Chapter 51 #2
Kai limps out of the bathroom behind us when I guide Haven to the bed, but I shake my head at him.
“Clean yourself up. She doesn’t need a constant reminder of what happened.”
Not that I have a fucking clue what did happen…but all in good time. None of us are going anywhere—the piles of snow outside the window and the howling wind will make sure of that. I’m more convinced than ever that this area will lose power soon.
At least that will make it harder for people to come looking…and they’ll definitely come looking.
I guide Haven to my bed and ease her under the sheets before scooting her to the middle of the mattress. I fetch another blanket from my closet and throw it over her, tucking her in tight. She’s still got a towel wrapped around her damp hair, and I leave it in place.
Once I’m sure she’s as warm as she can be at the moment, I change out of the clothes I wore to The Hollow Point, putting on a pair of sweatpants and a loose-fitting long-sleeved shirt. It’ll be too warm for me to sleep in with the fireplace cranked to high, but the heat’s not for me.
It’s for Haven.
I fetch two bottles of water out of the fridge, setting one on each nightstand, and switch off the lamp on my nightstand. With only a single lamp illuminating the room, everything seems exaggerated.
The snow outside seems to glow. Haven’s body looks twisted and deformed beneath the bulky blanket, like I nestled a monster under the sheets instead of the sweet, broken girl Kai brought to me tonight.
And when Kai comes out of the bathroom naked, shoulders bunching as he towels dry his hair, he looks larger than life.
When he spots me at the side of the bed, looking at him, he drops the towel to his crotch.
“Walk-in closet, first shelf on the right,” I tell him.
He backs up slowly, disappearing into the closet to fetch a pair of sweatpants. I’m already sliding in beside Haven when he comes back. He hesitates again, and I gesture him over with a flick of my wrist.
“Get in behind her.”
“Right. Body heat,” he mumbles.
He might not be half-frozen like Haven, but whatever happened tonight took a massive toll on him, too. He gives his hair another violent toweling-down, then tosses the towel into the bathroom and limps over to the bed.
The mattress shifts under his weight, rocking Haven’s cocoon against my chest as he inches closer to us.
I lift the sheet, finding his arm and dragging it over Haven’s naked body. Then I slide my hand down his hip, gripping him and tugging him against her.
“Jesus, she’s freezing,” he mutters, shivering.
“Exactly.” I shift closer, tucking her arm between my chest and hers, sliding a leg between her thighs.
Kai recoils when my leg touches his, hesitates, then brings it back so her limbs are sandwiched between ours.
Haven makes a sound that almost sounds like a sigh, shivers, and goes silent. We don’t say a word, both listening to the sound of her breathing growing steadier and deeper.
Slowly—ever so fucking slowly—she warms against our bodies.
Only when I feel a prickle on my stomach, and realize it’s sweat, do I relax. And then, only a little.
“Feel like she’s getting warm yet?” Kai mutters in a tight voice.
“She’ll be okay,” I say instead, because that’s what he wants to hear.
“Physically, maybe.”
He’s silent long enough for me to know he doesn’t want to speak about what happened. But that’s not up to him—I can’t help them if I don’t know what the fuck’s going on.
“Tell me,” I grunt.
Haven is asleep, but I don’t want her waking up and hearing us discuss whatever shattered her like this.
Kai still says nothing. The lamp on the nightstand behind him casts his face in shadow, so I can’t figure out what he’s thinking or tell if he’s afraid.
But I sense he is.
Not afraid—terrified.
I find his hand where he’s clinging to Haven’s hip. He’s reluctant to let her go, but I twine our fingers together so forcefully, he’d have to tug hard to escape. And, like me, he doesn’t want to wake her.
“Tell me,” I repeat, gently this time.
He tenses, then grips me back.
“I didn’t know Ezra had moved back home when he got out of the hospital. I assumed it would just be my mother.”
“Just the four of you?” That would bring the possible death toll to two.
Kai sighs. “My dad was there too.”
“Christ.”
Kai nods. “Ezra was…he was going to kill himself in front of us.”
…see you in hell, Bastian…
I try to ignore the ten-ton weight crushing my chest.
I knew something was wrong. Knew he was planning something. And I did nothing.
“They came to you, that’s all that matters,” Bad Wolf says.
“People got hurt,” Good Wolf whines. “That matters more.”
I tighten my grip on Kai’s hand. “But he didn’t kill himself, did he?”
“No.” Kai huffs out a bitter laugh. “He decided to kill Haven instead.”
Kai’s breathing is uneven, like he’s fighting the urge to yell or sob, his grip on my hand aching-tight.
“He tried to shoot her. I got in the way first, then our mom—” He cuts off with a strangled chuckle. “Mom decides she’s suddenly all brave and shit, tries to stop Ezra, gets a bullet for her effort. Then Richard tried to run.” His voice cracks. “Ezra shot him in the back.”
“So why was our girl covered in blood?”
Kai doesn’t answer immediately. His hand tightens on mine until the bones grind together.
“What happened?”
“Haven happened.”
I glance down at the figure sleeping between us. Peaceful, scented with soap and shampoo, nothing like the blood-soaked creature I peeled out of Kai’s jacket.
“She attacked Ezra when he turned the gun on me.” Kai’s voice wobbles like he’s struggling to hold back hysterical laughter. “Carved him up like a fucking turkey.”
“With a knife?”
“No. Yes. It—it was one of those electric things. She just stuck it in him and wouldn’t stop. She’d gouged a hole in him by the time I pulled her off.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
The fugue state makes sense now—her mind can’t process what she’s done.
“Then you ran?” My voice is tight.
We’re definitely not safe. Kai and Haven are fugitives on the run from a triple homicide. No one will know what Ezra planned to do. They’ll just see a Thanksgiving massacre and two missing suspects.
“We had to,” Kai mumbles, voice unsteady. “Everyone was dead. If we stayed…”
They’d be taken in for questioning the moment the cops arrived. And, unable to prove the insane story he just told me, they’d be arrested. strong
“We’ll fix this,” I tell him, not that I have any fucking clue how to cover up three murders without implicating myself as an accessory.
Kai relaxes his grip on my fingers, but he doesn’t let go. When I stroke my thumb down the side of his hand, he doesn’t pull away.
“I need…” He trails off.
“Anything,” I murmur.
When he says nothing, I pull his hand out from under the sheet and press my lips to his knuckles. “Safe space, Kai.”
“I need to tell you something,” he rasps.
The disappointment is instantaneous.
I thought he was going to ask for something else.
That he needed…me.
“I’m listening.” I kiss his hand again, because he smells like my body wash and I can’t help but lean into the possessiveness coursing through my body.
“She was still alive,” Kai chokes out.
I prop myself up on my elbow, but I can’t make out his features in the shadows. “You left your mother alive—”
“No, she’s not—not anymore.” His voice is still thick, but he forces himself to speak. “I…made sure.”
When I don’t say anything, he rushes out, “She saw Haven kill Ezra. She would have told the cops that Haven—”
“Shh,” I cut in, when his voice rises.
“She would have destroyed Haven. Blamed everything on her. I couldn’t let that happen.”
A normal person would feel revulsion. Horror even.
The boy I’ve been obsessing over just admitted to matricide. His girlfriend slaughtered his brother. Then they ran from the scene of the crime.
But all I feel is recognition.
…break the jar, Bash…
“You did what you had to do,” I say.
Kai makes a sound that might be a sob. “How can you say that? I killed my own mother!”
I shake off his hand, reaching over and grabbing a fistful of his hair.
“To save someone you love.” I twist my hand until he groans. “Your mother was suffering, Kai. What you did…that’s not murder. That’s mercy.”
The same mercy I showed Billy.
Kai is crying now. I can feel the mattress shaking with his silent sobs, can feel Haven shifting restlessly between us, as if she senses his distress even in her sleep.
I reach across her body and pull him closer until all three of us are a knot of limbs and warmth and trauma.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur. “Both of you. You’re safe now.”
It’s a lie.
We’re not safe. The Jordans’ bodies won’t stay hidden forever.
But tonight, we’re playing pretend. Tonight, I’m the huntsman, not the witch. Instead of devouring these lost children, I’ll save them.
Kai’s sobs quiet down. Haven’s breathing becomes deep and even again. Outside, the blizzard howls like a hungry beast.
I don’t sleep. My wolves won’t let me.
They pace and whine and growl. There will be no calming them until Haven and Kai are safe.
So I hold Haven and Kai, watching over them as they sleep, and I wait for tomorrow.
Just like my Billy used to, every day of her short, godforsaken life.