Reunited Ch. 3

I swear my heart didn’t even know whether to break or beat out my damn chest when I saw him leaning against that dusty black Charger — same one he’d damn near lived out of when we were kids too broke to know better. Legend.

His back was to me at first. Hood pulled low, head tilted like he was watching the tree line instead of the traffic behind me. Like he was tryna read the wind before it read him. Same old shit.

I stopped dead in the middle of the cracked parking lot, gravel crunchin’ under my boots louder than the cicadas. He turned then — slow, like he’d heard me the whole time but needed me to see him see me.

Legend’s eyes never did believe in secrets. I hated that about him. I loved that about him more.

He pushed off the car, hands tucked in his pockets like they wouldn’t give him away. But I saw it. The twitch in his jaw. The way his shoulders set. The way his tongue flicked across his gold grill when he was tryna decide whether to cuss me out or kiss me.

“Look who crawled back out the grave,” he said, voice just above a whisper, but the words cracked anyway. “You done hidin’, huh?”

I wanted to run to him, swing my arms around his neck like I used to do when I thought love was enough to keep us safe. But my feet stayed rooted. ‘Cause we knew better now.

“Legend—” I started, but my voice broke right down the middle.

He laughed. No joy in it. Just air and old ghosts. “Nah, don’t Legend me. You gon’ stand there with that same look you had last time you left me on read? When you ghosted me, ghosted your brother, ghosted everybody that woulda bled for you?”

I bit my lip so I wouldn’t apologize yet. He didn’t want sorry. Not yet. Not from me.

“Legend, I didn’t—”

“You did.” His words cut through mine so sharp it felt like a blade pressed under my chin. “You did. And now what? You back to drag me into some new fuckshit? You gon’ say it’s bigger than us? That I gotta trust you again?”

I almost laughed ‘cause damn if he didn’t know me better than I knew myself. But the sound died before it could leave my throat.

“I didn’t come to lie to you,” I said, voice low, steady even though my hands were shaking inside my sleeves. “I came ‘cause I need you. We need you. You always been the piece that made this work.”

He stepped closer, his Jordans crunching the same gravel my words had just stuttered on. The smell of him — tobacco and a hint of my perfume still tangled in his hoodie from God knows when — hit me so hard my knees went soft.

“Don’t do that,” he said, so close now his breath brushed my cheek. “Don’t stand here talkin’ about we. Ain’t no we left, Sol.”

There was. Even when we hated it. Even when we tried to bury it under other bodies, other timelines, other lies. There was always us. I saw it in the way his hands hovered by his sides like they wanted to touch my waist but wouldn’t. Not yet.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I don’t have time to beg you. I just got time to tell you the truth. Either you gon’ hear it or not.”

He cracked that grin then — the one that got him every damn thing he ever wanted. “Look at you. Big bad Sol, fresh out The Compound, thinkin’ she still got pull.”

I took one step closer ‘til my chest brushed his. “I don’t think. I know. And you know it too.”

For a second, we just breathed. Just two fools in a half-empty park lot, dusk crawling up the hood of that Charger, ghosts peeking through the treeline waiting for one of us to say somethin’ stupid.

His hands twitched again. Then he did it — he grabbed my chin, tilted my face up like he used to when he wanted to check if I was lying.

“You tell me what’s comin’,” he said, voice so low it was more gravel than words. “Right now. No more runnin’. No more secrets, Solelill, or you walk away and don’t ever call me again.”

I felt the sting behind my eyes — the ache that said this was it. If I fucked this up, I’d lose him for good. And everything we’d built — all that blood and dirt and magic — would fall with him.

So I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I told him.

I told him what Grandpa Beau showed me in the crossroads. About the doors Jackie opened on timelines that shoulda stayed locked. About the things that slipped through. About how my blood was the key and his was the lock and that none of us were walking out alive if we didn’t stand back to back like we used to.

By the time I shut my mouth, Legend’s thumb was tracing my bottom lip. Not soft. Not rough. Just there. Just his.

“So,” he said finally, voice like smoke curling around my ribs. “You really gon’ drag me back to hell with you?”

I almost laughed through my tears. “You was always gon’ follow me anyway.”

He grinned then. All teeth, gold and mischief.

“Yeah,” he breathed. “I was.”

And when he kissed me, the whole damn parking lot hummed like the old gods knew Reunited wasn’t just a name. It was a promise.

Legend’s mouth was warm against mine but his hand stayed cold on my chin — a reminder that this wasn’t sweet. It wasn’t no fairytale shit. This was a warning. A dare.

He pulled back just enough for me to see it in his eyes — that wild spark that said I should walk away but I won’t. His thumb ghosted over my lip like he was tryna wipe his name off me. Too late for that.

“You still taste like secrets,” I murmured breathlessly, my forehead pressed to his. My smart mouth was all I had left standing between me and fallin’ all the way back in.

“Then stop tryna taste me,” he shot back. He barked out that sharp little laugh, the same way he used to laugh after I’d cuss him out and pull him closer anyway. “Always got somethin’ slick to say, huh?”

I pulled back and looked at him for real. The curve of his jaw, the little scar over his eyebrow from that night in another Illusions timeline when a fight turned into him pistol whippin’ a man twice his size for disrespectin’ me. Legend always wore other folks’ sins like jewelry. My bezzle was always the brightest.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you,” I said. My voice cracked, but I didn’t care, I let him hear it. “I came because I need you Legend. I can’t fix this shit alone.”

He raised a brow and flicked his eyes over my shoulder at Junior, who was still leaning up on the driver's side door like he was the security guard I didn’t hire.

“So he in too? You tell him?” Legend called out to Junior. “Back together like old times? Gonna braid each other’s hair next?”

Junior sucked his teeth. “Man, get the fuck. Don’t start with me, handled her. Ya’ll mu’fuckas get on my nerves.”

Legend laughed and dropped my chin. I hated how cold my skin felt without his hand there. “Ain’t startin’ nothin’ that wasn’t already here. Y’all want me back in? Tell me what I’m signin’ up for.”

I stepped closer, low so nobody lurkin’ nearby could hear me, just in case. “Jackie’s been pokin’ holes in timelines. The timelines are crackin’. People ain’t where they're supposed to be. Some of ‘em don’t even realize they’re on different timelines.”

Legend frowned, that grin gone now. “Jackie? Jackie Jackie?”

I nodded. “Yeah. And you know she don’t stop. Not until she got the keys, locks, and the map.”

Legend cussed under his breathin a country drawl he only dipped into when shit got real. He dragged a hand down his face, palm scraping over his chocolate face as he thought.

“So, what you need from me?” he asked finally, his jaw muscle moving. “Say it plain.”

“I need you to keep Jackie’s dogs off us while I get people off of those timelines,” I said. “I need you to keep your ear on the ground and call in whatever debts you got left out there. And I need you to watch my back, like you always have.”

He smirked. “So same shit I been doin’ for the last however many lifetimes.”

I opened my mouth but Junior cut in first. “Same shit that damn near got him killed for your ass more than once.”

Legend stepped closer to me again, so close I could smell the Bakhoor and bad decisions clingin’ to his hoodie.

“You gon’ run again?” he asked. His voice was low. Suspicious.

I shook my head. “I can’t. If I run this time, there ain’t gon’ be nowhere left to hide.”

He studied my face like he was tryna find the lie. I let him look. I let him see all of it, the cracked parts Grandpa Beau couldn’t scrub clean, the tiredness in my eyes that no sleep could fix.

When he leaned in again, I thought he was gon’ kiss me, but he pressed his forehead to mine instead. Breath hot against my mouth.

“Aight,” he murmured. “I’m in.”

Junior let out a little laugh behind me. “Dumbass.”

Legend shot him a bird over my shoulder. “You in too, dumbass.”

Junior shrugged. “Ain’t never left.”

A cold wind swept the lot just then, swirling the gravel around our feet like a sign we wasn’t the only ones listenin’. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I stepped back, eyes scanning the treeline.

“You feel that?” I asked, voice dropping.

Legend’s smile faded as he threw his hood back up and slid back into his own shadow. “Yeah. Somebody done trailed you.”

Junior reached into the car, popped the trunk. He came back with that same beat-up duffel bag he carried every time we had to disappear ..guns, salt, old jars of oil wrapped in t-shirts from failed clubs and house parties we never made it to.

“Where we headed first?” Junior asked, swinging the bag over his shoulder.

I exhaled. “We gotta find Mila. She’s the next piece. And she gon’ hate me more than y’all put together.”

Legend clicked his tongue. “That girl got hands and you not her favorite person right now Ma. Last I heard she said it’s all the way on site when she see you. Hope you ready to duck.”

I cracked a grin. “I PRAY she swing. I need that old smoke and fire back. All of it.”

The three of us stood there like ghosts in a cracked parking lot under the moon, old conjure curling around our ankles like it was there to protect us.

Legend popped his door open. “Aight then. Let’s go break the timeline before breakfast.”

Legend twisted the key and his car rumbled awake, coughing out a growl that made my pulse skip. Junior slammed the trunk so hard I heard something inside clatter, probably the jars of salt and oil rolling around like restless spirits.

I slid into the passenger seat, the cracked leather still smelled like Newports and oud, same as always. Legend dropped in behind the wheel, popped his neck left, then right, like he was settin’ it straight before the fight started.

Junior didn’t hop in yet. He just stood there in the dusk, arms folded, that duffel bag slung over his shoulder like he was waiting for me to flinch first.

“Nigga, can we be out?” Legend called through the window.

Junior tilted his head. “I got questions first.”

I leaned my head back on the seat and groaned. “Jesus Trevarious Christ, here the fuck we go—”

“Nah, fuck that,” Junior cut me off. He stepped closer, leaned his forearms on the edge of my window, his shadow falling over both me and Legend. “If I’m ridin’ with you two messy motherfuckers again, we settin’ some rules.”

Legend blew a sharp breath through his teeth, pulled out his lighter, and flicked it twice. “Nigga, you ain’t never followed no damn rules but you tryna set some?”

Junior ignored him. “One — no runnin’ off without sayin’ shit. I don’t care if you gotta disappear for three days to pull your brains together — leave a note, bitch.”

I sucked my teeth. “A note, Junior? What is this, kindergarten?”

He glared at me until I cracked a smile. He didn’t. “I mean it.”

“Okay, okay,” I sighed. “Notes. Texts. A pigeon. Somethin’.”

“Two,” Junior went on, eyes shifting to Legend now. “No side deals behind my back. Last time we did this shit you two made half the mess worse ‘cause y’all thought you was smarter than me.”

Legend flicked ash out the window and grinned, his grills glistening under the moonlight. “We were smarter than you.”

Junior leaned in the window so close I thought he was abou to swing. “Were. And look where that got us.”

Legend’s grin faded. I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t jump in. Junior was right, we’d run our mouths too slick back then, thought we could bend the timeline like it didn’t bite back.

Junior straightened up, finally dropping the bag in the back seat. “Three — when we find Mila, you let me talk to her first.”

I turned in my seat so fast the old leather squeaked. “The hell you say?”

He shot me that older brother glare that never failed to shut me up. “You think she gon’ swing on you? She might stab you first. You forgot what you did to her?”

I looked away, out the window, jaw locked. I hadn’t forgotten. Not even a little.

Legend nudged my knee with his. “He right. Let him soften her up. We need her, Sol. You know that.”

I hated it, but I nodded anyway. Some things weren’t worth fighting about, not when we were already out here with Jackie’s minions watchin’ us move like chess pieces.

Junior finally slid into the back seat, the suspension dippin’ under him. He slapped the headrest behind my neck twice. “Aight then. Let’s be out.”

Legend’s grin returned, mean and sharp like a knife. He shifted the car into gear, tires crunching over gravel that had seen too many secrets buried under it.

But before he pulled out, he looked at me, that soft underlayer that only cracked through when we were too tired to pretend we weren’t each other’s worst habit.

“You good?” he asked. Quiet. Just for me.

I coulda lied. Coulda given him some line about how I was born for this. But that wasn’t the truth and we were past all that now.

“No,” I said, my voice thin as a thread. “But I’m ready.”

Junior barked a laugh behind us. “That’s my sister — never good, but always ready.”

Legend slapped his palm on the wheel once, revved the engine like it was clearing its throat.

“Ready enough,” he murmured. “Hold on then.”

The car rolled out slow, then faster once the cracked lot fell behind us. The wind rushed through the cracked window, whipping my hair, carrying the smell of exhaust, a cool Carolina night and the promise of old spirits smirkin’ at us from the treeline.

I looked in the side mirror, the park a shrinking smudge behind us. I could swear I saw a shape standing there. Maybe Jackie’s spies. Maybe something worse, it didn’t matter. We’d find ‘em soon enough.

Legend drummed his fingers on the wheel in time with the pounding in my chest.

Junior leaned forward between the seats, his breath warm on my shoulder. “So, sis, you gon’ tell us what Grandpa Beau taught you? Or we gotta drag it out piece by piece while niggas tryna kill us?”

I turned, caught his eyes in the mirror, caught Legend’s sideways too.

I smirked. “You’ll know everything. Just promise you gon’ stay when you hear it.”

Legend cracked that gold-toothed grin, eyes back on the road but voice soft as a threat. “Ma, you know damn well we ain’t ever goin’ nowhere.”

And we rode on through the dark.. three fools, three flames, three names on the same old family debt.

Reunited. And hell ridin’ shotgun.