No Mercy

SIX

In the dusky early hours when the gauzy veil of the spirit world is at its thinnest, visions appear.

The body is tethered to one world while the spirit journeys to the other. Eyes roll and jerk behind thin lids. Flesh burns. Sweat oozes from skin, thick as syrup.

Muscles tighten, bracing for the first silvery flare.

Flash-Blood pools in the dirt. Ugly black puddles, a poison even thirsty Mother Earth refuses to absorb.

Flash-Blood boils the heavens, whipping clouds into an angry scarlet horizon.

Flash-Blood trickles toward the riverbed. Swirling along the bank, seeping through the jagged stones to mix with the water.

Red ground. Red sky. Red water.

Three signs.

Scents overwhelm: roses, gun oil, peppermint. Rain, perspiration, fear, leather. Blood.

Then a malevolent chill pushes the stench of rotten flesh, of ruined innocence, of a diseased mind to the forefront of the subconscious.

Everything is red. So much blood and death.

A form covered in a dirty burlap robe appears, the face pointed skyward; the body turns circles as it is anointed with blood raining from the heavens. Slowly, the spinning stops. The chin tips down.

Cold, dead eyes stare back.

A screeched warning. “No!” is lost in nothingness, because without corporeal form, no sound emerges.

Unseen blows knock her down. Striking upon her head, her chest, her arms, her legs. She fights. Invisible sharp instruments score her flesh until the wounds seep. She is a sacrifice, purity splayed in the filth. Bruised, broken, and bleeding. Naked, sexless, useless, discarded.

Dead.

Staccato rounds of gunfire echo, create another silvery flash. A buzzing black cloud seals every inch of the space behind her. She is a white dot about to disappear into nothingness. She shimmers, caught between dark and light, before she vanishes.

The edges of the vision blur, then fade completely.

A light touch rests to the forehead. A cool cloth presses to the lips. Chanting brings awareness back to the body.

Another aroma wafts in. Sulfur, followed by the pungent scent of burning sweetgrass. Soft rustling sounds fill the space as the smoke stick purifies the air.

A large hand reaches out. The bone-crushing grip gentles, stroking a ragged thumb across bruised knuckles. Soothing. Allowing time to find breath, balance, and sanity.

“Come back to me” is whispered.

“I’m here.”

No judgment. No insistence it was just a bad dream. The blind acceptance is humbling. Eyes open. Pink and tangerine rays smear the familiar bedroom walls as the sun rises.

“I’m tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“But I need to tell her.”

“You will. Just not now.”

I spent the better part of the day on ranch business with Jake. We talked about updating equipment, and strategizing a way to incorporate buffalo into the operation.

After I returned to the house, I tried to reach the investors from Florida to tell them the ranch wasn’t on the market, but once again I talked to a recording.

I still hadn’t heard from Estelle. Maybe she’d changed her mind.

Another night at home would drive me crazy. I needed to get out. I showered and plaited my wet hair in pigtails. Slapped on enough makeup to make me presentable, but not to look like I was on the prowl. I tugged on my skintight Rocky jeans with the leather lacing down the outside seams and slipped on my beat-up red Justin ropers. Snapped the pearl buttons on my favorite shirt, a short, sleeveless red-and-white-gingham number from Cruel Girl.

I pawed through my extensive collection of rhinestone belts: b.b. Simon, Kippys, 20X, Montana Silversmiths, Old Man River. You could take the girl out of the country, but a gaudy bit of rodeo queen always remained. The Swarovski crystals on the skinny red Nocona belt glimmered as I threaded it through the belt loops, adjusting the silver studded buckle below my belly button on the low-riding jeans.

Damn. No place to put my gun.

As a civilian I didn’t need to carry everywhere I went. Still, it was hard to remember a time in my life when I wasn’t loaded for bear.

I clomped down the stairs and paused on the landing leading into the kitchen. The warm smells of home cooking hung in the humid air. Mashed potatoes and peppery gravy. Roasted meat, sugar-glazed baby carrots, and onions. Chocolate cake with white buttercream frosting. When I saw Sophie and Jake seated at the big table, plates set for Hope and Levi, and the empty melmac plate in my usual spot, I ignored my growling stomach.

“Why you all spiffed up for dinner, hey?”

Guilt, go away. “I’m not staying for dinner.”

“Where you going?”

“Out.”

Sophie’s eyes were curious as a crow’s. “Out where?”

As I snagged my straw hat off the coat rack and shouldered my purse, I swallowed the retort reminding Sophie I didn’t answer to her. I pocketed the truck keys and debated on racing back upstairs for my Walther, just in case.

“Mercy? You gonna tell me where you going?”

“No, Sophie, I’m not. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I left before she could change my mind.

The heat inside the truck blasted me like a woodstove. With the windows rolled down, the interior cooled as I zipped along the series of gravel switchbacks, a shortcut to my bar, my darling Clementine’s.

I belted out “Redneck Woman” along with the radio. The neon Coors Light winked at me across the barren field, the shadowy purpled Badlands a backdrop for the shadowy bar.

Clementine’s is a total dive. A cobbled-together shack where only the toughest locals dared to tread. A mix of cowboys, Indians, ranchers, bikers-anyone who wasn’t in the mood to exchange pleasant conversation. A place to knock back a shot, knock in a few pool balls, or knock heads together. Clementine’s was the roughest bar in five counties, and I considered it my own personal Island of Misfit Toys.

Oddly enough, Jake’s cousin, another one of Sophie’s grandsons, John-John Pretty Horses, owned the joint with his partner, Muskrat. I didn’t know Muskrat’s real name; everyone just called him Muskrat. Since he was about ten feet two inches and resembled Sasquatch, no one questioned him.

John-John and Muskrat were partners in the truest sense of the word. Woe to the idiots dumb enough to utter the phrase Brokeback Mountain.

The dusty parking lot was clogged with beat-to-crap Harleys, pickups with gun racks-loaded, of course-rusted-out midsized American-made sedans, and an SUV or two.

The steel door flew open as I walked up.

Muskrat had a scrawny biker in each ham-sized hand; two pairs of boots barely touched the weeds. He threw the guys to my left. They landed on hands and knees in a patch of creeping Jenny. “When I tell you to take it outside, I mean it.” Muskrat whirled on me.

Instinct had me bracing for a fight.

But his pale brown eyes lit up. “Mercy! Where you been keeping yourself? You’ll make John-John’s night.” He scanned the parking lot behind me. “You bring Jake along?”

My back stiffened. “No. Not my day to entertain him.”

“No need to snap at me.”

“Sorry. Habit. I’m just sick of everyone around here assuming Jake and I are still some star-crossed lovers. That time apart has mended our broken hearts and we’ll ride off into the sunset together on white horses and live happily ever after.”

“Ain’t a romantic, are ya?”

“Not a single bone.”

“Good. You can find someone better’n him anyway.”

My brows lifted with surprise. “You think?”

“Yeah. Jake might be John-John’s cousin, but I ain’t got much use for him. Takes that wooden cigar Injun bit too far.” He held the door open for me.

I ducked under his beefy arm without commenting.

Creedence Clearwater Revival blasted from the jukebox, which separated the central core of the bar from the back room. Both pool tables were in use. Ditto for the dartboards.

In the far corner, several guys straddled chrome bar stools, sipping mugs of beer, vacant eyes glued to some sports event on a big-screen TV suspended from the metal rafters.

I’d barely stumbled in when I heard my name shouted as a benediction. I was wrapped in a bear hug so tight my eyeballs threatened to pop out. A feather tickled my nose.

The burly bear in question, John-John, resplendent in black jeans, a black silk shirt, purple velvet vest, and a matching beret (complete with a red feather) gave me a slow once-over.

“Don’t you have the wholesome Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island meets slutty Daisy Duke look? Love the belt.”

“Thanks. You can borrow it anytime.”

“Honey, if I had a waistline like yours, I’d take you up on that.”

“Aw. Turn a girl’s head, you talk so sweet, John-John.”

Muskrat snorted.

“Trey, you’re in Mercy’s spot,” John-John said, and shooed a very good-looking, whipcord-lean young cowboy off my favorite bar stool.

“I’ll move. No problem.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks, Trey.”

He gifted me with one of those playful, cocky male grins, and my stomach actually fluttered. “I’ll be over there if you need anything. Anything at all.”

My flirting skills were rusty, not corroded. I winked. “I’ll keep it in mind, cowboy.”

I set my forearms on the shellacked bar top, elbowing aside the ashtray Trey used as a spittoon.

“Whatcha drinking?” Muskrat asked.

“Double shot of Wild Turkey and a Bud Light chaser.”

John-John grinned. “Bad day?”

“Might say that.”

He slid the first shot in front of me. The bitter taste hit the back of my throat and ate a path through my stomach lining. I could afford expensive whiskey, but old habits die hard.

It made me laugh, those pretentious people who looked down at the Scots and the Irish and their homemade hooch. Now those same snobs consider themselves whiskey aficionados and search high and low for the “real thing.” Spare me. Only two types of whiskey in my book: free and not free.

I chased the shot with an icy cold glug of beer. “Ah. I’m feeling better already.”

“That’s why we’re here.” He murmured something to Muskrat and Muskrat lumbered to the other end of the bar.

John-John’s soulful black eyes connected with mine, mirth gone. “We need to talk. I had a vision about you.”

I sucked down another mouthful of beer, fortifying myself.

John-John and I had been best pals since we were kids. He is what the Lakota Sioux people call winkte, or two-spirited, a person born with both a male and female spirit.

In the days before Indians were relegated to reservations, it was a sign of good luck from the Great Spirit if a winkte was born into a family. The winkte was allowed to hunt with the men. Cook and sew with the women. It didn’t matter which sexual organs the winkte was born with, he/she had always been an honored and welcomed member of the tribe.

Part of being two-spirited also meant a closer tie with Wakan Tanka-the Great Spirit-and what I considered the woo-woo factor in Lakota religion, so it’d always freaked me out that John-John experienced visions. Mostly because they were dead-on.

I shivered.

He saw it. “If you hadn’t come in here tonight, I would’ve stopped by the house tomorrow.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Subject to interpretation, as always, but yeah, it is disturbing.”

“Well? Let’s have it.”

John-John squeezed my hand. “Somebody wants to hurt you, Mercy. Real bad.”

“Physical or emotional kind of hurt?”

“Physical.”

“I don’t suppose in this vision you’ve seen who?”

“No.”

“You have any idea when this will happen so I can try and stop it?”

“No.” He winced. His eyes filled with pain and guilt as he remembered. We both remembered.

When we were kids, John-John had had a vision about my mother’s death. Nothing that could’ve prevented it, just an impression of blood and horses.

It wasn’t until a year after we’d buried my mother that he’d mustered the guts to tell me of how, on the day of her funeral, he’d confessed to his unci Sophie what he’d seen.

Sophie realized the onset of puberty had started John-John on the sacred path. She’d taken him to the tribal elders for advice and guidance. John-John was lucky his grandmother hadn’t abandoned the traditional Lakota ways, or he could have floundered for years to understand who and what he was. Unlike kids who struggled with a conflicting sexual identity, he’d always been comfortable in his own skin.

“Mercy? Hon?” John-John prompted.

“Sorry. Lost focus for a sec. What did you see?” I asked, even when I really didn’t want to know.

“Red ground, red sky, red water. Though the impressions were blurry.” He frowned. “Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. I just wondered if I should avoid blow-drying my hair in the bathtub or shoving a knife in the toaster.”

“Don’t be flip.”

“I’m not. I hope nothing happens tonight because I left my guns at home.”

“Don’t you think you’ve killed enough, kola?”

What else had his vision revealed about me? God forbid anyone found out what I’d seen. Or what I’d done. I pushed the empty shot glasses at him. “Another round, barkeep.”

He pressed his lips together and turned away.

I used the lull between us to drain my beer. The jukebox was silent. I twirled around on my stool to rectify the situation when I noticed someone was already making selections.

Whoo-yeah. A tall male someone with an ass to die for, a perfect butt gift-wrapped in a pair of tight-fitting, faded Wranglers. A black-and-gray-plaid shirt stretched over wide shoulders and a broad back. I couldn’t see the color of his hair beneath his black Stetson, but I knew I was looking at a gen-u-wine cowboy.

God save me. I’ve had it bad for cowboys my whole life. Since the first time I’d seen Clint Eastwood. Since my first rodeo, watching bareback and saddle bronc riders getting tossed on their asses in the dirt and then climbing right back up into the saddle and doing it again. Around age thirteen I fell in love with bull riders. I mourned the death of Lane Frost like some mourned the loss of John Lennon.

Something about cowboys speaks to me on a visceral level. Rugged-looking men making a living from the land. Wearing dirty, mangled cowboy hats. Hearing the jingle of spurs. Seeing work-stained ropes draped over tired shoulders. Tight jeans. The faded circle on the back pocket of those jeans from the ever-present can of chew. Scuffed boots covered in manure. The tougher-than-shit attitude. The gentlemanly way a cowboy held a woman as they two-stepped. The brawling in the name of honor, dishonor, or just because a good fight seemed like a good idea.

Oh, and don’t get me started on their big… belt buckles and pickup trucks.

Being born on a ranch, I’d never stood a chance at wanting any other kind of man besides a cowboy. I’d tried to expand my horizons after I’d left South Dakota. Law enforcement guys and a few sweet-talkin’ soldiers from Dixie had come close, but ultimately they’d fallen shy of the mark. My dad-a throwback to the old cowboy ways and an honest and decent man-had set the bar high.

I silently willed my object of lust to turn around.

From the speakers, Toby Keith demanded, “Who’s Your Daddy?” and my cowboy sidled into the back room without letting me see if his front matched his back.

Damn. Win some. Lose some. Maybe if I planted the seed with John-John, he could conjure up a vision of the next time I’d get laid. It’d been a while.

John-John slid the Wild Turkey in front of me. He lit a Salem and blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. “Unci said you’re helping Estelle Yellow Boy.”

“Sophie told you that?”

He nodded. “Did she railroad you into it, Mercy?”

“Doesn’t she always?”

“Yep. That doesn’t mean you have to do it.” John-John set his elbows on the bar. “In fact, I wish you’d blow her off.”

My gaze zeroed in on him. “Why? Is there something in your vision you’re not telling me?”

“No. I never know what events can be changed by a single decision. I think poking around on the rez and asking the bad kids Albert hung around with questions is a bad idea.”

“How do you know they’re bad kids?”

“Didja forget I grew up there? I know firsthand what cruelty teens can inflict on one another, especially angry Indian kids. It’d be best if you stayed out of it.”

“I don’t know how deep I’ll look, but I can’t blow off Estelle completely. She’s hurting. We both know there’d be no living with Sophie if I don’t do something.” I scowled. Shot number four joined shot number three gurgling in my stomach.

I saw John-John debate on mentioning the amount of booze I’d sucked down, but he thought better of it and shoved a bowl of pretzels toward me.

The music streaming from the jukebox became sappy and sentimental. I love a good he-done-me-wrong-so-why-don’t-I-just-get-drunk-and-screw-someone country song as much as the next woman, but I wanted a more upbeat tune.

You want to see if Mr. Tight Ass is still hanging around in the back room.

Yeah, maybe that, too. I hopped off the bar stool and headed for the jukebox.

The rainbow strobe lights flashed as I punched in the number for the Trick Pony song “Pour Me.” I snickered at Big & Rich’s “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” An image I didn’t need in my present hormonal state, but I played it anyway. Followed by “Unwound” by George Strait. When I spun away from the jukebox, there was my cowboy. Before I mentally begged him to turn my direction, he did.

Holy shit. My Sexy Tight Ass Cowboy was Mr. Tight Ass himself, Sheriff Dawson, looking decidedly unsherifflike without the uniform, the shades, and the perpetual stick rammed up his butt.

I groaned. It figured.

He did a double take when he saw me.

Too late to pretend I hadn’t seen him. Wasn’t life just a big bowl of rotten chokecherries?

He ambled over. “Mercy Gunderson. I didn’t expect to see you in a place like this.”

“Yeah? I could say the same, Sheriff.”

“I’m off duty.”

“If I remember correctly, my dad was never really ‘off duty.’”

“Maybe, but as I’m in here enjoying myself, I’d rather you called me by name, not my job title.”

I drew a mental blank. “What’s your first name again?”

“Mason.”

My eyes widened. “Like the jar?”

Dawson scowled. “Nothing gets by you, does it?”

Typical marine. What a jarhead. I’d had enough whiskey to want to slug him. Fuzzy logic, but if he wasn’t here in official capacity… maybe I could get away with it. As I contemplated the repercussions, a baritone voice yelled, “Hey, Mad Dog,” from the back room.

The sheriff’s head whipped around. “What?”

“You’re up.”

“Okay. Be right there,” he yelled back.

“Mad Dog?” I repeated.

He shrugged. “An old nickname.”

“From your football glory days?” I snickered.

“Nah. From my bulldoggin’ and bull-riding days.”

Ah hell. Maybe John-John’s violent vision was nothing more than my beating my head into the bar top from my questionable taste in men. “Well, Mad Dog, see you around.”

Back at the bar, I drained my beer. Chatted with Muskrat until two guys caused a ruckus in front of the TV. I’d signaled to John-John to tally up my bill, when the hair on the back of my neck prickled and someone crowded in behind me. I didn’t grab the guy and toss him on his ass, which was a huge step toward civilian normalcy for me.

Or it could’ve been a sign I’d had too much to drink.

I rotated my bar stool.

Dawson grinned at me-pure cowboy charm.

Shit.

“Can I buy you a drink?”

“I was just leaving.”

“Come on, Mercy. One drink.”

“I thought you were playing pocket pool, Sheriff?”

He didn’t bat an eye at my dig. “Game is over.”

I sighed like I was doing him a favor. “One drink. But I refuse to call you Mason. Or Mad Dog.”

“Fine. Call me whatever you like.” I opened my mouth, and he amended, “Within reason.”

The jam-packed area around the bar pressed us together like saltine crackers. “You here alone?” I nodded. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of place. A little rough.”

“Not as rough as the club I mistakenly stumbled into in Bosnia. Makes this joint look like a church.” My finger unconsciously sought the souvenir, a three-inch scar above my ear, now hidden by my hair.

Dawson didn’t push. He didn’t look away either. “You ever want to talk, I did my stint in the marines during Desert Storm. I imagine we’ve seen some of the same things.”

Maybe it was the booze. Maybe it was his condescending offer. But for once I let the horrors I’d witnessed and perpetrated flit through my eyes. “You can’t begin to imagine what I’ve seen.”

Most people would’ve missed his tiny flare of alarm. Then again, I’m not most people. I’d scared him. Good. But I knew he wouldn’t let it slide.

“Who are you? Maybe a better question is: What are you?”

“Just a simple enlisted girl keeping the country safe from the evils of terrorism.”

He tipped up the brim of his hat so he could bend down and whisper in my ear. “I don’t buy it. You can fool other people, Mercy, not me.”

“Then I’ll be careful to watch my step around you.”

Dawson angled his head back. Still too close for my liking. “Speaking of… I didn’t get my chance to two-step with you the other night.”

I made out the strains of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” above the usual bar noises and the strange pounding in my heart.

A dark brown hand with ruby nails appeared on his chest. Teased and frosted hair brushed my jawline as a woman crammed herself between us.

“I’d love to dance with you, Mason. You wandered off and left me all alone in the back room.”

Dawson’s face stayed neutral at her little-girl pout. “Just getting a fresh round. Laronda, this is Mercy. Mercy, Laronda.”

“Nice to meetcha,” she said, leaving her hand on his shirt, practically digging her claws in as a sign of ownership.

This was the type of woman Mad Dog went for? Beauty queen meets Elvira? I could understand his liking her huge boobs. But having to put up with a bad dye job, fake nails, a fake tan, clown makeup, and a quart of perfume just to get his hands on those enormous jugs? Not worth it.

Plus, she couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. That made him roughly twice her age and me… in desperate need of another shot. I caught John-John’s eye. He poured the Wild Turkey and slid it in front of me. It went down the hatch smooth as honey.

“You from around here?” Laronda asked.

“Used to be. How about you?”

“From Belle Fourche, originally. What do you do?”

Kill people. Nah. Not a good midwestern response. “I’m a rancher. You?”

Her witch’s beak wrinkled as if I smelled of cowshit. “I’m a secretary. For now. I’m studying for my real estate license.”

“Sounds interesting.”

Awkward silence.

Laronda looked from Dawson to me. “How do you two know each other?”

“We don’t.” I swallowed a big drink of beer. “Actually, I was trying to pick him up and drag him back to my place to have my wicked, nasty way with him. You’ve got incredibly bad timing, Laronda.”

She glared at me.

Some people have no sense of humor.

“She’s pulling your leg. Mercy’s dad used to be sheriff. That’s how we know each other.”

“Oh.”

When Laronda made no move to skedaddle, Dawson said, “I ordered a round. Let me settle up and I’ll be right there.”

“Don’t be too long.” She smiled at me-a feral flash of crooked teeth-and raked her talons down his arm.

After she stomped off I said, “She seems nice.”

Dawson stared at me like I’d grown horns.

John-John swept up the empty shot glasses. “Need anything else?”

“Four pitchers for the back room.” Dawson tossed thirty bucks on the counter.

“Mercy?” John-John paused in front of me. “How you doing?”

“I’m good.”

“You’re never good, Miz Mercy.”

I half chided, “Not the best information for you to share with the sheriff, John-John.”

“True. But I’m hoping he’s talking some sense into you.”

“About?” Dawson asked casually.

“Keeping her from getting involved with the Yellow Boy family’s troubles.”

The beer mug stopped halfway to Dawson’s mouth. “Come again?”

But John-John was oblivious to the tension. “Unci had no right guilting Mercy into helping Estelle, no matter how close she was to Estelle’s grandmother.”

As if Sophie could guilt me into anything. I had this perverse habit of finding trouble on my own, and I had just stepped into a heaping pile of it. I sent John-John a cold look, but he’d fled the scene.

Dawson’s eyes burned with fury. “You messing in my investigation, Miz Gunderson?”

I fiddled with my empty shot glass.

He crowded in. “Answer me.”

“Since my dad was sheriff I know I’m not legally obligated to answer a damn thing.”

Dawson got his mean on. “I don’t give a damn how long your daddy was sheriff. If I find out you’ve uncovered information on an active case that you’re not sharing with me, I’ll throw you in jail so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

“You threatening me?”

“Bet your sweet ass I’m threatening you.”

“Nice try. On what grounds are you going to lock me up?”

“The dead kid found on your land, who just so happens to have a tie to your family via your nephew. That’s enough right there.”

He was bluffing. Had to be. “Try it.”

“Don’t tempt me.”

“My lawyer will eat you for lunch. Let me tell you something else, Sheriff. If you were doing your job, this wouldn’t be an issue.”

His gaze turned razor sharp. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Why is it that a grieving parent is hounding me for answers?” I paused. “Because she isn’t getting the answers she needs from you. You think I enjoy having my friend begging me to figure out why her child was killed?”

His mouth tightened.

“Just because my father was sheriff she thinks I have some magic fucking insight into the criminal mind and how to catch them. I don’t. But I sure as hell won’t brush off her concerns.”

“And I am?”

“Goddamn right you are. It’s been over a week since they buried Albert. According to Estelle, you haven’t talked to his friends or his other family members. You haven’t done a thing besides piss and moan that people aren’t flocking into your office to unburden themselves. You want people to talk to you and stop treating you like an outsider? Then start acting like you give a shit about what happens inside this county.”

I didn’t wait for his response. I grabbed my purse, ducked under his arm, and made a dash for the bathroom before I did something I’d regret. Good thing I hadn’t brought my gun.

In the stall, the strength of the Wild Turkey shots hit me full force. My vision doubled. I felt sick to my stomach. I’d pay for this in the morning. Guaranteed.

Dawson wasn’t hanging around when I’d slunk back to the bar. With any luck, he’d left and was brushing up on his riding skills with Laronda.

The loud people and the thick smoke made my head throb and my lungs seize up. Although I wasn’t in any shape to drive home, the thought of being cooped up another second made me nauseous. I slipped two twenties in John-John’s hand and bolted.

Outside, I sucked in several breaths of fresh air. I could sleep this off in the truck. Wasn’t like I hadn’t done it before; wasn’t like I wouldn’t do it again. Hell, wasn’t like I had anywhere to go tomorrow.

On my way to the back of the parking lot, I stumbled over empty beer cans. Bottles. My own damn feet. Muskrat really ought to install lights out here. I couldn’t see a thing.

Your vision is limited out of your right eye at night anyway, even when you’re sober.

Nice timing for that cheery reminder.

I tipped my head back and studied the stars. Ooh. Bad move. Made me dizzy. I closed my eyes for a minute, and the keys tumbled from my hand.

As I bent over to pick them up, footfalls echoed, something struck me in the back of the neck. I fell forward and everything went black.