Chapter 6 #2
“Nothing much, just watching you sleep mostly, Nightingale,” Jude answers, and I let out a small laugh, then wince as it pulls my ribs.
“That’s not creepy at all, Baby Devil,” I tell him, watching as his brow furrows.
“I always watch you when you’re asleep, Nightingale. It helps me to relax.” And fuck if that isn’t one of the sweetest, only slightly fucked up things anyone has ever said to me.
“Does your father bug this space, Dove?” Aeron asks out of the blue.
“I don’t think so, not usually anyway, and he hadn’t installed cameras last time I was here,” I reply, turning my head to look around at the corners and seeing no cameras. “He’s not big on technology, a bit of a technophobe, really.”
“Unsurprising given his inability to move with the times and bring the Soldiers into the twenty-first century,” Tarl muses, and I look at him in question.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the Soldiers have been peddling the same drugs and prostitutes for the past twenty years, ever since their creation. They’ve not added to their portfolio or branched out.
I think it’s partly why there’s been such animosity with the Tailors, as we’ve diversified, moved with the times, and embraced new technologies to enable us to move forwards and upwards,” Tarl says, and I consider his words, finding them to be true.
To some, applying business terminology to gang economy is a wild idea, but why the fuck not?
It also makes one side of my mouth lift, the idea that my Tailors are business leaders of sorts.
My sperm donor is stuck in his ways, unable to let go of anything or to move with the times. Plus, he’s always had a hand in the most unsavory enterprises; cutting drugs and targeting vulnerable women to work on the streets. There’s no honor in what the Soldiers do, just pain and suffering.
“Why did you ask about the cameras and bugs, Aeron?”
“Doc let us come to you when he looked after you,” he tells me, and I have a vague memory of my hands being held, of whispered words, a song from Sleeping Beauty, and soft kisses before the drugs took me under.
“He told us that my father was on his way. That we need to stay put. I don’t think he would have done any of that if he wasn’t sure that we weren’t being spied upon, but I wanted to check for myself. ”
“Doc is a Tailor?” I ask, my eyes widening as I take in his words.
I mean, it makes a sort of sense given how kind Doc has always been to me, which would be unheard of if he was a true Soldier.
How he seemed to disapprove of my treatment here, even if he did nothing to help me or stop it.
I take a steadying breath at all the information he has on me, all of the times he’s patched me up after some Soldier or another roughed me up too much.
I swallow hard at that information being passed on to Adam Taylor.
“What’s wrong, Little Bird?” Knox asks, and I blink, bringing the room back into focus.
“Doc’s been with us for years. He’s looked after me since…since my mother’s death, helped me on so many occasions that I’ve lost count.” I stare into his good eye, seeing the realization tighten his jaw, his knuckles going white as he clutches the bars.
“And he didn’t help to get you out.” It’s not a question, rather a growl and a promise of retribution. I narrow my eyes, shaking my head a little as a vague memory escapes the box in my mind.
“I–I think he did. Or he used to try at least when he first started treating me.” A memory of him coming when I must have only been thirteen flits through my mind.
One Soldier had given me an STI, and I needed treatment.
I was so embarrassed, and he was so kind, checking me over, noting every bruise and hurt on my young body, assuring me there was nothing to be ashamed of.
“I remember him telling me that if I ever needed a way out, he could help me. H–he said he had connections, but I told him I couldn’t leave without Rook.
That I’d promised to take him away. He told Rufus that he needed to get his boys checked before they h–had me, and as far as I know, Rufus stuck to that.
His one kindness because I was his daughter, or so that’s what he told me. ”
Silence engulfs me as my words color the surrounding air in shades of a young girl’s despair.
“My father wouldn’t have let Rook live. Not given the bad blood between our families. Or the possibility that he would try to avenge his father,” Aeron says quietly, and my head snaps over to him, making me wince as it tugs on my sore patches.
“You promised Rook would be okay,” I say, my voice firm even as my stomach quivers with uncertainty.
“I know I did, Dove, and I swear to you again that I will do everything to convince my father to let him live.”
“But it might not be enough.” The words are heavy as they fall from my lips, sinking like a corpse thrown in a lake and weighed down with rocks in its pockets.
“But it might not be enough,” Aeron repeats, his deep blue eyes stormy and furrows etched into his forehead.
A hard truth. Another thing that may stand between us.
They may have forgiven my deception, but I’m not sure if I could forgive them if anything happened to Rook.
And that’s the hardest truth of all.