Chapter Nineteen
I MADE DAMN sure April didn’t see the attack that killed Mum and Curtis.
We were away gathering berries when it happened.
I heard the guns, grabbed her, and ran. Only a few days later did I head back to pick over what was left of our camp.
I didn’t bring her with me. She didn’t need to see the bodies.
I sit in the washhouse, waiting for my stomach and brain to settle.
How many panic attacks have I had since coming to this damn island?
I can’t remember the last time they were this debilitating.
All while watching after April in the wilds, I kept going.
Now, without the threat of starvation hanging over my head, I can’t seem to make my knees hold my weight.
Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Isn’t life supposed to be easier now?
Half an hour later, I’m steady enough to sneak out of the washhouse and head for my room. No one bothers me all evening. I bundle myself inside a blanket and hide until long after the sun sets. When April comes in, I try to pretend I’m asleep, but she shakes my leg.
“You missed dinner.”
“I wasn’t hungry.” Which is actually true. I lost all appetite after puking up lunch.
“You helped make it.”
When I don’t say anything, April sighs. “Sid says if you’re feeling up to it, he’d like to talk to you. He said I should tell you he talked to Carlos.”
Oh great. He knows.
I push the blanket back and head out. He must hear me, because at the sound of the door shutting, the one that leads into his room pops open. The narrow door frame barely contains the bulk of him, and I’m reminded of the day we met. Fearing him was a very, very logical reaction.
“Hey,” he says.
“Duck pond?”
“Started raining an hour ago. We can talk in the kitchen.” He moves toward the front door, but I don’t follow. He turns back toward me with a wan smile. “It will be empty. The guys know we need to talk.”
“Do they know why?”
“Carlos does. So we should probably assume they all do, too,” says Sid. “I told him not to mention it to April so that you can decide how to break the news and—Kayla, I’m so sorry.”
His voice quakes like he’s about to come apart right in front of me. I don’t know how I want April to find out about his history, but this isn’t it.
“Fine. Kitchen, then.” I stride past him, not meeting his eye. He’s not the only one at risk of falling to pieces right now.
The kitchen is warm with the smell of tomato sauce, though the surfaces have been scrubbed clean.
The stove is still hot, with a pot of mint tea simmering on the burner.
Sid offers me a cup and I say yes, if only because mint is good for upset stomachs.
All the physical trappings of comfort are here, but as Sid passes me a mug, I’m careful not to let my knuckles brush against his.
Yesterday, I kissed this man. Not out of desire, obviously, but I felt safe enough to do it.
Now, I sit at the far end of the table, putting as much distance between us as I can.
Neither of us wants to start the conversation, so we sit in silence for a long time, watching steam curl up from tea that’s too hot to touch. As far as I’m concerned, this story isn’t mine to tell, so I wait for him to work up the nerve. Even now, he’s putting this off.
Finally, he takes a deep breath. “You didn’t deserve to find out this way.”
No. I really didn’t. If there’s any reason to feel justified in my anger right now, that’s the one.
I wonder how long it would have taken him to spit it out if Carlos hadn’t blown things up.
He made overtures when he mentioned James knowing how to sail a boat.
There have been enough hints that I sort of believe he was going to tell me.
But damn, it sure would have been nice to know before I married him.
My eyes flick up from my mug. His pale face is splotched with red, as if he’s been in tears himself.
When our gaze meets, his shoulders hunch and the impossible seems true.
He’s afraid of me. I’m not sure what to do with that power.
Some part of me does want to hurt him, because right now, I’m not seeing the friend I thought I trusted.
I’m seeing them. I didn’t realize how much I wanted revenge for everything TNS took from me.
“Carlos is sorry too,” he says, when I don’t speak. “He feels guilty as shit. But that’s my fault, obviously.”
I blow into my tea, holding Sid’s gaze with mine. “So, TNS. Is that why you couldn’t get a respectable woman to marry you?”
His eyes fall from my face. “No one ever comes out and says it, but…”
“But no one wants to marry a murderer, either?” I’m probing, hoping to find out just what I’m dealing with. How deep in with them was he before he got out? “And now you want to get into government. No wonder you needed an image update.”
“I meant to tell you, when we decided to do this. When you said you’d marry me, I knew I should say something, but I was so stunned you said yes, I totally forgot—”
“Scared. Don’t sugarcoat it. You were scared.”
“Scared shitless. I’m sorry, Kayla. I’ve never been a brave man. A violent one, sometimes. Never a brave one.”
That’s not true. Even in the short time I’ve known him, I’ve seen him choose the harder option because he knows it’s the right one. But even good people have their limits, I guess. Now that I know what his is, does that change my decision?
“I won’t blame you if you decide to leave,” he says. Our minds must have wandered to the same place. “I’d like to think I can still help you and April out, but if it’s—if I’m not someone you feel safe around—”
“I never feel safe, Sid.” Now I’m the one who’s lying, because for a moment, I did. As ever, I should have trusted my gut. “It’s all practical for me. I still need you, so… I’m still in.”
“Me too. I’m in as long as you need me.”
It’s tempting to let that be the end of the conversation. We’re on the same page, so maybe I can justify making an escape. But then I think of what Carlos told me. They saved our lives. I don’t doubt that’s true. Why can’t I make myself believe it?
I shouldn’t be afraid of him. The man in front of me has more in common with a crumpled handkerchief than a bloodthirsty killer. But the way he talks about himself shows that on some level, he still believes it, too. Violent. Unsafe. If he believes it, I’m not crazy for worrying.
I feel sick at the thought. Using his own self-doubt to justify my fear of him is downright cruel.
The night we agreed to get married, I said some awful things about how maybe the government should take April away if I couldn’t care for her.
He never agreed. Not a single time. He never let me buy into the worst version of myself.
If I were a better friend, I would argue on his behalf in the same way.
I wish I could.
“Can I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure. Anything you need to know. I owe you that.”
“Okay… How old were you when you escaped TNS?”
“Nineteen.”
“Hmmm.” That’s pretty good. He rejected them about as early as one could hope.
“I didn’t run a lot of missions. They scared the shit out of me. I got out as fast as I could, but… I can’t say I never did things I regret. Silas, too.”
“And James?”
Sid shakes his head. “James’s hands are clean. TNS picked him up as a teenager, but they never let him in the field. Too much of a flight risk. He can be an asshole in his own way, but he never fired a shot for them.”
“I thought you said he was the one who ended up with demerits when you got here.”
“Right?” A faint smile comes to Sid’s face. “I do not understand the guy. He mouthed off to Tom a hundred times worse than he ever did to anyone in TNS. I guess he knew Tom wouldn’t kill him for it.”
“But TNS would have?”
“Eventually,” says Sid. “They beat his ass the few times he did, so he shut up. Everyone learns to keep their head low.”
“Everyone?”
He’s silent for a moment. Then, he reaches up and touches the side of his broken nose. “Everyone.”
My vision blurs as hot tears overwhelm me.
At some point in his childhood, somebody intentionally did that to him.
And then he had to obey that person, or risk it happening again.
I’ve teased Sid about his upright, rule following nature a few times, but it feels far less funny now.
Between the pair of us, I don’t know who TNS hurt more, but clearly, they hurt him longer.
“You okay?” he asks. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m fine. I mean, I’m not fine, but… it’s not because of you.
” I wipe my eyes and make myself breathe through the anger, because I am still angry.
At him? A little. But mostly at this awful world that put us in this horrible position.
And mostly at them. The people who tried to ruin both our lives. “I just wish… I wish you’d told me.”
“Me too,” he says. “For what it’s worth, I never left the mainland until we escaped on that boat with James. Never went to Vancouver Island. It wasn’t me or anyone else I knew who had anything to do with Port Alberni or… well, anything else.”
He gives me a quick glance, looking for confirmation of his suspicions. I guess he’s heard enough about my life that he knows some kind of bullshit happened to me after Port Alberni fell.
When all is said and done, I don’t know for certain TNS killed Mum and Curtis. I blame them, because I hate the alternative; that someone else murdered an innocent woman and teenaged boy without provocation, and I’ll never know who or why. It’s easier, pining all my anger on one villain.
But whoever that faceless, senseless villain might be, it isn’t Sid.
“I believe you,” I say. It’s not quite as good as I forgive you, but it’s a start.
He lets out a long, shuddering sigh. “Thank you.”
I pull my knees to my chest so that I have something to hold onto, wishing, as I always do, that it wasn’t my job to soothe my own aching heart.
April is too young to lean on emotionally.
I can’t put that burden on her, even when I want to.
I can’t even remember the last time someone held me while I cried.
It must have been all the way back when my parents…
No. That’s not true. It was the night before the wedding. It was Sid.
An awful ache fills me as I realize how badly I wish I could do it again—crawl into his embrace and let someone else be the strong one.
But when I look at him, I don’t see a man who radiates strength, just someone struggling not to go to pieces himself.
I can’t beg him for comfort. Not when he clearly needs it, too, and I’m in no position to give it.
So I fight the impulse to cling to him. I stay in my chair and he stays in his and we let the silence drag out between us.
He recovers first, sitting straighter, the controlled man I’m used to taking shape once more. “So, what do you need from me for this situation to work?”
A friend. To get that trust back. “I don’t want anything to change. We’re the same people so… same deal as before.”
“Even appearing with me in public? People do know about my history. They might ask you about it.”
“I’ll just say you like to fire a shotgun round off before sex every night. Keeps your culture alive.”
His face scrunches up. “Please don’t do that.”
“Oh, Sid. You really should have gotten to know me better before marrying me.” She says, as if she shouldn’t have done the same thing herself.
The joke breaks one layer of ice between us, a phantom grin spreading over his face. Does this counts as moving on? Maybe. It’s good to see him smile, even if there is still a tremor in my pulse when I look at him.
“Carlos said you were asking about cooking jobs.”
“Oh, yeah. He says they’re hard to get.”
“So? That the kind of thing that stops you?”
“I don’t know.” I’m used to being driven by survival, not desire. It’s hard to conceive of things any other way.
“It sounds like a good idea—getting a job off the acreage, so you’re not stuck with us all the time,” says Sid. “There are plenty of people on this island you could be talking to who aren’t paramilitary terrorist types, if that appeals to you.”
“Heh.” He’s also trying to make light of the situation. But it rings too much of truth. “I… wouldn’t mind a little space, actually.”
“Of course.” He rises from his chair and I realize that, without meaning to, I’ve dismissed him. “I’ll talk to the guys. If there’s ever more you want to know… you can always ask. Nothing’s off the table, okay?”
“Thanks.”
I return to the apartment, where I find April reading by candlelight.
“Everything okay?” she asks, setting the book down.
“Yeah.” I wrap my arms around her. I might not be able to dump all my troubles on April, but she does help.
During that first awful year after our mother died, April’s love kept me alive.
I might have given up dozens of times if I hadn’t known I had a little child who needed me to hold her and sing to her.
Who needed to know that, for all the bad in the world, she was still loved.
And who, without thought or hesitation, always reached out to hug me back.
In some ways, her teen years have been harder. There’s less of that little girl warmth about her now. But not tonight. She squeezes me back and even though the whys behind my grief go unspoken, I’m grateful for her support.
“The food was really good,” she says, when we break apart.
“Wish I could have stomached it.” All those lovely tomatoes, and I didn’t get any.
“Dominick says Carlos makes that one a lot, so you’ll get to try it soon.”
We share a few more minutes of small talk, comparing the books we’re reading. All considered, I’ve got a secure place to sleep, my little sister at my side, neither of us in danger of starving or succumbing to the elements any time soon. I should feel at peace.
Instead, I think of him. Who holds onto Sid when his demons chase him?