"How?"

"What do you mean?"

"How do you do it?"

"However I'm paid to. I don't..."

"You don't what?"

"I don't know. I've never known anything but this. I killed my first man when I was sixteen years old. I made a mess of it, too." His voice thickens. "How was I supposed to know the difference? I..."

"What are you doing here, then?"

"I'm running. I made a mistake."

"You killed the wrong person?"

"No," he says very, very softly. "I refused to kill the right one."

"I don't understand."

I lie on my side and he turns to face me. I can feel in his embrace that he's thinking this won't last much longer, this is the end. It makes me sick. Why? It's not fucking fair.

"I took a contract to kill a man."

"What man?"

"It doesn't matter, you wouldn't know him. Very powerful people wanted him to die and paid very well."

"You didn't do it?" I ask, a note of hope in my voice.

"No, I killed him. The problem was, I was supposed to eliminate any witnesses."

I swallow. "What witnesses?"

"This man was a trafficker."

"Trafficker? Like drugs?"

"People. Girls."

I shiver. "Girls?"

"For labor, and for prostitution." Disgust twists his voice.

"Somebody wanted to stop this man?"

"No. Somebody wasn't getting their cut, so he had to be made an example of."

"They sent you."

"I volunteered."

"Because of what he did?"

Quentin sighs. "Because they paid well."

"Go on."

"He wasn't alone. It was fast. I shot him three times, two in the chest, once in the head. He was dead before he knew what was happening. Problem was, he wasn't alone. This was at his place, a...a villa, I guess you'd call it."

His arms tighten around me. "Some of the girls were there in the room. My instructions were highly specific. I was supposed to kill them, too. It wasn't about hiding what happened. It was to send a message. Show what happens when you fuck with the higher ups."

"What did you do?"

"I... I was going to. I... The youngest one was little, I mean she was like thirteen fucking years old, just staring at me with those big dead eyes. Never said anything, just looked at me like, get this over with."

"What did you do? Leave?"

He shakes his head. "No. I got them out. I, uh, caused some problems."

"Problems?"

"I sort of burned the house down and killed six guards, and there was a little explosion."

"A little explosion?"

"It wasn't like a bad explosion. Just a generator."

"The girls?"

"I called everybody I could think of, made the older ones swear to watch the younger ones, and left them. I called for help. That was all I could do."

He rolls onto his back. "I hoped since I emptied the place out, nobody would know what I did. I met up with my contact after that. She was supposed to pay me. Tried to kill me. I ran. Here."

"Holy shit," I say.

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"You never killed kids?"

"Not kids. Never kids. I have a code. We're supposed to have a code. That's how I was brought into this. There's supposed to be a kind of honor in the criminal fraternity. You don't hurt civilians, you come straight at your enemies, and you don't double-cross. That's how it's supposed to be, anyway. Honor among thieves."

He sits up.

"I have to leave, Rose. Bad people are going to find me and they have orders to make me suffer. I have to leave. I don't have a choice. I wanted to tell you but..."

I cross my arms. "But what?"

"I didn't want you to look at me like that," he says. "I didn't want you to know. I wanted you to remember me cooking dinner for your kids and fooling around in the car. I wanted to be a happy memory even if it had a bitter ending. I wanted the same from you." His voice tightens up. "At least then I'd have one fucking happy memory."

I stay quiet for a long time.

"There's something else," he says softly.

"What?"

"I sprayed you with the hose on purpose."

"Wait, what?"

"The hose. I did it on purpose."

"Why?"

"Because when I opened the door and you started yelling at me about the car in the driveway, my first thought was, what does this bitch want, and my second was, damn, what a fine piece of ass. I wanted to see you all wet."

"If you're trying to flatter me, calling me a piece of ass is the wrong way."

"You know you love it," he says, stroking my arm. "You took that spanking like a champ. Queen in the streets, slut in the sheets."

"If you ever call me a slut again I'll kick you in the balls."

"If you try to kick me in the balls I'm going to have to fuck your brains out."

"Quentin," I whimper. "I don't know how to feel about this."

"Me either," he says. "What a fucking mess."

"I don't want to believe you hurt people."

"Killed. Let's not dance around the bush."

"I don't believe you're a murder. A monster wouldn't have been so kind with my children, or...me."

I sniffle a little and scrub at my nose with his sheets. He deserves it.

"When I'm gone I want you to remember me like that. Not like this. Remember how good it was."

"What if they don't come? What if they just let you go? Why can't you stay?"

"Rose, you don't understand what's at stake here. A very, very bad man wants to kill me and he'll hurt people to make me suffer first."

I sit up and grab his arm. "You'll kill him first, won't you?"

"What?" He looks genuinely surprised.

"You can protect us."

"Rose, did you miss the part where I just told you I kill people for money? I'm not a protector."

"You protected those girls."

"I know, but..." he trails off. He sighs.

"The best thing I can do to protect you is go."

"Don't."

"I have to. Not yet. I can stay a while longer. I shouldn't leave today with the fucking circus in town outside or whatever it is, but tomorrow I'm going to have to go."

I nod. "I need a shower."

"I need to join you."

Quentin For a moment I only lie on the bed as I watch Rose stand up, her legs trembling as she shivers. She instinctively covers her chest with her arms, still embarrassed in her nudity. Innocence clings to her like the fresh scent of flowers after a summer breeze has faded. Once she's on her feet I swing my legs over and stand up behind her, slipping my arms around her waist as I rest my chin on her head.

Rose smirks and wriggles her ass against me. I start to stiffen and she giggles.

"Easy there, give me a minute."

She pulls at my arms and I reluctantly let go and satisfy myself with holding her hips. She pulls me along into the bathroom and turns on the shower, sighing as the room fills with steam.

"Stop sniffing me," she says as I sniff at her neck.

"No."

I like the scent, the way she smells when she's covered head to toe in sweat. Before I let her ruin it by washing off, I grab her and stick my face in her armpit, and she squirms and squeals and halfheartedly struggles until I breathe my fill and let her go.

She only stops shivering when she's under the water, and the sight of it pouring down her back makes me harder. I step in after her and pull the door shut, crowding her.

"I can't move," she protests.

"Why do you get to stand under the water? It's freezing in here."

"If you're going to stand so close, you can help me wash up."

I don't need to be told twice. I pull her back to my chest and grab a bar of soap from the wall and start lathering it up on her stomach, covering my hands in soap before I set it aside and lather up her breasts. No subtlety here. The end is getting close.

I'm never going to see her again. I let her soapy skin slide under my palms with adoring resignation, committing to memory the silky feel of her flesh and the way she gasps when my palms run rough over her nipples. It'll keep me warm on lonely nights when I'm running from nowhere to noplace.

Rose leans against me as I massage her shoulders. She's not so tense now but it makes her purr like a cat. I reach around her and turn the showerhead to sluice the soap off her body. It gives me a reason to rest my head on her shoulder.

Then I turn the lever and the faucet starts flooding the bottom. I tap the plug with my foot so it will fill, and pull Rose to me, drawing her to sit with me as the tub fills around us. She shivers harder, her teeth chattering until the hot water rises up to our shoulders.

She sinks to her chin into the water, sliding her back against me in the process. There's nothing quite like the feeling of a woman's skin in warm water. Her head falls on my chest.

"We can't stay in here too long. My kids..."