Introduction

A provocative love story between a tough Kansas woman on a crooked path to redemption and the unlikeliest of champions, from the New York Times bestselling author of All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

Zee is nobody's fairy tale princess. Almost six-foot, with a redhead's temper and a shattered hip, she has a long list of worries: never-ending bills, her beautiful, gullible sister, her five-year-old nephew, her housebound mother, and her drug-dealing boss.

Zee may not be a princess, but Gentry is an actual knight, complete with sword, armor, and a code of honor. Two years ago the voices he hears called him to be Zee's champion. Both shy and autistic, he's barely spoken to her since, but he has kept watch, ready to come to her aid.

When an abduction tears Zee's family apart, she turns to the last person she ever imagined--Gentry--and sets in motion a chain of events that will not only change both of their lives, but bind them to one another forever.

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Excerpt

Chapter 1

Zee

People talk about having an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other. I had a pair of imaginary bill collectors, so no matter which way I turned, there was somebody to remind me I needed money. That’s how I ended up on a train at four o’clock in the morning with my nephew and a hundred pounds of weed.

We were hours behind schedule, but the westbound Southwest Chief was running on time. When the two trains met each other, they rattled back and forth, and the air that leaked in through the vents smelled like diesel and burning brakes. I could see into the other train’s windows, where a few people were still awake. Usually, it made me feel lonely, seeing those people so close but separated from me.

This time felt different. Having Marcus’ head resting in my lap reminded me I wasn’t alone. He was small like his mother and dark-haired like his father, but when he was asleep, he was like me. Always running hot and trying to burrow his way into things. After hours of him sleeping on me, my hip hurt so much I kept hoping he would wake up, but he slept through the railroad crossing bells in every small town we went through. When he did wake up, rolling over and grinding his forehead into me, I didn’t make him move, though. I smoothed his hair down and said, “Shh, it’s okay. I’m here. Go back to sleep.”

The trip to Trinidad had never been a big deal to me, but then I’d never had to take Marcus with me. I didn’t have a choice, when LaReigne didn’t come home, and twenty-four hours later, I was still waiting to hear from her. Waiting but dreading it, too, because there was no way I could keep lying to her. I would have to tell her about the weed, and she would have to get over it. She could be as mad as she wanted, but that wasn’t going to pay the rent, and maybe it was time she knew where the extra cash came from. Sometimes she spent money like it magically appeared in our bank account. Like the gas money she burned up driving to El Dorado to volunteer at the prison.

Back before I started doing the Colorado run, LaReigne used to call Asher my boyfriend, I guess because that was the only way me having sex with him made sense to her. She didn’t understand it was just about the money. My hospital bills, the rent, the groceries, Mom’s prescriptions, LaReigne’s tuition, and whatever thing Marcus needed, because kids are money pits.

In my experience, you could fuck for money, or wait tables for money, or sit in an insurance office forty hours a week like LaReigne did. However you get it, you need it, because money always decides whether things get better or worse. They never stay the same.

I was in too much pain to sleep, so I practiced in my head how I would explain all of that to LaReigne.

The thing that bothered me was that she didn’t always come home on her volunteer nights, but she always texted. She always had an excuse. One time, exactly one time, she had completely flaked out on us. It was right after she’d filed for divorce, so Marcus had only been three. We’d been in our apartment for a month, and we didn’t know where the next month’s rent was coming from. We were living on potatoes and canned stuff from the food bank. One Thursday, LaReigne had gone out for a job interview and hadn’t come home. I’d spent the whole weekend trying to find her, and gotten fired from my job for not showing up. LaReigne had finally come home on Sunday night, and we had a knock-down, drag-out fight. She never told me where she’d been, but she’d promised she would never do that again. And she hadn’t.

Except where was she? If she’d lost her phone, she would have replaced it by now, so I couldn’t keep pretending that’s why she wasn’t answering. For the first time, I let myself think about other reasons. Maybe she was dead. A car wreck. Some asshole with a gun who got her office and the Planned Parenthood clinic down the street confused. Her ex-husband was in jail in Texas, or I would’ve added him to the possible ways LaReigne could die. He’d threatened her enough times. Looking at one of the last texts I’d sent her, I wished I could take it back. If you’re not dead, I’m going to kill you. What if I’d jinxed her?

A new text popped up, but it was only from Asher’s lackey, Toby: Why is the train so late?

Engine problems

Ok well if there r cops at Newton ur on ur own

WTF are you talking about? Why would there be cops? I said.

The little dots flashed as Toby typed. When the answer came, I would have fallen down if I hadn’t been sitting down: This deal with your sister. Asher gonna murder u if the cops get his shit

Panic washed over me, and my hands shook so hard I could barely type. What are you talking about the shit with my sister???

The thing out at the prison.

What thing at the prison???

Toby didn’t answer.

I opened my Internet app to look at the Wichita Eagle’s website. While I waited for it to load, I couldn’t tell if it was the train rocking back and forth or my stomach.

MANHUNT FOR ESCAPED INMATES was the top headline. Underneath that were grainy pictures of two guys in orange prison jumpsuits.

The smaller headline was Two Guards Killed in Riot, with pictures of the guards in their uniforms. Below that: Night of rioting ends with three inmates injured and two volunteers taken hostage. LaReigne was so unimportant, they mentioned her last. I didn’t recognize the picture they used for her, so it was probably from her volunteer badge at the prison. She managed to look glamorous even in a mug shot–style picture. Her hair in blond waves and her eyebrows drawn on perfectly. The other volunteer was a woman, too. Chubby and maybe fifty with short brown hair. Was it Molly, who LaReigne had stayed with a couple times when she had a migraine and didn’t want to drive home?

I tried to find out more, but all the news sites had the same information. Rioting, low staffing, overcrowding, dead guards, escape, hostages. I was rereading it, over and over, when the we pulled into Newton.

I was the last person off the train, practically carrying Marcus while the conductor tossed my suitcases out on the sidewalk. Marcus flopped down on the ground next to the bags, cried for about two minutes, and then fell asleep.

I almost cried, too, but I held it together while everybody was meeting up with their families and finding their rides. The whole time, Toby was standing in the shadows, watching me. Maybe he thought he was keeping a low profile, but he looked like a creeper.

“Do you want this shit or not?” I said, after the train pulled away.

“Keep your voice down.”

“There aren’t any cops.” I raised my voice, same as always, because being mad felt safer than being scared. Toby came over and started towing my suitcases toward where he’d parked his car next to mine. After sitting for twelve hours, my hip felt like it was full of gravel, but I picked Marcus up and limped after Toby.

Usually Toby unloaded the suitcases into his trunk and gave them back to me, but when I got to his car, he was tossing them into the back seat. Those suitcases were serious business: matching, locking, hard-sided, polycarbonate, all-terrain wheels. The only place I’d ever taken them was Trinidad, Colorado, and the only thing I’d ever packed in them was Asher’s weed. They’d cost me serious money, too, but right then didn’t seem like a safe time to argue about them, so I set Marcus down and unlocked my car.

“Why the hell did you bring the kid anyway?” Toby said.

“Because I had to. Asher said if I didn’t make the run tonight, he’d have you fuck me up.”

Toby laughed and said, “You’re already fucked up. What kinda person brings their kid on a run?”

“He’s my nephew, and my sister didn’t come home last night, which you already know. There was nobody else to watch him.”

“Shit, for real? This is LaReigne’s kid?” Toby looked at Marcus, who was asleep on his feet, leaning up against me. “So that’s some crazy shit, huh? What do you think is—

“Shut up, you asshole!” I said.

Even though Marcus was right there, Toby reached out and grabbed me by the neck. He pushed me back against my car, digging his thumb into my throat.

“You need to learn some fucking manners, Zee.”

“Please,” I said, which wasn’t what I felt at all. “Don’t say anything in front of him.”

When Toby let go of me, I opened the door and lifted Marcus into his car seat. After I shut the door, I turned back to Toby with my arms crossed, so he wouldn’t see me shivering. There was a reason Toby couldn’t do the run to Colorado himself. He looked exactly like what he was: a drug-dealing thug with a neck tattoo and a squirrely eye. He also happened to be one of the scariest people I knew. Him and Asher. Any time I got tempted by those blocks of cash, that was all I had to think about. Two hundred grand would pay off all my debts—hell, the debts of everybody I knew—but it would also get me killed.

“Jesus,” Toby said. “I was gonna offer to make things easier for you with Asher. Smooth things over.”

I knew what he had in mind for payment for a favor like that, and I really wanted to be done paying for things with sex. I hoped I was never going to be that desperate again.

“Anyway, doesn’t matter now. Asher told me to tell you you’re cut off. You don’t call him. You don’t text him. He’ll call you after this shit quiets down.”

I probably should have got in the car and left, but I had bills to pay.

“My money?” I said.

Toby snorted, but he reached into his back pocket and took out an envelope. He held on to it for a couple seconds after I reached for it, but he finally let it go. I stuffed the money into my pocket and walked around to the driver’s side of my car. When I opened the door, Toby was still watching me.

“Tell Asher he owes me for those suitcases,” I said. “They weren’t cheap." view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. In the midst of bad people doing bad things, and good people doing bad things for the right reasons, which character do you think is the moral compass of the book?

2. Zee refers to herself as homeless, even when she ostensibly has a place to live with LaReigne. Do you agree with her definition of homeless? What makes a place home, as opposed to a place where we sleep? What about Gentry? Where is his home? What does it mean for him to build a tower with/for Zee?

3. So often in television and movies, sex is presented as an act that just happens. A couple kisses and, with little or no communication seen on screen, they have sex. Because of Gentry's autism-associated sensory issues, he and Zee develop a simple system to communicate when he needs to wait, and when they can go forward. Can you imagine a world in which it was commonplace to discuss consent on such a detailed level? What would that look like in entertainment? In your life?

4. Zee's mother has nearly entombed herself in a house full of stuff, some of it sentimental objects, but much of it worthless junk. What does Dottie's stuff tell us about her? What does Zee own? How do you interpret her limited personal belongings? What about Gentry and what Zee describes as his "armory?" Do we value objects differently based on whether they are practical, sentimental, or symbolic? What objects in the book seem most valuable to you and why?

5. Loyalty plays a big role in the story, but what does it mean to be loyal? In traditions of chivalric or courtly love, black is often the color of faithfulness. Gentry's armor is described as "all black," but is he the most loyal character in the book? If not him, who? What happens when loyalty is betrayed?

6. When Gentry tells Zee the story of Melusine, Zee remarks "like mother like daughter." How much does she see Dottie in herself? How does that sense of heritage/inheritance affect how Zee moves through the world and interacts with people? Are there other kinds of inheritance in the story?

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