Chapter Ninety-One
Georgia
H e finally came out of the house with three framed pictures and the pillow.
Taking my arm, he silently led me to his rented SUV, opened the passenger door, helped me in, then placed the items on my lap before he shut the door.
I was staring at the top picture when he got behind the wheel and started the engine.
I was still staring at it when he pulled away from the curb and gave a subdued order. “Seat belt.”
Tired beyond words and emotions, I buckled myself in, and he drove.
He didn’t say where we were going.
He didn’t turn back toward the hotel.
He didn’t take the road that would lead to the Detroit airport.
He just drove.
Fifteen minutes later, he abruptly pulled over. Staring straight ahead, one hand gripping the steering wheel, the other fisted as it rested on his thigh, he spoke in a deceptively quiet tone. “Why’d you think you were a burden?”
My throat closed up, and I looked out the window. It was on the tip of my tongue— because I am.
My mother was dead because of me.
My father stayed away because he hated me.
I was a burden to my grandfather.
I was nobody and nothing, and I thought I deserved everything a drug-dealing addict dished out because I was fat and unworthy, and I’d killed my mother.
The lies piled on top of truths, and I whispered the only thing I knew for certain. “My mother died in childbirth.”
A SEAL used his superpower of silence. But this silence was different. There was no judgment. There was no anger. But it was weighted, and I didn’t understand.
Uncomfortable, I told him the rest. “Once, when my father was drunk, he told me I looked so much like my mother, it killed him to even glance at me. Then he died, and when a neighbor lady came to his funeral, my grandfather asked her to take me in. She walked away, and my grandfather cursed her out. Then he took me home and told me not to be a burden.”
Blade’s fist tightened.
I stupidly kept talking. “When Henry came around, I stayed with him as long as I did because I thought I deserved that for, you know, surviving when my mom didn’t.” I glanced down at the only thing I had of my mother’s. “She made this pillow when she was pregnant.” With a gentle touch, I stroked the embroidery on the front, then turned it over and did the same to the cursive letters on the back. “No one ever told me what she meant by it or why she’d chosen this particular saying. I always took it to mean that every sunrise was a chance at a new kind of day, and sunsets, the night, the dark—they couldn’t be frightening if it meant dawn was coming. You just had to wait through the dark time, then you’d get a new day.” I glanced at a warrior who believed that the ultimate honor was dying in battle and going to Valhalla, and my thoughts felt small compared to that. “But somewhere along the way, I stopped believing in a new anything.”
His deep voice filled the distance between us, but it didn’t make it feel any less uncomfortable. “You’re a survivor, woman.”
Maybe. I was here. But I learned an important lesson. “Time isn’t magic.”
“No, but it’s a hell of a buffer.”
I glanced at him. “Is that how you feel about your brother? Your family? That time puts a buffer on that kind of loss?”
“Nothing buffers grief. You learn to live with it, or you don’t live.”
I admitted something to him I hadn’t admitted to myself. “I haven’t been living.” I’d been existing.
His inhale was deep and his nod barely discernable. Then he put the car in Drive, pulled back onto the road, and drove over every word he’d said to me on my front porch. “A storm’s coming. I’m taking you to Willow Run airport. There’s an AES jet waiting to fly you back to Miami. The barista called. Someone’s waiting for you at the coffee joint.”
Shock, excitement, resentment, anger, fear—too many emotions flooded in all at once. “Is it Reena?”
“Probably.”
Alarm coated everything. “You don’t want to know? You don’t want to ask her about your brother?” There’s an AES jet waiting to fly you back to Miami . He wasn’t going to Miami. He wasn’t going to Miami.
“No.”
“Why?” Where was he going? Why did he say all those things if he didn’t mean them? Why would he follow me to the house only to drop me off like I was someone else’s problem?
“I’m done chasing ghosts.” He turned into a small airport that looked private, drove toward the biggest jet, and parked. Then he tipped his chin toward the plane as a door opened and airstairs unfurled. “Go. You need to be wheels up before the storm hits.”
“Where are you going?”
He glanced to his left as the attorney’s car pulled up next to us. “I have a few things I need to take care of.” He looked back at me, but his eyes were so cold and distant, it was almost as if he wasn’t looking at me at all. “Get on the plane, Lioness. Go meet your friend.”
Panic like I’d never felt stabbed me in the chest. “What are you doing?”
“Making sure you get out safely before the weather hits.”
“No.” No, no, no. “That was a metaphor. You’re lying. You said you were taking me somewhere. Back at the house, you said that. You said a lot of things, and they weren’t like this—like how you’re being right now. You told me you weren’t going anywhere without me. You said last night meant something.”
He stared at me without saying a word.
My door opened, and a rush of frigid air blasted over me like a slap to the face.
The attorney nodded at Blade. “Miss Lyons, are you ready?”
A cold Valhalla warrior answered for me. “She’s ready.” He undid my seat belt. Then he leaned toward me, grasped the back of my neck, and brought his mouth to my ear. “Go live your life, Lioness.”
He dropped his hand, focused straight ahead, and issued the attorney an order. “Get her on the plane, Barrett.”
“Copy that.” A different hand gently took my arm and pulled me out of the SUV before closing the door.
A warrior drove away.
An attorney ushered me up a flight of airstairs.