Rachel drove toward the pier while I watched the city out the window past her pretty, harsh, dark-eyed profile. She looked completely unworried and kept the car smooth and steady, like she'd spent years behind the wheel. What can I say? She's a fast learner.

She waited at the light then rolled across a divided highway, toward the boats bobbing in the river. Seagulls circled the choppy river in the evening light, and I lowered the window to hear them scream. I smiled at the familiar sound. They didn’t care: whether it was Little Big Rock or Manattan, crumbs were crumbs.

Pier 72 jutted from the western edge of Manattan, a long parking lot with white lines and dented guardrails. A few cars scattered the pier, with a construction trailer at the far end.

Rachel parked near the trailer, and asked me, "Are we good?"

"We’re good," I said.

She turned in her seat and looked at me. "It's been a long day."

"You should try pulling lobster traps."

Her dark eyes lightened. "My mom would’ve liked you."

An ember that I hadn't known was burning suddenly caught fire in my chest. Rachel Kravitz. Damn. I sat there and watched her until she opened her door. She stepped outside. I watched her do that, too. Then I followed her to the railing and we looked at the opposite shore, which I figured was New Jerse.

"You miss her, huh?" I asked, thinking about Dewitt.

"Every day."

"Are you worried about your sister?" I bit my lip. "I mean, about …"

"Leaving her behind if something happens to me?"

"Yeah."

"It used to terrify me." Rachel turned her face to the setting sun. "Before I shot Boone. I knew they'd put me away, and she'd be alone. Well, she's with our grandparents, but they don't understand her, they don't know what she's seen. So for a long time I tried to be someone else for her, someone better."

"Isn't that what you're still doing?”

“No. Now I'm just being myself. Audrey knows I can’t be anyone else.” She laughed softly. “If I could, I’d choose someone easier than this.”

“Miss Corene says ‘easy’ is another word for ‘not worth the trouble.’”

“’Miss Corene?” Rachel eyed the length of the pier. “Sometimes you seem almost normal, then you go all hillbilly on me.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“Apparently I'm too normal,” I said. “Not successful enough.”

“Maddie tell you that?”

“That’s what she likes in a guy, ambition.”

She glanced at me. “Isn’t that what you like in her?”

“That and her fine ass,” I said, then flushed in embarrassment. Which sort of undermined my attempt at gruff sexism.

Rachel laughed at me. “You’re sweet.”

I rubbed my aching hand until the embarrassment faded. "So what happens now?"

"We get backup. They'll be here any minute, some kind of interagency task force. NYPD, whoever else Umlaut convinced to listen. We'll tell them we've got a lead into the suicide bombings, ask them to put snipers in a few of the buildings."

"Will they?"

"If the senator pulls strings? I don't know. I hope so. Then I'll call 9-1-1 and mention that you're here. You and me."

"Why 9-1-1?"

"PJ said he's monitoring it, remember?"

For a second, I didn't. Then I said, "Oh, right, in that construction site."

"Yeah." Rachel blinked a few times, then rubbed her right eye. "So he'll hear that we're at the pier. He'll come after us, and the snipers will shoot him in the brainstem."

"Simple enough."

"Well, I'm probably missing a few hundred steps, but that's the general idea."

"You think it'll work?"

"I don't know. We'll find out soon enough. But that's the plan. Unless you've got a better one?"

I shook my head and we stood quietly on the pier, listening to the current splashing around the pilings. I hurt everywhere, a mellow ache like after a long illness. I thought of Simone, crawling down the stone pier toward me. I thought of Dewitt and Maddie, one dead and the other gone. I thought of Rachel standing behind her father, raising the gun in her hands. I thought of the people slaughtered on the subway and on the street.

Rachel watched the river and I watched her, feeling the tug of her gravity. She looked younger, standing there, and softer. And full of contradictions. Strong and vulnerable, beautiful and hard.

I'd loved Maddie for a long time, and I'd made a lot of promises to her and to myself, some spoken, some not. I took all of them seriously. Call me naïve, call me a simp, but nothing mattered more than that. More than love. Dewitt would've mocked me for admitting it, but what else is there, really? That's why I couldn't walk away from Maddie. She was the first girl I'd ever loved, and despite everything I still loved her. I'm not saying I liked her much, but a love that dies too easily was never love at all.

And yet ... things change. People change. And as I watched Rachel standing there, I thought, I will never get tired of watching her.

"Actually," I said, "I do have a better plan."

"Explosives under the pier? Yeah, I thought of that. It's a no go. I asked."

"No, you complete madwoman," I said, with a huff of laughter. "Not explosives under the pier. I don't .. I'm not ... 'explosives under the pier' isn't the sort of phrase that pops out of my mouth. I was thinking more something along the lines of 'dinner and a movie.' When this is all over."

She glanced at me, and for the first time ever I saw hesitation in her face.

"Yeah," I told her. "I'm asking you on a date."

"I--Jesus, Lark. Right now?"

"What, nobody's ever asked you out before?"

I swear that she blushed. "I've been in prison!" she said.

"Welcome to freedom. Are you ready for your first kiss?"

"Oh, shut up. I've been kissed."

"Stop," I told her. "You're making me jealous."

"You're an idiot," she said, and a siren sounded from the street.

"Maybe that's your backup," I said.

But when I turned to look, I caught a glimpse of an ambulance diving past. Then the back doors swung open and a bundle rolled out and smacked the pavement. Horns honked, cars swerved.

The bundle was a crooked heap of cloth, with jeans and sneakers and an off-white sweater: it took me three disbelieving seconds before I realized it was a dead body.

Rachel grabbed my arm. "Get in the car."

"That guy needs help."

"He's beyond help. Go!" She shoved me toward the car. "PJ’s in that ambulance. Passenger side."