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When she gripsdizzy, and I don’t think I can stand ain, I push her away

She looks up at htly narrowed eyes

“Look,” I say as I take her chin in o to sleep, you got it?”

Her eyes are wide as she nods slightly Maybe I sound harsher than I intend to, but I’ thin I probably shouldn’t have just grabbed the first available prostitute I should have found a nice demure one instead

Do they make them that way?

My thoughts dart to Bridgett, and I clench ainst the memory Yes, she had been a little on the demure side She wasn’t street-hardened or a junkie She eet and kind What did it get her? A bullet in the head, that’s what

“What the hell did you drag me all the way up here for, then?”

I a to wonder if this particular prostitute is destined for the same fate

“Just—just lie down” I sound like an ass, but I don’t really knohat else to tell her Ad that I can’t sleep unless there’s someone in the bed with ”

“Seriously?”

“Yes” I dropI haven’t taken off my boots yet I don’t think I can actually bend over and untie the on the floor

&nbs

p; “Yer gonna pay for ht?” she asks “I ”

“I’ at her I sit on the edge of the bed in my boxers and reach down to unlace o to sleep!”

Once my boots and socks are off with my jeans piled up on top of theain My sto to throw up I hate that feeling, and I s hard against it

“M’kay,” she says in a softer voice, “we’ll just sleep or whateva”

I inhale a long breath through my nose and nod once I turn and crawl up to the head of the bed and practically collapse on the pillow It’s cool against my face, but it warms quickly The hooker slides in beside me, pulls the blanket back, and wraps it around us both

I wrap one ar the war to fade She says so to me, but I can’t comprehend the words before I fall asleep

“Left ten degrees,” Zach, ”

I look up and then adjust in to take careful aim Zach calculates the wind speed, and I er

Blasts co behind explodes into dust around me

“We’ve been heard!”

We pull back, and more shots rain down on us It only takes another thirty seconds for us to realize we are surrounded