by Emilia Finn
“Cops. As in, the guys you call Uncle? Yeah, they seem awfully inclined to send you away for life.”
“Cam…” I shake my head. “You have no damn clue. They would if they could. They’ve tried a million times, but then my mom takes care of business.”
“You’re such a momma’s boy,” she teases. “It’s embarrassing, really.”
“Says the chick who pats her brother’s hair, and barely stops short of spoon-feeding him his breakfast for fear he’ll forget and go hungry.”
“He’s a fighter!” she counters. “And he works a lot. He needs to eat.”
I lift my hand in a type of shrug. “I’m not hating on you. I’m just saying… pot, meet kettle.”
“Shut up, Secretary.”
We step up onto the curb surrounding my family’s gym, and make our way across the gravel toward the front doors.
“You’re gonna be on the phone every single day, right?” I hold her tighter as we pass their car. The windows are down, the doors unlocked. I guess Will isn’t afraid of someone stealing his ride from the gym parking lot. “Every single day?”
She swallows and studies her shoes as we move. “Yes. Every single day.”
“If you tell me your address and stuff, maybe I can fly out and see you during the year. I can get some time away from the gym, hand my classes over to Bean or someone, take a week.”
“And what?” she smiles. “Sleep in my bedroom… right next to Will’s bedroom?”
I drop my uneaten ice cream in the trashcan as we pass it. I can’t eat. I can’t swallow a damn thing, because I already miss her. She’s in my arms, but I’m already mourning her departure.
“If I visit, I’ll get a hotel, we can hang out in luxury for a week, room service, movies…” I press a kiss to her temple and close my eyes. “Bed. Just… you and me and nothing else for days on end. That sounds good, right?”
We step through reception, into the hall, and stop at the entrance to the main room where the boxing ring stands. I expect to find people sparring, albeit gently, since the tournament just ended. I expect to find chatter, laughter, comradery after a massive week.
But I sure as fuck don’t expect to find this.
“Will!” Cam shoots out from beneath my arm and tosses her ice cream to the floor. Red, melted confectionary splatters to the mats like blood at a murder scene. “Will!”
“You have the right to remain silent.” Uncle Oz slams Will against the wall. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, the courts will supply you with one.”
“Will!”
I expect Cam to screech, cry, scream about unfairness or innocence. A ‘You’ve got the wrong man’ type of defense. But I stand in shocked silence when she does none of that.
What she does is run at Oz like a fucking bull racing at a red flag.
Head down, shoulders pumped, she sprints forward just as he wraps one cuff around Will’s wrist, then she slams Oz a full ten feet to the right. She has momentum behind her, and rage, so much fucking rage, that she sends my six-and-a-half-foot-tall, heavy, cop uncle spinning out of control and slamming to the matted floors.
Then she grabs Will’s hand, and they run.
Together, they run.
“Cam!” I spin as she sprints past me.
Her eyes meet mine, tears, sorrow, grief, but she doesn’t stop even when I reach out and grab her sleeve. The fabric tears, because I don’t let go, and she refuses to stop.
Her sweater rips, the neckline stretches and exposes her shoulder, but she’s light on her feet, a dancer, a thief. She spins out of my grasp, reaffirms her grip on Will’s hand, and they dart along the hall so fast it’s like they’re escaping bullets.
“Cam!” I take off behind them. Oz behind me. Livi behind him. Uncle Bobby, Uncle Aiden. My dad. Everyone is here, but I’m at the front of the line as I sprint along the hall and burst into an empty reception.
Heart in my throat, confusion playing through every cell in my brain, I skid through the space and outside into the parking lot, to find Will behind the wheel of their beat-up car. Cam sits in the passenger seat, no seatbelt, no safety, she merely holds onto the door and her seat while Will’s wheels spin against the gravel and search for traction.
Oz dashes out behind me so fast that he slams into my back when he can’t stop. Will’s tires spin, they screech and kick up dust, and in the excruciatingly long minute that is, in reality, only a second, Cam’s eyes meet mine, then they flick to my right and widen.
I turn, my movements fatigued and slow, to find Oz bracing his legs, extending his hands, and pointing his service-issued gun at the car.
“Stop the car!” he bellows.
Everything is in slow motion. Voices. Actions. Tires. Cam’s shouted “No!”
She’s closer to us, because of the way the car is angled. For Oz to shoot Will, he has to go through Cam.
My heart slams inside my chest, my vision is spotty because there’s just not enough oxygen to go around. But I dive for Oz’s gun, I shove it aside, I shove him aside, and in that moment, Will’s tires find purchase, and they’re off like an arrow released from its bow. They skid in the dirt, shoot rocks up so they fling against the gym wall and my chest, then they hit the road and scream away.
“What the fuck?” I spin to Oz and grab him when he tries to rush toward his car. I grab my uncle by the lapels of his shirt, tear him back in my direction when the rest of his body wants to run after Cam and Will. I use strength I didn’t know I had, bring him to the tip of his toes, and shout, “What the fuck, Oz?”
He looks to the now-empty road. To the black marks Will’s tires left behind. To the smoke the burning rubber created. Then his furious gaze comes back to me. “Wanted in relation to a murder case. Resisting arrest. Theft. Assault of an officer.” He shoves me back with a roar. “Fugitive!”
“What?”
“Oz!” Soph sprints out the door behind us with papers in her hands. Overflowing documents, a laptop in her arms. No longer a dance instructor, she’s full ‘Checkmate’ as she shoves papers at Oz. “Fake names.”
“What is going on?” I tear my arm away when someone grabs on. Mom. I look down into her tear-filled eyes. But I storm toward Oz and Soph. “What the fuck is going on?”
“William Quinn?” Oz holsters his gun and shoulder-barges me to get past. “That ain’t his name, you fucker. You just let a wanted felon escape. Why? Because you caught feelings for his sister?”
“I don’t even know what the fuck is going on right now! One minute, we’re all friends. The next, you’re pulling a gun on Cam’s brother. Somebody needs to explain something to me right fucking now!”
“Cameron Quinn…” Soph’s gentle voice draws my eyes to her with a snap. She shakes her head. “That’s not…” She sighs. “That name isn’t real, Jamie.”
“Somebody needs to start making sense!”
“She doesn’t exist.” Soph spins her laptop around to show me… something. I don’t even know. Spreadsheets. Something that looks like the screen at the DMV. Photo. Name. Date of birth.
But it’s all empty.
“Cameron Quinn doesn’t exist.”
The Stacked Deck Series continues in Crazy Eights
Also by EMILIA FINN
(in reading order)
The Rollin On Series
Finding Home
Finding Victory
Finding Forever
Finding Peace
Finding Redemption
Finding Hope
The Survivor Series
Because of You
Surviving You
Without You
Rewriting You
Always You
Take A Chance On Me
The Checkmate Series
Pawns In The Bishop’s Game
Till The Sun Dies
Castling The Rook
Playing For Keeps
Rise Of The King
Sacrifice The Knight
Winner Takes
All
Checkmate
Stacked Deck - Rollin On Next Gen
Wildcard
Reshuffle
Game of Hearts
Full House
No Limits
Bluff
Seven Card Stud
Crazy Eights
Rollin On Novellas
(Do not read before finishing the Rollin On Series)
Begin Again – A Short Story
Written in the Stars – A Short Story
Full Circle – A Short Story
Worth Fighting For – A Bobby & Kit Novella