Surviving Ice by K. A. Tucker
I shove a piece of chicken in my mouth to give myself an excuse not to answer, shooting her with a warning look. She gives me a slight nod in understanding and then purses her lips, signifying that she understands. That she won’t push anymore.
But it’s too late. Her words have already infiltrated my mind. I wouldn’t have cared if she’d brought up the pile of human scum that I’ve dispatched on Bentley’s orders. Those lives don’t keep me up at night.
At least, they haven’t before. Now that I doubt Bentley’s motives, that’s starting to change. I’m beginning to wonder if all my assignments have had more to do with money and less to do with saving lives. I push those worries aside, though, because if that’s true, then I’ve become nothing more than an unwitting murderer.
But how the fuck does this woman know about my ghosts?
The small, round face that has lingered in my mind for almost six years. She would have been twelve now.
Dakota and Esmeralda chatter easily through the rest of dinner, while both Ivy and I stew in our own inner turmoil. I push my food around until Ivy stands and collects her plate—her food uneaten—and swipes mine out from under me. “We’re heading out,” she announces. “Thanks for dinner.” With a heavy sigh, she adds, “It was nice meeting you.”
Esmeralda beams, her gaze shifting between the two of us, settling on me once again. “You know what you need to do, Sebastian.”
“Excuse me?” An eerie chill skitters down my back. Just hearing my name on her tongue bothers me.
She nods. “You know.”
I want to grab the woman and shake her. What do I need to do?
Punish Scalero for the crimes he’s committed?
Punish Bentley for what he’s allowed to happen?
Turn myself in for what I’ve done?
Tell Ivy everything?
“Okay, see you guys later!” Dakota waves and continues with her conversation.
I trail Ivy to the kitchen in a daze, where she scrapes the food off the plates and dumps them into the dishwasher, kicking the door shut on her way by.
She grabs my keys from the kitchen counter. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” She’s clearly on a mission.
Chewing the inside of her cheek for a moment in thought, she finally answers, “To fix one of my anchors.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
IVY
Fausto and his guys have cleaned up and left, leaving behind nothing but this cold, sterile white cave and the stench of fresh paint.
I drop the box at my feet. It’s every last spray paint can I have. They clatter noisily against each other with the impact.
Sebastian’s boots clomp against the ground as he wanders over to stand next to me, arms folded across his chest, staring at the wide white canvas in front of me. He hasn’t said much since leaving Dakota’s, appearing as disturbed by Esmeralda’s intrusive words as I feel. Though I’m not sure for the same reasons.
How the fuck did she know about anchors? As soon as she said it, I knew exactly what she meant. She had to be talking about Sebastian, and this shop, because they’re the only two things keeping me in San Francisco right now. One old—this shop—and one new, who found me. Sebastian found me.
And someone I lost recently, who loves me dearly . . .
Ned.
Would Ned approve of Sebastian? He didn’t approve of most people, so I find that hard to believe. Then again, Sebastian’s not like anyone I’ve ever met.
I want to race back there and shake Dakota until she admits that she fed that loony tune all my personal information before dinner, that they’re just fucking with my head. But I know Dakota well enough to know that she’d never do that. She actually believes in that stuff.
And she’s almost made me a believer. Almost.
So then, what do Esmeralda’s words to Sebastian mean? By the set jaw and the stiff back and the way his eyes keep drifting elsewhere, she hit a raw nerve with him, too.
Who is the “she” Esmeralda referred to? Is Sebastian in love with her?
Suddenly, Sebastian turns to catch my gaze. I want to ask him what he blames himself for. I want to ask him about this ghost. I want to ask him all kinds of questions.
Instead, I reach for a can of black paint. With his eyes on my back, I close in on the longest wall in Black Rabbit, a solid mass of white with not a single window to break it up.
All it takes is a single swipe with my finger on the nozzle, the inky black marring the canvas in a long line, and I already feel better. “Ned would hate the white.” I point to the expanse of blank wall behind me. “But this . . .” I exhale with a sense of relief. “He’d be all for this.”
“You’re going to need a lot more paint,” Sebastian murmurs, a hint of a smile on his lips now.
He’s right. I will. And capable hands.
Luckily I know where to get both.
I pull out my phone.
“Why did you have all these extras lying around?” Joker asks, rubbing his bald head with one hand as he shoves a slice of pizza in his mouth. It’s long since cold, but no one around here minds cold pizza.
“Because I’m da shit,” Fez hollers, and I roll my eyes, sharing a look with Joker and Weazy. I don’t say anything, though. Fez has earned his status as a decent friend to me. Within twenty minutes of my texting the guys to see if they’d be into helping me around here, they showed up with their entire supply of paint cans, and they’ve worked next to me all night.
I step back now and take in the long eastern wall in Black Rabbit, and the mesmerizing kaleidoscope of colors staring back at me. Some of the original paint remains. It’s still there in the background, peeking out between the loops of letters, incorporated into the whites of eyes and the collars of shirts, but it’s nowhere near as overbearing as it used to be.
Now the cold, sterile white complements my wild side nicely.
In the center, I’ve sketched another depiction of Ned, his devilish grin filling up the bottom half of his face, his braids resting on either shoulder. Weazy did one of his infamous jungle scenes, except the asshole added a barely dressed Asian girl swinging from a rope. The blue streak in her hair is telling.
The rest of the sketches are different scenes from San Francisco—the Golden Gate Bridge; a trolley speeding down one of the steep streets and into a pit of fire. That’s Fez’s addition.
We have so much still to do—I’ve decided I want to cover the ceiling, too—but the sun’s coming up soon, we’re out of paint, and everyone’s tired.
“Hey, Ivy.” Joker leans in next to me as I stoop to collect the empty cans. “Was that a gun I saw tucked into the back of your guy’s jeans?”
“Yeah. Probably.” I glance back over my shoulder at Sebastian, who stands like the soldier he once was by the propped-open door—we had to get some air in here; the fumes were getting to be too much. He’s been stationed by that door without complaint all night, as if he knew how important it was for me to do this, scaring away any curious wanderer with a simple look. I guess he wanted his gun within reach, just in case.
Though, that doesn’t explain why he had it lying on the windowsill last night.
I wander over to him, pressing myself up against his chest. He’s so hard to read most times; right now, he’s impossible. “What do you think?”
His strong arms rope around my body, pulling me in tight. “I think it’s perfect.”
“Does it say Ivy?”
He lays a gentle kiss on my forehead. “I said it was perfect, didn’t I?”
Yeah, I’m beginning to think that Esmeralda was right.
Ned would like my new anchor.
“I look like a three-year-old who got into an art studio,” I muse, scratching at the dried splotches of green and yellow paint that cover my skin, my clothes. They’re probably in my hair, too.
Sebastian gives me a sideways look as we wade through the sand toward the crop of rocks. It’s the very same pile at Ocean Beach that I sat at while desig
His recently smooth jaw is already covered by a thick coat of stubble, and I can’t help but reach up to scratch my fingers across it now. “You going to grow that back out?”
“You want me to?”
I shrug. “I’m good with it either way.” As long as I have you.
He throws an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into him. Though that dark cloud that formed during dinner with Esmeralda last night still hovers, I’ve managed to get a few smiles out of him this morning.
“I come here sometimes, to think,” I admit, settling onto my favorite perch, which gives me a perfect view of the surfers in the water.
“I can see why.” His gaze narrows as he watches them, too. It’s six forty, and the sun is just cresting over the horizon behind us. The circles under his eyes are probably as dark as mine, but if he’s tired, he doesn’t let on. “Do you feel better about the shop now?”
“Now that I’ve vandalized it, yeah,” I chuckle.
Reaching down to pluck a perfectly intact seashell from between the rocks, he flips it between his fingers. “Now what?”
I shrug. “Now I call my cousin and tell him I want to keep it.” I sigh. “It’s what Ned would want. It’s what I want.” Oddly enough, saying the words out loud for the first time brings me a sense of peace.
“Because she was right, wasn’t she? It’s an anchor.”
I glance up to see that distant worry in his eyes. Esmeralda’s words are still lingering in his mind, too.
“One of them.”
His chest lifts with a deep breath, and I’m hit with a wave of panic that something between us has changed since yesterday, that he’s grown bored with me overnight. That he’s decided he doesn’t want to do this, after all.
I hate this insecurity swirling inside my head and my heart. I’m not used to feeling it; I’ve managed to avoid it all this time by not committing to people. And now, here I am, finally ready to commit, and I’m already losing my cool.
“She was right. About my ghost,” he says quietly, his gaze holding to the ocean’s water line.
I sigh with relief. This isn’t about us at all. “What do you mean?”
He clears his throat, as if voicing the next words is going to be hard. “We used to go on these regular raids through Marjah, routing out insurgents. There were a lot. I can’t tell you how many rounds of ammunition I fired in my time over there. Anyway, there was this one day on my second tour, we had a tip on someone and I was out with my team, hunting them down. We found ourselves driving into this long corridor in our Humvee. And there was this little girl running at us, with these big blue eyes and dark hair, and wearing a backpack. The Taliban were known for using children in these kinds of attacks. Where we were, with buildings on either side, we’d be leveled by an explosion. She was so little, six or seven. She was scared, I could see it in her eyes.”
I’m trying to picture this but I’m struggling, partly because I don’t want to. I’ve always rolled my eyes at Dakota when she talks about auras, but right now the very air around Sebastian has chilled. I’m shivering.
He heaves a sigh. “We yelled at her to stop, but she kept coming. I was the only one who had the clear line of sight. So I took it. She went quickly. We scouted the area for insurgents before we closed in to secure the backpack. There was a blanket, a bottle of water, and naan wrapped in cloth.” I look over to see his profile, an image of sorrow, as his voice grows thick. “She wasn’t coming to kill us. We found out later that she had no home, no parents. She was running to us for help.”
My chest begins to throb. “But . . . that wasn’t your fault.” Even as I say it, I understand that wouldn’t mean anything to the man who pulled the trigger. To a man with Sebastian’s discipline and code of honor. Something like that must have destroyed him.
He says nothing, peering down at his boots.
“So what happened?”
“It got swept under the rug as a wartime casualty and everybody moved on.” He pauses. Everybody but him, I’m guessing. “The next time a kid darted out from behind a car at our outfit, I froze. Even when my commanding officer yelled the order to fire, even when I saw the IED in his hand, I couldn’t pull the trigger. He lobbed it at the Humvee in front of us and blew them up.”
“The one your friends were in?”
“They were all my friends,” Sebastian explains quietly. “But, yeah. That’s the one.”
This story is getting worse and worse.
Sebastian has an army of ghosts trailing him.
I reach over to take his hand and squeeze it. He turns my fingers in his palm, lightly tracing the splotches of color with his free hand.
“I took some shrapnel to the back. Kirkpatrick, my commander at the time and a fucking dick wad, wrote me up for insubordination. When I filed my papers to leave the navy, I ended up with an ‘Other than Honorable’ discharge.”
“What does that mean?”
His lips twist in a bitter smile. “It depends who you ask. For someone like you, who doesn’t know anything about the navy, it doesn’t mean much at all. For someone like my father, who retired as a highly decorated navy captain, it’s almost as bad as if I were some street thug, murdering innocent human beings.” He pauses. “It means that it can be hard to get a job, and a lot of veteran benefits don’t apply to me, even with my years of service.”
“But you did get a job.”
His lips twist in thought. “Yeah. Through a friend.”
“Well, then . . . screw that less than honorable discharge, because you’re doing what you’re good at anyway. Right?”
He studies the sand for a moment. “Right.”
No wonder he doesn’t like talking about the navy. I wouldn’t either if those memories were tied to it. And it sounds like he doesn’t have anyone in his corner, now that he’s trying to move on. “Are you and your parents close?”
“Not really.” He hesitates. “But I haven’t made much of an effort, to be honest. I haven’t made an effort with anyone.”
“Where are they now?”
“Still in Potrero Hill.”
I frown. “Don’t you live in Potrero, too?”
A slight frown touches his forehead. “Right.”
So they’re probably minutes away from each other? While I’m not necessarily one to push family bonding, after watching Ian miss out on making amends with his father, I don’t want to see it happen again. “Thanksgiving is in a couple of days. Maybe it’s time to make an effort?”
“Maybe.”
Silence hangs over us as we both watch the waves crash in.
I finally reach up to smooth my hand over his back in a soothing way. Wanting to take some of his agony away, to make him feel less alone. “So . . . I guess creepy Esmeralda was right about a lot of things.”
“Fuck, was she ever creepy,” he mutters, and we share a laugh. Sebastian pauses to toss the seashell into the water. “These anchors she talked about . . .” He shoots a sideways glance my way.
“What about them?”
“Well, they sound like they involve some commitments, and I remember Ivy Lee telling me that she didn’t make commitments.”
“I did say that, didn’t I?”
“Has that changed?”
It’s endearing, watching Sebastian—a man who’s normally so controlled and in charge—hesitantly probe in a way that he wouldn’t have before.
How has he not figured out that everything has changed for me, and it’s all because of him?
I answer by throwing a leg over his thighs to straddle him, my back to the ocean. Because I’d rather be looking at this man anyway. “Maybe.”
His eyes scan my face, settling on my lips, and I expect that he’s going to lean in and kiss me. But he suddenly scoops me up in his arms and trudges easily through the thick mounds of sand toward his car. I squeal like the kind of girls I mock.
“We should get home. Get some sleep.” His deep voice hums
“When is your plumbing going to be fixed?” I’m desperate to see Sebastian’s home. To be surrounded by his things. To invade his life like he’s invaded mine.
“Don’t know yet. Soon.”
I groan. “Are you sure you don’t have a wife there?” That would be just my fucking luck. I hate that I asked, but it’s beginning to drive me nuts.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Girlfriend?”
“None.”
“Boyfriend?”
He chuckles. “Trust me, after last night’s dinner, I’d rather be bringing you to my place than risk meeting another one of Dakota’s friends.” We reach the car and he sets me down, opening the door for me.
I climb in and watch him as he rounds the front, his raptor gaze scanning our surroundings.
When Sebastian told me we were going to his parents’ for Thanksgiving dinner, I remember being happy that he actually listened to me, and that this was a big step for him. I completely dismissed the reality that Sebastian’s parents would be meeting me.
And, most likely, judging me.
Normally I wouldn’t give a damn. But these are Sebastian’s parents.
I give a damn.
“So, on a scale of one to ten, how much do they hate tattooed women?” I ask, taking in the perfectly manicured little house before us, the American flag drifting ever so slightly in the cool fall breeze.
Sebastian’s eyes float over me from head to toe, settling on the black turtleneck I chose for today’s meeting. The temperatures allow for it, thank God; it’s only about fifty degrees out. “You look great.”
“Right. And you’re sure we shouldn’t have brought flowers or something?” Showing up at someone’s house for Thanksgiving dinner empty-handed feels like the wrong thing to do, even though I really have no experience in this sort of thing. Aside from meeting Jesse’s father—albeit years later, when he nearly arrested me—I’ve never actually met a guy’s parents.
“You’re nervous?”
“No,” I lie, smoothing my long hair down around my face to cover where I recently shaved the sides. They were getting too long and mangy.