Leaving Nailbiter and Colt alone. Well, alone except for the people who were loading up trucks with basic supplies.

Fuck, Colt thought. That was on purpose. It was cold, and the chill that came over her made her feel even colder. Nailbiter still had the gun.

“What are you going to do?” Nailbiter asked.

“Do I even have a choice?” Colt asked.

“If you did, what would you do?” the woman asked her.

Colt shivered, jamming her hands in her pocket, ducking her head down. “I don’t know.”

“You need to know,” Nailbiter said. “I’m sure you can guess why Sidepiece isn’t asked to watch you. You’re not that stupid.”

Colt shook her head. Her hair was a mess and she couldn’t bring herself to fix it.

“Disjoint handles it sometimes. Love Lost sometimes,” Nailbiter said. “But it’s usually me. Do you know why?”

“Because you’re the one who’s going to kill me, if she decides it needs to be done. The others aren’t reliable for that kind of thing.”

There wasn’t an immediate response. Trunks and car doors slammed. Some men turned to give Nailbiter a thumbs up. She responded with a motion of her hand.

“We talked about it,” Nailbiter said. “She draws the line at a certain age. You’re over it. The question is if you’re a kid.”

Colt’s first attempt at speaking failed. When she tried again, her voice was closer to being a whistle or hiss in Nailbiter’s voice than a normal person’s voice would be. “And?”

“And I want to know what you’re doing right here, right now. Are you coming here? Are you staying behind, making sure the errands are done and dinner is made, being careful not to open the wrong cabinets?”

Colt swallowed hard, looking through the open door to where Nursery was crouched by the pantry under the stairs.

“Very careful,” Nailbiter said, amending her statement. “Or are you going to run and try to go home?”

“I know too much. You’d catch me.”

“If that wasn’t a consideration?” Nailbiter asked. She turned her face toward Colt, her eyes dark, her teeth frozen from where moisture of her breath had gathered on nails and formed an ice coating.

“I don’t know.”

Nailbiter’s expression changed, a snarl without a sound to it, and Colt dropped her eyes.

“We were the bastard children, my sister and I,” Nailbiter said. “Our daddies passed through town and they didn’t know it, but they left our ma with child. School was a suggestion, and I fucking hated and hate it when people suggest I do anything. You hear me?”

Colt nodded, not sure why this tangent had come up, but it was better than talking about execution.

“I was young enough that I’d just grown in my adult teeth when my face got caved in by a boy from town, five years older than me and he got most of those teeth. He said I picked the fight with him, I fell and bit the curb by my own clumsiness. They took his word for it.”