Chapter 41
41
Scorpio
After I unchained Eden, I sat down on the sofa downstairs and drank until the whys stopped echoing in my head. Why did they betray me? Why did I trust them? Why didn’t I just walk away and cut my losses while I still could? Why does nothing in my life ever turn out good?
Even as I couldn’t hold another thought in my head, I still knew the questions would be there when I woke up. And that I wouldn’t have done a damn thing differently if I had a do over. Maybe it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
I still have none of the answers now, as Joker’s livid, red face is staring me down, brighter and harder to look at than the sun streaming in through the windows.
“Did I say you could feed her?” he barks at me.
I sat up too fast and now the room is spinning around me. And here’s another question I don’t know how to answer.
“Or did I tell you to leave her chained up and hungry?” he adds.
I reach for the bottle on the floor beside me, hoping there’s still enough whiskey left in it to take the edge of this hangover. Thankfully, it’s still about a third full. Should work. I drink as much as I can before the burning grows unbearable.
“That second one,” I say enjoying the cool air in my throat. I raise the bottle to drink some more, but Joker yanks it from my hand, barely missing my teeth. It’d be funny if he accidentally knocked out my teeth too… in that, let’s see how many things can still go wrong? way . I wish I could laugh, but I really do not feel like laughing.
“No more drinking,” he snaps. “You’re falling apart bad enough without being drunk all the time.”
Now that’s fucking out of line.
I yank the bottle back, glaring at him. “I’m not falling apart.”
“Yeah, you weren’t,” he says. “Until you saw her chained up and it stirred up memories…”
I don’t remember the last time I was this angry at him. Possibly never. I can’t believe he’s bringing this up. I just barely got done forgetting it all again. Fucking wannabe shrink. He should pay more attention to his own damn self and whatever feelings he’s grown for the woman upstairs. He’s the one falling apart. He’s the one endangering our revenge. But I’m done being his conscience, and his emotions, and his damn common sense.
“You want her pissing and shitting all over herself up there, fine. It’s your show,” I say and stand up, looking around for my boots and my shirt. “But fuck you for bringing all the rest of that shit up. We don’t talk about it.”
I glance at him, happy to find he looks slightly cowed. We don’t talk about what happened to me all those years ago, in that house. Even if that wasn’t already clear, I made it clear when he tried to make me face it all again back in Chicago.
I did face it. With Karma and Grim in a deserted, overgrown campsite by the light and warmth of a fire and love. But that’s now become yet another wound I’ll have to survive. This one is still bleeding. I don’t think it’ll ever stop.
“If you can’t handle this part of the mission, you’re free to go help Razor keep the Devils off our scent in Roaring Brook,” he says calmly.
“You know, for someone who can read people as well as you can, you’re pretty dumb and blind when it comes to reading your own self.” I wish I could just let him get burned by Eden all on his own. But he’s my one true friend in this whole messed up world, and I’m not gonna abandon him now. No matter how angry he just made me.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, and I think he really has no idea.
I pick up my boots and sit back down to pull them on.
“You’ll figure it out,” I say. “Maybe you’re right and this part of the plan is too much for me. You do your thing here and I’m going to Roaring Brook. Razor’s gonna need all the backup he can get when the Devils come.”
“Yeah, good,” he says, sounding very unsure all of a sudden.
But he doesn’t stop me from leaving.
The heat and glaring sunshine outside are not doing anything good for my hangover. But the whiskey I managed to finish did take the edge off and the long ride to Roaring Brook will take care of the rest.
The Devils will hit that town hard. I’m sure they’ll do it sooner rather than later. Karma and Grim must’ve told them all about it by now.
They’re the only ones who can answer my whys. I hope we’ll get the chance to talk before I die. Or not. There’s no answer they can give me that’ll erase what they did. It’ll be just more lies, nothing more.
Why would they even want me? Why would anyone?
I wish I could say I don’t give a fuck and mean it. Maybe in time that’ll come too.