Chapter 1: Blue Lights and Bad Ideas
The rain came down in sheets, drumming against the roof of Destiny's beat-up Honda like the opening act of some cosmic joke. Roxanne had her forehead pressed against the cold window, watching the highway's neon exit signs smear into watercolor blurs of pink and green and sickly yellow. Her breath fogged the glass. She drew a lopsided smiley face in it with her finger, then added a tongue sticking out.
"Classy," Destiny said from the driver's seat, not looking over.
"I'm a classy bitch." Roxanne wiped the condensation on her thigh, smearing it across the black lace of her dress. The fabric had ridden up so far it was practically a belt. The octopus tattoo that climbed out from the hem—all eight tentacles and their curling, inky tips—was on full display, inked across her hip and disappearing somewhere beneath the actual meat of her ass. She'd gotten it at nineteen, high on adrenaline and cheap vodka, and she'd never regretted it once.
"Destiny. Destiny."
"What."
"Are you sure this is the right exit? Because I'm pretty sure we just passed the same Waffle House twice. And I'm not saying I'm an expert on geography or whatever, but—"
"The GPS says—"
"The GPS also told us to take a left into a cemetery that one time."
"That was one time." Destiny's voice had that tight, stretched quality it got when she was trying very hard to sound sober. Her honey-blonde braids swung as she jerked the wheel, overcorrecting for absolutely no reason. The car drifted into the next lane. A horn blared somewhere to their left.
"Okay," Roxanne said, "so here's a thought. Maybe we should pull over and switch."
"I'm fine."
"You just almost killed us."
"I did not almost kill us. That guy was driving like an asshole."
The car smelled like a Grateful Dead concert—weed and cheap perfume and the ghost of the tacos they'd eaten three hours ago. Roxanne's mouth tasted like tequila and mint gum, which was somehow worse than just tequila. She'd lost count somewhere around drink seven. Drink eight had been a mistake. Drink nine had been a dare.
The blunt with Marcus outside the bar had been the real mistake.
She closed her eyes. The world did a slow, syrupy spin behind her eyelids, like honey dripping down the inside of a jar. When she opened them again, the dashboard clock read 2:47 AM. They'd been driving for twenty minutes and they were still nowhere near the 24-hour diner Destiny had sworn was "just around the corner."
"I have to pee," Roxanne announced.
"We're almost there."
"You said that eleven exits ago."
"I said we're almost there. If you'd just—"
The blue lights exploded in the rearview mirror.
For one long, suspended second, neither of them said anything. The rain kept hammering. The wipers kept their frantic rhythm. The radio—some Top 40 station Destiny had put on two hours ago—kept playing that song about wanting somebody's attention, which felt almost comedically on-the-nose.
Destiny's knuckles went white on the wheel. "Do I have my blinker on?"
Roxanne leaned across the center console, her dress hiking up another inch, and squinted at the dashboard. "No."
"Do I have my blinker on?"
"No, Destiny. You don't have your blinker on."
"Should I put my blinker on?"
"I don't think that's the issue here."
The lights pulsed again, brighter this time, casting jagged blue shadows across the fogged windshield. Roxanne could see the cruiser now, a dark shape crouched behind them like something patient and hungry. Its headlights cut through the rain in two sharp cones, and somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled across the sky like a warning.
"Okay," Destiny whispered. "Okay okay okay. How much did I have?"
"To drink?"
"No, to eat. Yes, to drink."
"I don't know. Five? Six?"
"Six?"
"Or seven. I stopped counting when you started doing shots with those bachelorette girls."
"Those were jello shots. Jello shots don't count."
"I'm pretty sure they count."
Destiny's voice climbed an octave. "Jello shots don't count, Roxanne."
The cruiser was still behind them, its lights strobing in a pattern that felt almost hypnotic. Roxanne's heart had started doing something weird in her chest—not quite panic, not quite calm, but something in between, like the feeling you get right before you jump off a diving board. Her fingers found the edge of her dress and tugged it down, which accomplished exactly nothing.
"Pull over," she said.
"Where?"
"Anywhere. The shoulder. That's what it's for."
"But what if there's glass? Or, like, a dead animal?"
"Destiny. The man behind us has a gun. I think we'll survive the shoulder."
Destiny pulled over.
The car bumped over something—gravel, maybe, or the disembodied soul of a raccoon—and came to a stop at a crooked angle, one tire practically in the grass. The rain intensified, as if the sky had been waiting for this exact moment to really let loose. Through the rear window, Roxanne watched the cruiser's door swing open. A figure in a wide-brimmed hat stepped out into the downpour.
"Oh my god," Destiny breathed. "Oh my god oh my god oh my god."
"Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're hyperventilating."
"Same thing."
"It's really not."
Roxanne's phoenix tattoo—the one that spanned her shoulder blades, all flame and feather and rebirth—was hidden beneath the lace of her dress, pressed against the seat like a secret. She'd gotten that one at twenty-one, after a breakup that had felt like the end of the world and turned out to be the beginning of one. She'd cried in the chair. The artist had pretended not to notice.
The trooper's boots crunched on the wet asphalt as he approached. His flashlight beam swept across the car's interior, catching the fogged windows and the cluttered backseat—empty water bottles, a single high heel, a crumpled receipt from a Taco Bell in a town they'd left two hours ago. Roxanne's reflection stared back at her from the window, mascara smudged, lips stained red from something that might have been lipstick or might have been cherry slurpee.
"You have gum?" she whispered.
"What?"
"Gum. Do you have gum?"
"Why would I have gum?"
"I don't know! You're a nurse! You're supposed to be prepared!"
"For medical emergencies, Roxanne, not—"
The knock on the window was polite. Almost gentle. Somehow that made it worse.
Destiny rolled down the window with the slow, careful movements of someone who was very, very aware of how drunk she was. The rain blew in immediately, cold and sharp, spattering across Roxanne's bare legs. She shivered.
"Evening, ladies." The trooper's voice was low and flat, the voice of a man who had seen everything and expected nothing. His name tag read Hollis. He had a mustache that looked like it had been grown out of spite. "You know why I pulled you over?"
"No, sir," Destiny said. Her voice had gone weirdly high, like a chipmunk doing an impression of a scared child.
"You drifted across two lanes back there. And your taillight's out."
"It is?"
Roxanne closed her eyes. It is? Of all the things to say. It is?
"May I see your license and registration?"
"Of course. Yes. Absolutely." Destiny fumbled with the glove compartment, which promptly fell open and disgorged a cascade of napkins, pens, and what appeared to be a single unwrapped condom. It landed on the floor mat between them, bright and obvious and damning.
Nobody moved.
The trooper's flashlight beam lingered on the condom for one endless second, then moved on. Roxanne considered throwing herself out the door and into traffic. It would be faster. Cleaner. Less embarrassing.
"Here." Destiny thrust the documents at him with hands that were definitely shaking. "Here you go. Everything's in order. Completely in order."
Trooper Hollis took the documents. He looked at them. He looked at Destiny. He looked at Roxanne, who smiled her most innocent smile—the one that had gotten her out of exactly zero speeding tickets in her life but was worth a shot.
"Ma'am," he said, "have you been drinking tonight?"
The silence stretched.
Roxanne could feel Destiny's panic radiating off her like heat from a radiator. She could feel the tequila sloshing in her own stomach. She could feel the rain soaking through her dress, cold against her hot skin. And somewhere in the back of her mind, a small, sane voice was screaming don't say anything, don't say anything, for the love of god don't—
"I had one glass of wine," Destiny said.
Roxanne's head snapped toward her.
"One?"
Destiny's eyes went wide. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
"One glass of wine," the trooper repeated. He didn't sound like he believed it. He sounded like a man who had been doing this job for twenty years and had never once heard the truth from someone in a black-and-red lace dress at 2:47 in the morning.
"Maybe two," Destiny amended. "It was a big glass."
"Step out of the vehicle, please."
Even in her intoxicated state, Roxanne's mind was racing. The phoenix on her back felt suddenly prophetic—ashes and rebirth and all that. If they made it through this night without a DUI, without a mugshot, without a phone call to Destiny's mother, it would be a miracle. A genuine, honest-to-god miracle. And Roxanne didn't believe in miracles.
She believed in luck, though. She believed in the kind of luck that got you the last parking spot on a crowded street, that made the subway train wait just long enough for you to slip through the doors. The kind of luck that had kept her alive through twenty-two years of bad decisions and worse men.
She needed some of that luck now.
"Do you want me to get out too?" she asked. Her voice came out steady, which surprised her. She'd expected it to crack.
The trooper looked at her. His mustache twitched. "Ma'am, I'm going to ask you to stay in the vehicle. Hands where I can see them."
"My hands are on my lap."
"Keep them there."
"Noted."
Destiny was already out of the car, standing in the rain with her hands held awkwardly at her sides, looking like a wet cat caught in a vacuum. The trooper led her to the side of the road, away from the window, their silhouettes blurred by the rain and the flashing lights.
Roxanne watched them through the fogged glass.
Her phone buzzed in her clutch—a text from Marcus, probably, asking if she'd made it home, if she'd had fun, if she wanted to come back and finish the blunt they'd abandoned outside the bar. She didn't answer. She just sat there, in the too-hot car, rain dripping down the windows in little rivers, and tried to remember how to breathe.
The trooper was asking Destiny to walk in a straight line. Roxanne could see it through the rear windshield, Destiny's figure weaving slightly, her braids whipping in the wind. She was gesturing with her hands now, probably telling some elaborate story, probably making it worse.
Roxanne leaned her forehead against the cold window again. The smiley face she'd drawn earlier had fogged over and disappeared, leaving nothing but streaks and smudges.
Her octopus tattoo peeked out from beneath her dress, tentacles curling toward her thigh like it was trying to escape. She pressed her palm flat against it, feeling the raised lines of ink through the lace.
Well, she thought. At least I've got my health.
The lightning flashed. The thunder answered. And somewhere in the distance, a second pair of blue lights joined the first, cutting through the darkness like twin knives.
Roxanne laughed.
She couldn't help it. The sound bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, raw and ridiculous, and she didn't even try to stop it.
The sound bubbled up from somewhere deep in her chest, raw and ridiculous, and she didn't even try to stop it. It spilled out of her mouth in waves, hysterical and uncontrollable, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. The second pair of blue lights had multiplied, and now there were two cruisers, and somehow that was the funniest thing she'd ever seen.
Through the fogged window, she watched a second figure emerge from the new cruiser. Tall. Broad shoulders. The kind of silhouette that made you sit up straighter even when you were nine drinks deep and had just watched your best friend fail a sobriety test in real time.
He walked toward the car with the easy confidence of someone who'd done this a thousand times. His partner—Hollis, with his spite-mustache and his tired eyes—was still out there with Destiny, who appeared to be attempting to touch her nose with her eyes closed and failing spectacularly.
The rain had soaked through Roxanne's dress completely now. The black lace clung to her skin like a second layer of ink, and the octopus tentacles peered out from her hem, curling toward her hip like they were trying to swim away. She pressed her thighs together and tried to remember how to look normal.
The passenger door opened.
The rain rushed in, cold and sharp, and so did he. The second trooper. He was young—younger than Hollis, anyway—with dark hair plastered to his forehead and eyes so blue they looked almost artificial. His uniform was soaked, the fabric pulling tight across his chest and shoulders. He had a jaw that could cut glass and a mouth that was currently pressed into a thin, unreadable line.
Roxanne looked up at him. Smiled. The kind of smile that had gotten her into trouble more times than she could count.
"Evening, officer."
He didn't smile back. His gaze swept over her—the ruined dress, the smeared makeup, the bare legs slick with rain. It wasn't leering. It was assessing. Cataloging. The look of a man who'd seen a thousand girls like her in a thousand cars like this, and knew exactly how the night was going to end.
"Ma'am," he said. His voice was low and even. "Have you been drinking tonight?"
She tilted her head. The car was still running, the heat blasting, the radio still playing that stupid song about attention. Water dripped from the ends of her hair onto her collarbone. She could feel his gaze on her like a physical weight, pressing down on her shoulders, her chest, the exposed skin of her thighs.
"Yeah." She let the word hang there for a second, watched his expression flicker—surprise, maybe, or something close to it. "I just wasn't the one stupid enough to drive while my ass was drunk."
His jaw tightened. Not quite anger. Something closer to amusement, buried deep and fighting to stay there.
"That's a pretty honest answer."
"I'm a pretty honest person."
"You're also visibly intoxicated."
"Visibly is doing a lot of heavy lifting there."
He leaned down, one hand braced on the doorframe, and she caught the scent of him—rain and soap and something clean and sharp, like cedar. It cut through the fog of tequila and weed and cheap perfume that had been marinating in the car for hours.
"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to step out of the vehicle."
"Are you arresting me?"
"I'm asking you to step out of the vehicle."
"That's not a no."
"It's also not a yes."
Roxanne laughed again, softer this time. She swung her legs out of the car, her heels—where were her heels?—sinking into the wet gravel. She wobbled. He caught her elbow without thinking, his grip firm and warm through the soaked lace of her sleeve, and she felt something spark in her chest. Something stupid and reckless and entirely inappropriate for the situation.
"Careful," he said.
"I'm always careful."
"You're drunk and wearing four-inch heels in a rainstorm."
"So I'm careful and committed."
He released her elbow. Stepped back. The rain hammered down, flattening her hair to her skull, running in rivulets down her neck and between her breasts. Her dress was destroyed. Her makeup was gone. The phoenix on her back was probably the only thing holding her together at this point.
The other trooper—Hollis—was walking Destiny back toward the cruiser. Destiny's head was down, her braids dripping, her shoulders shaking. Crying, probably. Or laughing. With Destiny, it was hard to tell.
"Wait," Roxanne said. "Where are you taking her?"
"Your friend is being detained for suspicion of DUI."
"She's a nurse."
The trooper—his name tag said Vasquez—raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"And she saves children's lives. She works twelve-hour shifts in the pediatric ward and comes home smelling like hand sanitizer and crayons, and she's the best person I know, and she made a mistake tonight, but she doesn't deserve—"
"Ma'am."
"—to have her whole life ruined because of one stupid—"
"Ma'am."
She stopped. Her chest was heaving. The rain kept falling. Vasquez was looking at her with an expression she couldn't read—not quite pity, not quite respect, something caught in between.
"Your friend blew a point-one-two. She's going to be processed. That's not up to me."
Roxanne swallowed. The taste of tequila was still there, sour and sharp, mixing with the taste of rain.
"Can I go with her?"
"You can call someone to pick you up."
"I don't have anyone."
It came out before she could stop it. Too honest. Too raw. The kind of thing she'd never admit sober, and maybe not even drunk, except the night had already gone so far off the rails that honesty felt like the only thing left.
Vasquez's expression shifted. Softened, just slightly.
"Where do you live?"
"Why?"
"So I can tell you how far you are from home. You can't drive. You can't stay here."
She told him. He nodded.
"Let me talk to my partner."
He walked away, boots splashing through the puddles, and Roxanne stood there in the rain and watched him go. Watched the way his shoulders moved beneath his soaked uniform. Watched the way he leaned in to speak to Hollis, the way Hollis looked over at her with something like resignation.
Destiny was in the back of the cruiser now. Roxanne could see her through the rain-streaked glass, her face pressed against the window, her mouth forming words Roxanne couldn't hear. Probably apologies. Probably promises to never drink again. Probably lies.
Vasquez came back. His dark hair was flat against his forehead now, water dripping from his chin.
"Here's what's going to happen," he said. "We're going to take your friend to the station. You're going to call a ride. If I see you driving tonight, I'll arrest you. If I see you walking alone on the highway, I'll arrest you. Do you understand?"
"Arresting me for walking?"
"Public intoxication. Endangering yourself. Take your pick."
"You'd really do that?"
"I'd really do that."
Roxanne looked up at him. The rain was letting up now, just slightly, the thunder rolling away into the distance like a train leaving a station. Her dress was ruined. Her hair was a disaster. She felt like she'd been dragged through a hedge backward and then set on fire.
And yet.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Trooper Vasquez."
"First name."
He hesitated. Something flickered in those blue eyes—warning, maybe, or curiosity.
"Adrian."
"Adrian." She tried the name on for size. It fit well. Too well. "I'm Roxanne."
"I know. I saw your license when your friend handed it over."
"Right. Of course." She laughed, softer this time. "So you know my whole life already."
"Just your address and your height."
"Five-six. It's a lie. I'm five-four and in denial."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Almost. Almost something.
"You need to call a ride, Roxanne."
"I know."
She pulled her phone from her clutch. The screen was cracked—when had that happened?—and the battery was at eleven percent. She stared at it for a long moment, the glow of the screen reflecting in her eyes, and tried to think of who she could call.
Marcus. She could call Marcus. He was probably still awake. He'd come get her. But Marcus would ask questions. Marcus would want to know why she was standing in a parking lot in the rain at three in the morning, why her dress was ruined, why her eyes were red.
She could call her brother. She could call her mother. She could call any one of the dozen acquaintances whose numbers were in her phone, the ones who texted her at midnight asking if she was up, the ones who never asked her anything real.
She didn't want any of them.
"Everything okay?" Vasquez asked.
"Peachy."
She scrolled through her contacts. Her thumb hovered over a name she hadn't called in months. Sasha. They'd met at a party last summer, hooked up twice, and then mutually and silently agreed to never speak again. Sasha had a car. Sasha would come. But Sasha would also expect something after, and Roxanne didn't have it in her tonight.
She locked the phone. Looked up at Vasquez.
"I'll figure something out."
"You have thirty minutes."
"And if I don't?"
"I'll arrest you."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I mean it."
She believed him. It was in his voice, in his eyes, in the way he stood like he had all the time in the world and absolutely no patience for bullshit. He was the kind of man who did what he said and said what he meant, and something about that made her stomach flip in a way that had nothing to do with the tequila.
"Thirty minutes," she repeated.
"Thirty minutes."
He turned and walked back to his cruiser. The rain had stopped completely now, leaving the world dripping and shiny and surreal. The lights of the two cruisers painted everything blue, and somewhere in the distance, a single car passed on the highway, its headlights cutting through the dark like a promise.
Roxanne stood alone in the wet gravel and watched him go. Watched the way his uniform clung to his back. Watched the way he didn't look back.
Her phone buzzed in her hand. Eleven percent and dropping. A text from Destiny: im so sorry. please dont hate me.
She typed back: i could never hate you. im getting us a lawyer.
Then she opened her contacts and scrolled to find someone who wouldn't ask questions. Someone who would just come.
Someone who might, if she was lucky, bring a bottle of water and a sense of humor and not make her feel like the biggest idiot in the world.
Her thumb hovered over Marcus's name.
The blue lights kept flashing. The night stretched on. And Roxanne stood there in her ruined dress, with her ruined makeup and her ruined plans, and waited to see what happened next.