either I had no justification for the anger, or I needed to be afraid. I stared at the phone in my hand, sitting in the darkness of the living room. I’d been in my jammies for hours, and Mordechai had been sleeping since ten. The phone had a lock and needed a thumbprint to unlock it. When I peeked into his room, I saw that his hand hung over the edge of the bed. I could trust him, and assume he had the phone to keep us out of his life. A reasonable desire. But my instincts told me something different. I’d noticed things abo
Mordechai“It’s fucking c-c-c-cold! No one said it would be this cold!” I hissed, teeth chattering as I wrapped Ellie in another sweater. “Why are we outside? We should do this inside. We have fire there. We have warmth.” Ellie rolled her eyes, perfectly happy to sit on our porch with blankets and sweaters and several pairs of socks. “We just have to do the first present, then we can go in. Come on, sunset is pretty.” I sat down in my chair and tried to warm myself up. The wind against the ocean didn’t help, as it blew misty air against us. When it did, Ellie would close her eyes and inhale that smell of the sea. Of the stone on the mountains and the moss that grew on it. It was very, very beautiful, but cold on a Christmas Eve night. “You have to go first,” I said, picking up the present I had under the small tree Ellie had put on the porch. I needed two hands to lift it up. We’d saved the good stuff for the morning.“Dandelion should go first,” Ellie insisted, plucking a squeak t
EllieIt hadn’t been much of a goodbye. We couldn’t be seen by anyone but my mother and father, who drove us to a private plane hangar. We didn’t meet the pilot, we didn’t have anyone to help us. We were given a ton of cash to get us from the airport to the new house, the dog, a bag each, and we were told everything would be waiting for us at the house. I had a map, notes, and not much else. My mother hugged me for ten minutes, not saying a word. She promised to write and maybe come visit some time. That could take years and we all knew it. I could be a mother. I could be a much older woman. I could never see them again. “Thank you,” I had said to my father in those final moments. He looked at me, this man, this monster, and he put his hand against my cheek. “I don’t want you to think I’m evil, Ellie. I love you and your mother more than anything else in this world. Even myself.” My eyes burned, “I believe you,” I’d said, honest in that moment. I could change my mind later. In a d
MordechaiEllie wouldn’t stop picking at her nails. She sat on the edge of her tub, bloodstained and shaking like she had been for over an hour. Her mother desperately tried to get that blood out of her hair. Our clothes had been taken and replaced, and I hadn’t asked what would be done with them. The house had been empty when we returned to the Locke estate. Only Alex, Locke, Ellie and I walked through the doors, and Mrs. Locke waited for us in Ellie’s room. “I told you I would make it right,” Locke said to his daughter, watching her distant eyes. “Everything is going to be okay. It’s always okay for us.” I couldn’t stop thinking about all I’d seen. I’d been in the middle of some brawls in my time, but not an outright slaughter. It had only been the man named Alex. Locke had walked backwards, pushing through the door to hide in the hallway while his man did everything. I didn’t even have time to fire off a shot before I pulled Ellie to the floor. Alex kicked Jonathan under the chin
EllieI held the phone in my hand, standing in the darkness of my bathroom as if that silence would somehow lead me to an answer. I found none. I had my father waiting for me and no idea what he would do. The fact that he let me leave to pee almost felt like a shock. He would start to wonder where I was soon enough. It felt like I stood at the edge of a cliff as a pack of wolves advanced on me. Either I could let them tear me to pieces, or I could leap to the rocks below. I lost either way, but at least with the rocks, it felt like my choice. But I didn’t want to fucking die. I didn’t want to lose. I wanted my happy ending with Mordechai, and I wanted it not to feel like too much to ask for. When I stepped out, three of my dad’s men stood there waiting for me. Alex waited front and center, staring at me like he thought I would run. That alone made me want to do it. Surely something better could have been waiting for me outside of this house. “Elle,” he said, gesturing back the way
MordechaiI thought if I sat there long enough, surely my insides would begin to implode. I would get a kind, merciful death that would free me. But every time I thought I would finally die, I would open my eyes again and see the desk, the guards, the way I had no choices. I could live if I wanted. Jonathan would have chosen that. Kill the girl and back to business as usual. I had decided long ago that I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. If this man truly understood that, he would end my life. “I think the wisest thing we can do is get her here,” Jonathan said to me. “and handle everything somewhere safe.” “I can go get her,” I said automatically. If I could only get out of the room, then I could find Ellie and warn her. Better yet, I could grab her and run. How far would we have gotten? I would put her safety above all else, but if we could be together at the end of this… I needed that. I needed her. I didn’t know how to go on with my life without her. How would I fade back to n
EllieI kept my eyes on the driver the whole time, half thinking the guy would try to kill me. I’d seen him before though. One of my dad’s guys, so he probably didn’t have plans to swerve into a tree and take us both out. I almost wanted him to. At least I could rest that way. The drive felt longer than normal, though I knew we went down the same path as Mordechai brought me a few times before. I stared at the empty seat next to me, wishing so badly he sat there. I pictured him taking my hand so I would know everything would be fine. A day would come where things didn’t hurt like this. It might have been some wishful thinking. Gravel crunched under the tires, alerting me that my time had run out. I should have texted Mordechai so he could say something to me that would relax my heart. I knew those words didn’t really exist though. I needed to make myself calm down. My dad just wanted to see me. Trying to look at his face might have been though. Trying to deal with the fact that I ha
MordechaiIt felt like sitting at the bottom of a mountain and waiting for the lava to come cover me. I could see the blazing red pouring down the side, inching closer and closer to me with every passing moment. It would come burn me any moment, but I didn’t get up. I didn’t run. Maybe I should have. Where would I go if I ran? I couldn’t picture a place that would appeal to me. It all looked dull in my head, as it always did. Nothing had that spark that people got. That little bump in their heartbeat at the idea of escaping somewhere better. Nothing could compare to this apartment, because I woke up with Ellie beside me in the mornings. I’d known this whole time it wouldn’t last. But you couldn’t survive lava when it found you at the bottom of the mountain. I couldn’t sit on the couch and wait for Ellie to come back. It would have sent me running for that lava just to get it over with. Instead, I kept myself busy with making the bed, cleaning the counters, and making everything neat
EllieI hoped to god standing my ground and not looking weak did it for him. I didn’t feel very strong, no matter what I said. My bones itched for me to grab that wine glass and down the whole thing in one go, but I resisted. I needed my wits about me for this, and I knew it would only taste like failure. I heard my father in my head, telling me to drink. I saw him pouring me wine with dinner when the conversation would get to be a little too much for him. I saw the look in his eyes when he figured out I’d started drinking without him, and how he pretended not to notice how often I smelled like alcohol. “Are you planning on telling your father we met today?” Urie asked me. He set his glass of wine down and I tried not to stare at it. “Should I?” I asked. “That’s up to you. I’m sure you know our relationship is a little contentious at best. He might be angry to find out that we shared a meal together.” Ah. I needed to turn up the dad hate. “I think he would be very, very upset. Whi
Mordechai“It’s pretty fuckin’ stupid how much my thighs hurt,” Ellie complained. She wiggled around on the bed, grabbing her leg and pulling it up to stretch. “Do you have to be so big?” “No, I can try and little up for you if you want. No problem.” She stuck her tongue out at me, then winced when she switched legs. I told her we could try out other positions. No skin off my nose. She’d insisted she liked it on top of me, making it pointless to try other things. I did not agree. “Maybe we shouldn’t have done it three times in a day,” I commented, adding a line to the sketch I had in front of me. Ellie stopped to glower at me like I’d suggested we eat a live kitten. “You take that back right now. I may be in absolute agony, but I have no regrets. Every part of me hurts, but that’s just proof I got rocked and I can live with it.” “I feel bad. Where’s the proof I got rocked too?” She smirked. “You have a post got-some glow about you. I mean, I assume. You look happier than usual,