The Black Keys thunder from pulsating speakers as Rex scorches us across a parched stretch of desolation. Madness glints in his eyes as he ups the volume and floors the accelerator, pushing the jittery needle past eighty-eight. The engine spits and roars. In the mirror I see a cloud of black exhaust streaming from the ass end of the restored Tradesman. The imagery has me reminiscing of raven hair and eyes that smoldered like dying coals.

“Fuckin’ wild!” Rex growls, hands drumming out a furious ostinato on the steering wheel. “You see them eyes when I shoved Crystal in his face and told him to blow her like a crack whore? Fuckin’ missed that feeling, man.” He pets the sawed-off in his lap, and strokes the growing erection in his jeans. “Shit gets me hard.”

“You’re sick, you know that? And slow down already, asshole.” Small fists beat against the back of Rex’s seat.

“Forget how to live, Maria?” Rex crows. “We both know a little violence and danger gets you wet. Least till Riley starting stickin’ you.”

“Fuck off, cabrón.”

“Only if you lend me that talented mouth, darlin’.”

There’s a hacked gag of derision.

Some things never change, even if you leave your youth behind in a pool of blood in a decrepit bank. I turn the radio down. “Last thing we need is a bored trooper pulling us over.”

“Nothing but empty road, Cole. Don’t add to the whiny bitch factor in back.”

A chorus of Spanish obscenities fills the van this time, drowning out what little remains of the music, and leaving me grinning. I love it when Maria gets angry, her rough Juárez blood bubbling to the surface. Brings on memories. Some good. Some bad.

“Jesus!” Maria screeches.

Rex just looks over at me, laughing, and guides the wheel back and forth, zigzagging in and out of the dotted white line.

“You dense motherfucker! There’s someone in the middle of the road!”

Rex’s laugher is cut off with a strangled grunt of surprise, head swinging forward. The van’s brakes are banshee shrieks of burning rubber, tires skidding over hot Nevada concrete. The Tradesman jerks as the trailer fishtails behind us, threatening to throw us into a death roll, miles from civilization, double that from a halfway decent hospital.

Rex easily course corrects, however, and the blacked-out van screams its way to a stop thirty feet from the figure straddling the lane divider.

“Ya never do me bad, Delilah,” Rex murmurs, stroking the leather-padded wheel. Sweat beads on his forehead, but his eyes glint with feral excitement.

Dumbass.

Behind us, Maria glares daggers and mutters a frenetic prayer, hands clenched around a beaded rosary. I swivel back around in my seat and catch sight of our would-be reaper sashaying towards us, wavy blonde hair catching the sun’s light, shimmering like spools of golden wheat. If she is a reaper, my reaper, finally come knocking, I’d gladly welcome the end in exchange for a few hours alone… preferably naked.

She comes to a stop a half pace from the van, looking more curious than anything. I give her the once over. Tiny denim shorts look they’ve been spray painted over her bronzed legs. And she’s wearing the sort of beguiling smile that’s survived a helluva lot more abuse than the vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase, the beat-up guitar case, and the rusted out VW they’re resting against.

Rex breaks the spell with a wolf whistle.

“That’s one fine ass bitch to sin your way to hell with.”

Maria answers with a kick to his seat. “And she can probably smell your sleazy bullshit from here, shit-head.”

“Shut up, both of you,” I snap.

“I don’t need to remind everyone what Riley said, do I?” Maria pipes in anyway. “No stops, even if it’s Mother fucking Theresa with a gunshot wound to the chest.”

“Riley, Riley, Riley,” Rex cuts in. “Been a bitch ever since he put a ring on that finger. I’m sure we can… give her a ride.” Rex gives Maria a slow-mo wink.

“How disgustingly chivalrous.”

“What can I say? Momma’s stash of Molly and Jack raised me good.”

Maria snorts. “Into a lecherous shit-bag that’d fuck his sister if he had one.”

Rex grabs his crotch. “What can I say? I was made to rut. Don’t think I don’t remember you sucking my dick up like a good bong hit back in the day. Your eyes would roll up like a shark’s. Still beat off to those memories.”

“You’re sick.”

I yank Crystal from Rex’s lap and shove it under the seat. “Both of you shut the hell up. And pretend to be sane adults. At least.” I give them both a hard look before jumping out.

-

She said her name was Summer, like the season, with an infectious, Julia Robert’s smile. She said it twice, slim arm arcing up and bohemian bracelets sliding down, to pull amber tinted sunglasses low on a pert nose. As if I needed convincing. From anyone else’s mouth it would have sounded absurd. But she was the embodiment of raunchy sex on steamy July nights, with the sky blue eyes to emphasize. She could get away with murder in a police station if she wanted.

Even so, Maria’s warnings thundered pot shots in my head: rookie mistake, asshole… she’s an undercover Fed.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Thing is though, consequences could fuck off. Her paper-thin tank top teases sleek swells and a pair of dime-sized nipples. And her sultry southern twang exploits a weakness I don’t remember having. Besides, she has a gig tonight at a dive bar ninety-nine miles away. Traveling musicians have to look after one another, right? At least, that’s how I rationalize it as I tuck her suitcase in the van.

-

Route 50 yawns a lonely length of brittle desolation through Nevada. If not for the concrete, it’s just how I imagined it’d always been, back when the bleak unknown was still something exciting. Manifest delusion.

“Where you headed again?” Maria asks.

“A graveyard in the sand,” Summer murmurs, stretching out those sleek bronze legs.

“A what?” Maria’s eyes are dark slits.

Summer shrugs. “Wicker’s Run. Typical Nevada. Not much doing but drinking, gambling, and fucking.”

“Hell’s paradise,” Rex winks.

“Why go?”

Summer shrugs. “A girl has to start somewhere, right? And I need inspiration. Hell on earth is as good a place as any.” That eases off Maria’s suspicion. Somewhat. She’s still fingering her rosary. “What about ya’ll? Where you headed?”

“Battle of the Bands,” I say, probably a bit too quick. Even if it’s a lie slathered with truth, it’s still a lie. If Summer notices, she gives no indication.

“L.A.’s hosting this year,” I continue. “Big cash prize. We won a late entry from a gig in Austin. Figured with the time we have until then, we’d road trip it.”

“Jealous,” Summer sighs.

Silence fills the van for a few moments after that, three friends and a stranger trying to get a bead on each other. Rex shatters it before any conclusions are reached.

“Always been a solo act, blondie?”

Summer arches an eyebrow at the nickname, but otherwise ignores it. “After a fashion you might say. Band mates left me hanging during a gig. Not a damn word of explanation. Just the beer tab.”

Rex can’t believe it and says so, spewing crass language and over the top metaphors of what he’d do to such limp-dick maggots. It’s the kind of shit Maria and I have heard a million times before. And it’s never really failed in reeling women in. Neither of us gets the why of it, but it gets Summer giggling a sweet, hauntingly melodic tune, so I can’t complain.

Soon enough, each of us adds our own notes of laughter, trading outrageous stories of personal tragedies for darkly comedic memories. All the things you’re wont to do when traveling in a straight line through dusty, dangerously beautiful landscape.

-

Ninety-nine miles burns to ash with Rex at the wheel. He can’t help himself, even if a puritanical virgin could see he’d trade a few weeks in solitary for the opportunity to blow his load in Summer’s ass. It’s how he’s programmed. And I’ve never despised him more for that fact.

-

Wicker’s Run is just as Summer described it. The worn town looks like it was transplanted from a McQueen western into the modern age, and didn’t bother with the technological shift, and sure as hell didn’t want to deal with any cultural melting pot.

There’s a sad looking bank off main street that also houses a post office; and you’d be lucky to net a few hundred if you were desperate enough to hit it. As the Tradesman rolls deeper in, we pass a neon-lit motel called The Jailhouse. It puts little effort in hiding the fact it’s the joint for sex and a willing ear for the right price. Maybe even a taste of coke with the right words… and a bullet in the brain for the wrong ones. This was paradise for people like Rex, sans fresh pussy. A town like this was where hookers faded from everyone’s memory… just wet stains on dirty sheets.

-

The Arrowhead is our destination. It lies somewhat apart from the rest of the town; it’s own little world. It’s like a modernized saloon. Pristine. Not a bit of neon anywhere. Just giant black granite out front carved into an arrowhead. In the dying desert sun, I can see that the tip sports a fresh coat of blood red paint.

“Inviting,” Maria notes dryly.

“My kinda town,” Rex adds. “Uncivilized.”

“You sure about this?” I ask, turning in my seat.

“Who’s ever really sure about anything, Cole? Besides, a girl needs to eat. And if I can survive playing here, I can survive anywhere.”

There’s stark truth to her words. She pauses though, thoughtfulness cutting into those sky blues.

“What’d ya’ll say about joining me on stage tonight?”

She pops open the door and squeezes out, Rex’s eyes following the tight curve of her ass.

“I know who ya’ll are, after all.”

We flinch in turn, first Maria, then me, then Rex. There’s a ghost of a smile on Summer’s lips and I see Rex reaching for Crystal out of the corner of my eye. Hungry for pussy or not, Rex wouldn’t hesitate plugging her full of holes with the sun still shining.

“I saw you guys play a gig at Eddie’ Attic a year ago.”

There’s a relaxing of muscles Summer mistakes for embarrassment.

“Hard to forget a performance like that. But, if you’re in a hurry...” Summer trails off, leaving the rest to us.

Maria wants anything but.

Rex’s eyes glint. There were few things he wouldn’t do to sink his dick inside a girl like her.

Me?

Well.

-

It was a star going supernova, a black hole swallowing its solar system. Lightning in a bottle. Pick any damn metaphor you like. You could make the case it described the show we put on. The simple truth is, I can’t remember the last time energy danced in my blood as hotly as when Summer took the mic, howling a honeyed croon of bourbon and Rocky Road. I don’t think any other soul could either.

We played until we were hoarse, and our fingers were raw. Until Maria let the energy build in her body and explode out in her vocals like they’d never done before. Until we had to beg for release from the stage from a near rioting crowd of bikers, prostitutes, drug dealers, and the forgotten. We played until the sweat soaked us through and the heat sucker-punched us so hard we could barely stand.

-

Three hours later, we had reign over the bar and any drink we wanted free of charge. And the girl I hadn’t thought of in years began to reign over me.

“Ever think about her?” I ask Maria, buzzed off moonshine and chasers.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

She sighs. “You’re really asking if I think about her white ass? You know I hate her, Cole.”

“Still. She was one of and us and we… I miss playing just to play. Not just to con.”

“You’re drunk, Cole.”

“Real fucking perceptive there.”

“Come on. They’re probably done loading. Let’s go.”

-

Badflower’s “Animal” rolls into the night when I open up the Tradesman, along with an empty bottle of whiskey, which shatters against the pavement. High in the Nevada sky, the glow of a full moon reveals the debauched artistry of near black and white eroticism. A half-eaten stash of cannabis brownies at their feet, half-naked bodies wriggle and writhe against each other.

Summer's wedged between Rex’s legs, her eyes closed, lips parted. Lime flavored lace peaks from unbuttoned shorts while a meaty hand furiously rubs her clit. My cock quakes to life as my eyes scorch the bell-like curves of her bronzed tits, reaching a ten on the Richter scale and threatening to explode when they notice they’re pierced with little barbells.

“Disgusting pervert,” Maria whispers angrily behind me. “He’ll have it smelling like sex all the way to L.A. There are plenty of sex holes around here to bang one out in.”

Rex’s laughter filters out from the van. “What the fuck for, Maria? I customized Delilah for that very reason.”

“You’re sick.”

“You’re jealous.”

“Of your tiny white prick, cabrón? Never.”

“It’s anything but tiny,” Summer purrs, eyes closed, head falling into the crook of Rex’s shoulder. She nips at his tattooed neck, and whispers something in his ear that has him grinning.

“They’d never go for it,” Rex laughs.

“Never go for what?” I ask.

“Our horny blonde stranger here doesn’t think either of you could sit and watch without wanting to get in on the action. You in particular, my little Chihuahua.”

“I’m engaged now, shit-head.”

“Never did stop you before.”

“That was…”

“Keep lying, little lady. Maybe you’ll get good at it one day. Now. If you don’t mind, we were about to fuck like animals.”

Beside me, Maria fumes as Summer wriggles out of her tiny denim shorts, leaving her in nothing but that tiny scrap of lime green lace.

“That’s our cue,” I tell Maria, grabbing her hand and turning to go. “Getting a room in this shit-hole won’t be hard.”

“No,” Maria says, hand squeezing mine.

“No?”

“We’re staying.”

“What about Riley?”

“Fuck, Riley. I’m gonna make that deviant eat his words and his semen. You with me or not?”

I look back into the van; Rex has Summer’s legs hooked over his shoulders, his shaved head moving for her smooth crotch.

I sigh. “Why the fuck not? There’s shit else to do in this graveyard.”

-

The Tradesman roasts like a sauna in the Nevada night and none of us could give a fuck. It’s the sort of heat that burns deep under you, until your skin bleeds water from its pours like wrung out laundry, leaving you a salted sweaty mess. Until you grow a thirst so powerful you’d do anything to quench it, drink anything to quench it. I think that’s what happens to Maria as she watches Rex push inside Summer. The sweat just bleeds from her honeyed skin as her Spanish lips part, tongue curling out to wet them like the alcoholic eyeing the last bottle in the house. Desperate longing. Torturous need. All the amalgamations of carnal thirsts boiled and mixed into a seedy concoction you can only find in a desert graveyard three exits from hell itself.

It’s a dark necessity… and it leaves me with an unbuckled belt and a cock burning to life inside her wickedly talented mouth. I look down at her, crouched between my legs, dark eyes boring into mine as she works, cheeks caving in around my shaft as she sucks with vacuum intensity, desperate for the load chambered in my balls.

I let myself drift, picturing another mouth, framed by raven hair, working my prick instead. A soft moan splits that vision, unzipping the raven hair to leave behind a tangled mess of wavy blonde. Summer. Burning hot like the season, moving between my legs and also beneath the corded, tattooed muscles of Rex, straining for release.

“Jesus fuck,” Rex grunts. “This cunt was made for dick.”

Summer purrs her thanks, drawing him in for a quick and dirty kiss, tongues twining and teeth biting, drawing droplets of blood and angry hisses of debauched lust.

“Where you want it?” Rex pants.

Summer’s blue eyes drift to mine, reeling me in, before focusing on Maria’s bobbing head.

“I’ve always wanted a string of shiny pearls,” she sings, fueling Rex’s primal thrusts, hands curling around her slim bronze waist. “Maybe I’ll even share,” she adds, laughing throatily.

Maria pauses mid-suck, arm slinking out, fist curling, middle finger rising.

“Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little Sapphic fun, Maria?”

The floated challenge has Rex roaring and pulling out of Summer’s messy pussy. Body shaking, he shimmies up her lithe frame, plants his balls on her clit like a flag, and fists his prick to jet a liquid parabola of pearlescent spunk that from sweeps from one rosy nipple to the other, jeweled bellybutton the vertex.

Maria squeezes my balls, triggering my own orgasm in near parallel. I palm her dark curls and fire fat bullets of cum straight down her throat until she back offs and holds just the head inside, slurping greedily. When she has her prize, she does something no one but Summer expects. She straddles Summer’s glistening body and drools my cum out from shiny pussy to grinning mouth.

“Besa mi culo, puto,” Maria growls into their sloppy kiss. “Juárez flows in my blood. I’m not scared of shit.”

Summer’s eye smolder and her hands work down Maria’s spine to cup her round Mexican ass. “Prove it.”

-

Remaining inhibitions melt as the heat rises, until each of us suffers the same unquenchable thirst controlling Maria. Tongues carve paths of raw lust and naked bodies collide with meteoric intensity under the din of gritty rock music. It’s chaos and the edge of death. It’s out of body, both psychotic and psychedelic. A mosh pit of electrified sensation pressing in on all sides.

Summer, bronzed legs straddling my mouth, croons a filthy song of release and dumps a sticky batch of honey over my lips. I lap it up like a rapid dog before she tips forward, falling to her hands, ass pointed skyward.

Above me, Maria is a rioting mess, plugged full of coke-dusted cock courtesy of the small black packet Rex palmed from a dealer after the show. Combined with one of Rex’s cannabis brownies, I swear I’m both drowning and flying.

“This ass,” Rex grunts hoarsely, slapping Maria’s butt, sending vibrations lancing through her body to my cock buried in her sloppy cunt. Her inner walls tighten up and I feel the frighteningly strange sensation of Rex’s thick prick, separated only by a thin membrane, rubbing almost imperceptibly against mine as he pillages her dark hole. With the drug cocktail electrifying my nerves with heightened sensitivity, the homoeroticism scares me half to death. I’d never felt anything like it.

“Choke her,” Summer whispers.

“Wha?”

“She craves it. Trust me.”

The words are syrupy sweet and I find myself obeying, pulling Maria down into a volcanic kiss. And before she knows what’s what, I encircle her neck and gently squeeze.

Her pussy clenches hard like a boa constrictor, threatening to wring every last drop of cum from my balls until I’m a withered husk. And judging from Rex’s strangled howl, her sphincter is working the same mix of pleasurable pain on his thrusting prick.

“Now… choke him,” I hear Summer purr into Maria’s ear.

Maria’s nostrils flare.

-

Summer’s silvery tongue drifts in and out, conducting our frenzied, depraved fusion of lust. I see stars… I can’t breathe… I feel truly out of body and… and then the dam finally ruptures, snapping me back.

Rex’s roar is bloodcurdlingly intense. His prick jerks wildly, painting Maria’s backdoor with a torrential wave of boiling spunk. I’m right on his heels, geysering what feels like white-hot lava into her greedy, quivering snatch.

-

As consciousness fades, I see Summer’s blonde head wriggling between Maria’s legs, slurping noisily at the rivers of cum leaking from her abused holes. Sensing my gaze, she peeks up from her salty meal, lips shining, and grins wickedly.

“No sleeping. Two more voids to fill,” she purrs cryptically.

-

A Little Martin delivers haunting notes, sliding from warm honey textures to twanging growls of anger. It’s a morphine drip to the brain, chords coalescing into a tune I can’t fully remember, before bleeding through a murky haze to sting my subconscious into a woken game of tug-a-war with itself. It’s an almost unsettling venture into how Rex’s mind must work: straddling a fear of death and a deep-seated desire to pump his veins full of poison and pump a tight pussy full of his seed before the lights in his eyes dim to nothing.

A melancholic, smoky croon joins the woodsy acoustic and memories begin to crawl from the dirt.

“How do you know that song?” Maria’s voice is a slurred and strangled whisper.

There’s a scratched thump of fingers slipping on strings. There’s a pregnant pause before the song picks up again.

“I said how do you know that song, bitch?” Fear swallows Maria’s words, salting them with prayer-like pleas, the ends tinged with Spanish inflection.

Then the haze parts I see Summer perched naked in the cockpit with the seat swung round, blue eyes blazing with the sort of pleasure not even the best orgasm can rival. She plucks the strings of the Martin a few more times, fingers dancing lazily up the slim neck, before setting the guitar aside.

“Don’t remember, Mariana? You should. After all... he remembered. But he was always the quicker one, wasn’t he.” Summer’s eyes capture mine and narrow.

“He? Stop fucking with me, chica. How do you know that song?”

There’s an angry, disoriented grunt. “Which one of you assholes thought it’d be funny to cuff me?”

“Couldn’t risk having you be you, Beau. You always like ruin things,” Summer explains.

It takes awhile for Rex’s brain to process the name drop before he’s barking like the wild dog he’s always been. Only the familiar metallic clicking of a revolver hammer shuts him up.

The tiny Smith and Wesson glints devilishly in the moonlight streaming through the window shield.

“I knew it, you thieving cunt, ” Maria hisses, thoughts centered on the cash hidden in the extra drum set and throughout our instrument cases. “I warned you, Cole. I warned you both. But you just had to have fresh pussy. Pendejos! She’s probably with the Feds.”

The revolver swings to Maria’s forehead, shutting her up. “You never could see things as they are, Maria. Always money. Wanting something for nothing. Lead vocals with a weak voice. Riley’s dick cause I had it. It’s why your lyrics are always hollow. Just a pretty shell covering shit.” Summer’s arm drops, the revolver drifting down to the small triangle of fur between Maria’s legs. “Fuck if that shell doesn’t taste good though.” Summer licks her lips.

Maria, eyes filling with confusion, anger, hate, fear, and boiling realization, fingers the rosary at her neck. “It’s not. You can’t be. You don’t even. I…” The rest comes out in stuttering Spanish. I catch something about the devil.

Summer flashes a nasty little grin. “What was it Riley said as ya’ll left me in that bank with a bullet in the gut? Sorry, doll-face?”

Summer slides something off her finger and tosses it to Maria. With shaky hands, Maria picks it up. It’s a state football championship ring, crusted with dry blood.

“Sorry, doll-face.”

Silence. Followed by a keening cry of despair. Rex looks confused, eyes locked on Summer’s naked form, brain unable to process it all: wavy blonde hair instead of jet black, blue eyes instead of green, and more importantly, more impossibly, the bronzed, runway model form in place curvy alabaster.

The keening cry suddenly cuts off, and Maria’s small, vicious form coils, ready to pounce. Inside the Tradesman, the gunshot is more cannon blast, deafening and painful as fuck. When the ringing stops and the smoke finally clears, there’s a smoldering black hole a foot left of Maria’s stiff form.

“You never did know when to stop,” Summer, who isn’t really Summer, sighs.

“What do you want, Taryn?” I ask. The name, unspoken for the last five years, shatters the bubble of denial like cheap glass.

“Taryn?” Rex laughs darkly, trying to hold on to the shards. “Not possible. She’s in prison, Cole. Or dead. Someone’s fucking with us.”

Summer turns, mouth forming a thin line. “You’re right, Beau. She is dead… after a fashion. And yet…”

Revolver still trained on us, a bowie knife appears in her other hand. Summer reverses the grip, presses the point between her breasts, and drags the blade down her chest, sizzling black ooze bubbling out as she works.

When it’s done, she tugs the skin off like a wetsuit, glowing bronze giving way to creamy white while we look on in horror, disgust, and fascination. The model litheness disappears, replaced with the familiar curves and raven hair of a girl we all abandoned as teenagers.

“I met a girl in a Honky Tonk some time ago,” Summer, who’s really Taryn, explains. “Had Navajo blood in her. And a rage that couldn’t be quenched, for reasons you can maybe guess, and reasons you fuckers damn well can’t.”

“Played the meanest guitar of anyone I know. Taught me to play like her. And other things besides.” Taryn leans into her seat, legs parting, and waves the gun around. “I’m disappointed how easy this all was. How little it fills the void.” She drags the barrel of the gun between her legs, shiny steel parting the lips of her creaming cunt. “Except this,” she moans, teasing the barrel inside and swirling it around to coat it with her juices. “How strange is that?”

“Diablo,” Maria hisses, clutching her rosary.

Taryn just grins and starts pumping the short-barreled revolver inside her cunt. “No. Something far worse than that,” Taryn grunts, body seizing as an orgasm tears through her, pussy convulsing around the barrel, and ejecting a pungent batch of sticky female arousal.

Her orgasmic high doesn’t last long though before the rage in her vaporizes it.

So the revolver once again begins its dance between the three of us.

It stops on me.

“You,” she says simply, “are going for a ride with me.”

“And us?”

The revolver’s hammer striking forward has Maria shrinking back, expecting the reaper’s scythe she too has eluded for far too long. There’s only a click though. No bullet. Taryn giggles. “Juárez blood not worth much after all, Maria. Now get the fuck out. You too, Rex.”

“My van, bitch,” he roars, eyes darting to the space Crystal rests, contemplating the distance and Taryn’s resolve.

Maria knows better though. Values her life too much. She lays a hand on his shoulder. Rex spits and curses, but relents.

-

The door opens and silver dollar moonlight bends in. Maria and Rex stumble out naked with Crystal, glinting prettily in Taryn’s arms, pointing the way.

Summer’s rusted-out VW is an ugly black husk under the stars. Her song of revenge has repeated its chorus. Ouroboros. Fucking Nietzsche. Life really is a warped flat circle. I chuckle darkly as I drag Taryn’s Louis Vuitton suitcase out, straining under the surprising weight.

-

“Where’s, Riley?” Maria asks, fear coating her words as a coyote howls to the moon. Maybe she really did love someone other than herself, after all.

“Here and there,” Taryn shrugs, pointing to the VW’s trunk and the suitcase. “Everywhere really.” She moves slowly, pulling Maria in for a lascivious kiss. Despite it all, knowing what her fate likely is, she moans, hips gyrating against Taryn’s form, leaving a shiny stain on her leg before being pushed back. She’d tried to hide it for years, but she really did get off on danger. “I want you to know I was gentle at the end,” Taryn whispers, mouth feral. “I’m not a monster.” She rubs her belly. “I bled out every last bit of his seed before the end.” Fingers squelch into her juicing pussy for emphasis. “Once a Chameleon, always a Chameleon. Isn’t that what we used to say?”

Maria whimpers pitifully. Rex just stands there frozen, Tyrannosaur tattoo looking more ridiculously misplaced than intimidating.

-

The van pulls back onto the highway in silence, leaving them naked and alone in the desert night, three betrayals and just desserts… if you believed in that sort of thing.

“What happened to her?” I ask, tracing the skeletal tattoo emblazoned on her hand.

The question surprises her. “How?”

“You’re only a chameleon, Erin. Skin-walking only takes you so far… And I just know.”

“Fair enough.”

“So?”

“So she killed herself five months into the sentencing. My sister was never as strong as the front she put on, Cole. You should know that.”

There’s no good response to that. “You gonna kill me?”

Fists clench the wheel. “She wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“Where we headed then?”

“To play one last show.”

“And then?”

She grimaces. “Fill the void? Numb the pain?” She pauses, hand drifting between her legs. A hellish moan leaks from parted lips. “Fuck till we fragment and… fade away.”

There’s nothing to say to that either, so I turn the radio on and dial in a tune.

Dorothy’s “Medicine Man” crackles to eerie life, bringing a broken smile to Erin’s mouth as the Tradesman rumbles back across Route 50.