Chapter 45
LUCY
He doesn’t look at me right away, which is great, because I’m sure the shock I feel is apparent on my face.
His shoulders draw in, muscles flexing under all that ink.
His hand cups the back of his neck as if he’s searching for a word that won’t break something open between us.
“Or let me rephrase,” he says after a breath. “I got my mother killed.”
My body leans forward before I can stop it, drawn toward him even as I want to pull away. “How?” My voice is so quiet I barely recognize it.
He glances at me, then fixes his eyes on the old wooden floor.
“There’s a graveyard back home at Whitby Rose Chapel, where two families have buried their dead for centuries.”
“Furys and Wildes,” I offer.
He nods. “It used to be neutral ground. My aunt, my dad’s sister, is buried there. She was best friends with my momma. Ruthie.” The air seems to thicken around the name, a weight that sits heavily on my chest. “So when I was thirteen, she took me and my brothers to visit my aunt’s grave.”
His sigh is filled with resignation. “Momma used to commune for a while, have conversations with the dead. So I got bored and went exploring. Found a moonshine still out past the line of graves. It wasn’t supposed to be there on account of Whitby Rose being neutral territory.
So I was a dumb kid and thought I’d fuck with whoever owned it. ”
He huffs a laugh, but there’s no humor. “I was a little shit. Obviously. Not that much has changed.”
I don’t smile, neither does he.
“I drank some, dumped others. I didn’t realize it belonged to the Wildes. And I had no idea they were watching the whole thing.”
Dread pools in my belly.
“Orion was supposed to be on the lookout. But graveyards are sacred, and there’d never been any bloodshed there before. He and Dash were fucking around with the crossbow he’d gotten after his survival week—”
“His what?” My nose scrunches.
He waves it off. “It’s Fury tradition for our kids. You won’t have to worry about it now.”
That truth catches me unexpectedly behind my ribs.
Ouch.
He added that little fact so matter-of-factly, he only seems to understand exactly what he said after the fact, blanching and looking away.
“The point is, no one was paying attention.”
He runs his thumb along the inside of his right forearm, over the raised terrain of scar tissue that looks like a melted skull birthmark resides underneath.
“Wildes came through with Molotov cocktails. Set the whole place on fire. They must have followed me back.” He looks at the counter. “They were aiming for me.”
I go completely still.
“You were thirteen,” I say.
“I was.” He doesn’t say it like it’s an excuse.
He says it like a fact he’s never quite known what to do with.
“My momma—” He breathes. “It all happened so fast. Fire was everywhere and we were trapped between my aunt’s gravestone and the old iron fence.
She wrapped her arms around me, shielded me from the worst of it.
Everywhere she could reach, she protected. “
He’s looking off at nothing as he hugs himself, squeezing like he’s holding onto memory by force. “I marked it with her favorite flowers. Roses. The rest is my punishment.”
I’d traced the roses in the dark under the pier, understood in pieces that they were a map, a memorial.
But standing here in proper light, I can see it—the deliberate, painstaking outline of a woman’s protective embrace curled over her child, rendered in ink and absence.
Where the roses bloom, she was. Where the scars run, she couldn’t reach.
“Hatton—”
“She didn’t make it,” he interrupts flatly. “Ruthie Fury died because of me. I got my mother killed.”
“Hatton.” Tears sting the back of my eyes, sudden and unwelcome. I rub them away with the heel of my hand. “Hatton, I’m so sorry.” The words feel small, not enough, not even close.
I shake my head and take his scarred forearm in my hands to hold. “You were a child.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly, like the truth has never helped.
He’s quiet a long moment, shoulders bowed, looking older and younger all at the same time.
“But my thirteen-year-old brain decided that day that I was solely at fault, and some part of me never entirely stopped believing it.” He looks up at me. “My aunt. My mom. Luna, nearly. You—”
“What about me?” I frown.
“I already brought danger to you too. Frog said Castle only knows who you are because I have the subtlety of a gunshot.” He rubs his eyes with his forefinger and thumb.
“The women in our orbit get hurt, Lucy. They get hurt and they die and they disappear, and we bury them or we spend months searching for them.” He shakes his head slowly. “There’s no version of me tying you to my family name and calling that protection.”
“Hatton—”
“I’m not marrying you,” he insists simply. “And that’s not because I don’t—”
He stops himself, his jaw working to hold back. “That’s not because I wouldn’t want to. But because I refuse to be the reason someone I care about gets hurt. Again. There’s no world where I tie you to my family name and call it protection. Because it isn’t. It’s a death sentence.”
He meets my eyes, and what’s there is so clear and so tired and so certain that it knocks the argument right out of me.
“My momma lost her life to protect me. The least I can do to honor that sacrifice is use mine to protect you.”
My chest cracks, but… how the hell do I argue with that?
I look at him for a moment. Then I step close enough to smell the syrup on his breath and reach up slowly to press my palm flat against the handprint on his arm, the way I did in the water. He goes completely still.
“What about them?” I ask quietly, pointing at the scars. “The Wildes who did that. Are they dead?”
He chuckles lightly. “Eager for more revenge so soon after Frog?”
“Maybe.” I don’t look away. “Maybe I’m starting to hate the Wildes as much as I thought I hated you.”
Something warm moves through his expression. “Ah. Progress.”
“Are they dead, Hatton?”
“The ones who were there?” He nods once. “Orion killed one that day. The other two we took out while protecting Luna.” He huffs. “A family affair.”
“Good,” I say, my voice strong.
He looks at me like I’m something he’s still figuring out and enjoys not quite having the answer to.
“You know… you are genuinely much scarier than you look.”
I smile lightly at that. “It’s a family affair.”
He chuckles at that, and when it fades, I sigh.
“I understand where you’re coming from now. But it still feels like people keep making decisions about my life without me in the room.”
“I know.”
“I am very, very tired of it.”
“I know that too.” Something wry moves through his voice. “For the record, so am I. Our families are uniquely gifted at that particular bad habit.” He sighs. “And speaking of families.” He pulls his phone from his pocket and holds it out. “You need to call your father.”
I recoil. “What? Why?”
“Why?” His pierced brow raises. “You’ve been missing for six months, Lucy. All your parents have gotten is playing cards. You need to call them and let them know you’re alive and well.”
“Oh.” I blink. “That’s… That’s a fair point.”
“Yup.”
“I’m still not doing it.”
He tilts his head. “Why? You know they won’t be mad.”
“I know.” I pull Dinah up into my arms and snuggle her. “But that’s what will make it worse. They’ll be hurt. I’ll hear it in their voices, and I’ll feel terrible about everything all over again.” I shake my head. “I hate seeing them hurt.”
“Which is why you’ve never told them about what really happened to you.”
I nod once. “Yeah. So not yet. I need a day to figure out how I’m going to explain everything first.”
“The truth?” he offers.
“The parts that don’t hurt.”
“Ah.” He nods sagely. “So lies.”
I throw him a look. “Hatton.”
He smiles sadly and cups my cheek with one hand. “You know it’ll probably help to tell them everything some day.”
I know he’s right. Heck, having things out in the open with Hatton is so cathartic, I feel more relaxed and trusting than I have in—ever—throwing caution to the wind.
“Not yet,” I whisper. “Please?”
“Of course,” he murmurs. Then his voice goes light again. “But he’s going to keep calling my phone until you do, so the sooner, the better, if you don’t mind.”
He holds up his phone and my jaw drops.
“Forty-seven missed calls from…” My head tilts. “Acehole? I’m sure he’ll love to hear about that nickname.”
“Please. He won’t be surprised.” He crosses his arms. “So, what do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him… you lost me?”
He snorts. “I told him that for six months.”
“See? You’re already so good at it.”
“Sensational,” he mutters. But then he sucks his teeth. “He knows you’re on Wander Isle, Lucy.”
Something cold slides down my spine at his tone. Unfortunately, Hatton confirms my fears.
“Castle. He sent him a video.”
“Of…”
“The Smoke and Mirrors Room.”
The blood leaves my face so fast the cabin tilts.
“Hey.” His voice gentles. “I already told him Frog’s been dealt with. Now Castle’s on his shit list too.”
“I can’t believe he saw me like that.” I wince.
Hatton grimaces. “I know. I’m sorry.”
I trill my lips on an exhale. “Well. At least it wasn’t the Sugar Room?”
“Aw,” Hatton laughs. “You do care whether I live or die. How romantic.”
I throw in some of the irritation I still feel into my voice as I lightly taunt him.
“Well, someone’s going to have to stick around to make sure I’m safe while I marry someone else and have a bunch of perfectly ordinary non-Fury babies that I don’t have to worry about ‘survival week’ for.
” I shrug. “Might as well be you, right?”
A complicated array of emotions flickers over his face before he sighs.
“If that’s the extent of my role,” he says quietly. Then his mouth curves into a smile. “I’ll happily be the villain in the story who kills all your frog princes.” Then he appraises me. “But first, how do you want the rest of your story to go, Lucy?”
I blink. “You’re asking me?”
He makes a show of looking around and grins. “Well there’s no one else quite like you around here, is there?”
My cheeks warm with a blush, but I shake my head. “No, I mean. You’re actually giving me a decision?”
“Hopefully.” The corner of his mouth kicks up. “I’d hate to find out what I’d have to say if you make the wrong one.”
I roll my eyes. But then I think about it properly, and the answer that comes isn’t the one I would’ve given yesterday. Just twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve said stay. Find more information. Make it worth what I built here.
“We should leave,” I say. “Wander Isle. All of it. I think we need to go.”
He doesn’t look surprised. “Yeah.”
“You agree?”
“I’ve agreed from the first punch I threw at Frog.
” He shakes his head and turns back to the sink to run the faucet over the pan.
“I thought I’d be able to keep you safe, but so much has happened.
” His jaw tics. “Castle knows too much, about us, the Wildes, all of it. He’s tangled up in all of us somehow, and I don’t like any of it. ”
“How would he even know about the Wildes? Why does he care? It doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s what bothers me.” He frowns at the running water. “The Wildes aren’t exactly advertising. Which means Castle’s network goes a lot deeper than one strip club on a barrier island.” He turns the faucet off. “I’ll get your dad on it once we’re clear. He’ll want to pull that thread.”
“We should go today,” I say. The words feel strange in my mouth but completely necessary at the same time. “As soon as possible.”
He raises an eyebrow. “That was quick. You sure?”
“I don’t want to leave,” I admit, the honesty I’m giving him catching me slightly off guard. “But in my experience, that means I need to go before I talk myself out of it.”
I look around the cabin—the veritable library and fairy lights in the small bedroom, it’s curved panel walls, the oyster shell wind chimes through the porthole where my new fluffy friend came in and out daily, my one bag of personal things that I came with, where the gun Hatton doesn’t know I own is in.
I didn’t want him to know I slept with one.
I sleep with a gun now. That’s not normal, right?
Geez. I’ve forgotten what normal is and isn’t these days.
I blow out a breath, massaging my forehead.
“I thought this was my last stop. I never wanted to have to leave the Queen of Hearts card behind. I built something here, Hatton. Sure it was small, built on lies, and half of it would fall apart if I looked directly at it… but gathering secrets gave me agency that I’ve never had before.
It made me feel powerful, like Wander Isle was mine.
” My throat tightens. “Duchy was mine. Oscar and Iris were mine. Chessy, Harry, this boat, X—”
“X is not yours,” he says.
I snort. “Down, boy. He’s obsessed with Duchess. But still.” I press my lips together. “I felt like I was actually doing something useful here. For my family. For once.”
“I know.” His voice is quiet. “I believe you were.”
I look at Dinah in my lap and fight the burn in my eyes.
“We can come back,” he says, after a moment. “After Castle is neutralized.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he admits. “But I know I’m going wherever you go. And if wherever you go is eventually back here, then that’s where I’ll be. We’ll figure it out.”
“What if I don’t want you stalking me?”
“Tough shit, bunny.” He says it with a smile.
“That’s the only non-negotiable I’ve got.
You don’t have to want me around, but I’ll be watching over you whether it’s from the sky or glued to your side.
The only part you get to negotiate is how close.
” He shrugs. “The watching itself? That’s happening. ”
I glare at him, blinking slowly.
He gasps. “Oh my God. You love me? You actually love me.”
“What? I—no, I—”
“Do too. You slow-blinked at me.” He points at Dinah in my arms. “Like a cat.”
“That is not what that was, I was thinking—”
“She slow-blinked, didn’t she, Dinah?” He pets the little traitor under her chin. “Hell, it was so undeniable, even Chessy would back me up too.”
“Chessy,” I say loudly, looking at said cat sitting directly on the pillow Hatton used, “slow-blinks for sardines.”
“So cynical. I think he loves us.”
“I think he’s working an angle.”
“Maybe,” Hatch allows. “If he’s anything like his parents, it can be both.”
A thrill flutters in my lower belly, but I groan, “For the last time, you are not their—”
Three light knocks pepper the door.
Hatton is a blur of motion before I process we even have a guest, ending with him between me and the door, a weapon in his hand and ready to strike.