Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
Rosalie laughs outside. The bright, startled noise lifts the hair on my arms.
That innocent sound reminds me of how fragile life is.
I have to protect her.
The window above the sink is cracked open an inch. Mountain air threads the room, cool enough to prickle the sweat that’s been beading on my skin non-stop for days.
On the wind, the metallic snap of Walton’s handgun is followed by her excited remark, “Do that again!”
I plant my palms on the kitchen sink and make myself stay put.
She’s fine. The former soldier won’t let a leaf touch her wrong.
That was the deal. His protection is implied.
Behind me, Spence doesn’t move much. There’s a chair creak every now and then followed by stillness.
Another shot pops outside. Her laughter follows, softer this time. A muttered correction from Walton comes after.
I take one long breath and hold it until my ribs protest.
“Say it,” Spence mutters.
I don’t turn. “Say what.”
“You’re scared shitless.”
“Course I am.” I turn to face him. “Your go. What’s your fucking deal?”
He studies me without flinching. The old wall clock ticks as the voices filter in the window and I fight the need to keep my eyes on Rosalie.
“Lena was her name. She was mad at me one night for some bullshit I pulled. Drove drunk. Died in a car crash.”
I never expected this, and I am filled with dread in a single heartbeat.
The room seems to contract around us. Feeling gassed, I move to the table and sit down across from him.
“We would have been there for you.”
He knows I’m talking about our SEAL teammates.
“I couldn’t even talk.”
“Didn’t matter, any of us would have been there for you,” I repeat. “Fuck. I should have just come knocking on your door.”
Looking at his destroyed expression drives the guilt deep into my marrow. No one should have to suffer alone.
He glances down, slowly tracing his finger over the rim of his coffee mug. “You didn’t know where I was.”
“There are ways to find you. You know this of all people.”
“Not where I went.”
Tension coils so tight in his flexed forearms, I expect he’ll stand and walk out.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if he did. Spence shut down all communications six months after he left the Teams.
Now I know why.
Instead of leaving, he reaches into his front jeans pocket.
A small Saint Michael medal, scuffed and dulled, is in his palm when he holds his hand out. “This was hers.”
In a flash, I see myself in him. The vision terrifies me. I have to end the threat against Rosalie.
“I don’t use it like a shrine.” He drifts a thumb over metal. “I use it to remind me to do better. Doing better right now means helping you protect your girl.”
There’s fire burning in my throat, a sting in my eyes as I push a hand into my hair. “Where are we taking her?”
Spence taps the medal on the table. “First, you have to tell me what made you the way you were. Was it just playing the field, or did you have some ghost riding your six like I do?”
I sit back, a corkscrew of tension twisting around inside me.
Spence always knew how to dig in, drive spikes under fingernails when he needed to.
“Oh, there are ghosts.”
The words leave a coppery taste in my mouth.
As I press my fingers against my forehead, I dig up my own personal hell. And tell him the story.
“My mom discovered a bottle she loved more than my sister and me. You can probably imagine the story. I was seventeen. Liberty was just turning sixteen. Mom took off, never to find her way to the surface again.”
It takes a few seconds to push down the lump of emotion rising against my sternum.
But the pop of gunfire outside brings me back into sharp focus.
“I was gone half the time,” I admit, “paying for a roof over our heads and food, working after school all the time. In what little time I had, I taught Liberty how to change a tire and throw a punch, but I missed the part where she learned how to hide the fact a man beat her.”
There’s a breeze pushing through the window. Colder than before, but I’m sweating more.
I flex my hands in my lap. Old anger returning to that familiar place.
“All the signs were there. There’s no one to blame but myself.”
Shaking my head, I shift to press my hands flat onto the table to keep from punching something.
“How did you find out?” he asks, looking at me across his mug of coffee. As if this was a normal conversation between two normal guys, when it’s anything but.
“Not because I realized why she wore sleeves down to her wrists in August. Or why she always flinched at loud noises. Her eyes were always downcast when he was around. No, I missed all that.”
“Go on,” he says, looking at me with unwavering intensity.
“Think I was telling myself it was stress. Exams. Some kind of make-up trend, but she was actually covering bruises.”
God, I was a fucking idiot. The chair groans when I shift. “I saw a text from him. But by that time, she’d been living with his hands on her for a year.”
Spence sits with it. Doesn’t tell me he’s sorry. Doesn’t try to downplay my guilt.
“I mopped the kitchen floor with his ass and dragged him across the lawn til he had grass embedded in his face,” I say, voice gone raw.
The medal glints between his fingers.
After a long silence, he says roughly, “I know what it’s like to miss the signs.”
Spence leans his elbows on the table. The lines around his mouth soften, but not with pity. “You think trusting yourself is dangerous. To her.”
“Yeah,” I admit, exhaling the word. “Aren’t we always going to be afraid of that?”
He glances toward the window. “You’ll die trying. Or you’ll win.”
There’s a blooming pain in my chest. Pressing the heel of my hand there does nothing.
“These last few days cut me to the bone. I have to be ready.”
“You will be.” Spence pockets the medal, tone dry. “We’re moving to my place. It’s rough, but very fucking secure. Bring in your team, or not. Two of us is enough. We’ll lure the fucker in and finish this for good.”
Rosalie bursts through the back door. A burst of light haloing her. The sight robs me of oxygen.
There’s laughter in her eyes as she hurries toward us, color bright on her cheeks.
She’s got an oak leaf in her hand, like a souvenir of their shooting session.
“I did it! Mr. Walton said I passed my first lesson.”
“I heard you out there,” I choke out, chest collapsed, throat raw. She’s so beautiful and special. I just can’t believe she’s real and this is my life.
I get a chance to do better. But everything could be taken away because of some greedy motherfucker.
“I loved it,” breathy, she says, “I need a lot of practice.”
She comes right to me when I open my arms. Curls up in my lap smiling.
With my eyes stinging, I look Spence over her head.
His response is a clipped nod. He knows. He gets it. How brittle I am right now.
He pushes back from the table, the aura surrounding him changes in front of me. As if I’m watching the sky clearing. The warrior I knew before is back.
“We mobilize in ten.” Standing up to his towering height, he adds, “Gonna go tell Walton how to reach me with any new intel.”