Chapter 33: The Choice

Francesca’s POV.

“Is he a bad guy?” I ask after time has passed and our beverages have been drained.

Though I’ll never tell him, he was right. I can feel the sugar coursing through my body. My hands are shaking. I don’t know if it’s completely from the sugar or from the adrenaline of the day, but either way, I trap my hands under my legs, leaving the carcass of my chocolate chip pancakes—extra chips—to slowly dry out next to me.

“Your brother’s always been the best of us,” Ren answers me.

I don’t know him well enough to say that he would never lie to me, but there’s something about the way he answers my questions that leads me to believe he has nothing to hide.

Ren reminds me of the men in the trailer park. Not the men who were so stoned they couldn’t see straight. No. The men who were haunted. Not by ghosts, but by life. The men who had nothing left but to be whatever life left behind.

“You’re going to take me to Chicago?”

Ren looked at me his eyebrow quirked up.