28. SIREN
28
SIREN
T he sun is only just kissing the horizon as the three of us drive in silence back to the place we’ve called home for the past two weeks. The lake is calm with the soft glow of the early morning fog resting on top, and the air in Blue Springs somehow seems sweeter.
I haven’t been able to get my thoughts in line since the moment Shadow appeared in the doorway of that funhouse. Sacrificing herself for us . . . It was a feeling I never want to experience again in my life.
I’ve never been so scared or felt so helpless, and when she pulled that gun and took the final shot, finishing these games for good, the relief was bittersweet. We made it through together, and yet the whiplash of emotions has left me feeling rattled, and I don’t think I’m going to be okay with it for a while. I need time. I need space to breathe, to simply look at Shadow and see that she’s in one piece, and more than that, I need to figure out a way to erase the memories of Shadow on that burning cart and being pulled into The Texan Reaper’s chest.
Reaper pulls into the familiar driveway, and as the three of us clamber out of the car and make our way inside, Reaper waits for me, dropping his hand to the small of my back. The touch is everything, and as we walk through the door together, it’s just a little easier to breathe, but I know this moment of peace will be short-lived.
It’s the morning of day twenty-nine, and we have until the stroke before midnight tomorrow night to figure out how the hell we’re going to get out of here in one piece.
There’s no winning for us.
Option one is to give our lives and allow Shadow the chance to get out of here without a target on her back. Give her a chance to live a proper life away from the assholes who raised her. A chance to have some kind of childhood. She could go find Mila, and the two of them would be unstoppable together. Or, option two, the three of us could break out of here together and live a short life on the run with a bounty on our heads that we couldn’t possibly escape.
I don’t exactly love our options.
Making our way inside, I start pulling weapons off me, needing to lighten the load, and honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up naked right here in the living room, simply needing a break from all the death that seems to be resting right on my shoulders.
Reaper continues to the kitchen when Shadow turns and heads for her bedroom. “Hold up,” Reaper says. “You’re not going anywhere. We need to talk about this.”
Shadow pauses in the entrance of the hallway, slowly turning on her heel and arching her brow as she stares back at Reaper. “What’s there to talk about? We all survived, and now we can figure out what comes next.”
Reaper shakes his head and points to the stool under the kitchen counter. “Sit.”
“Shit,” she mutters under her breath before sparing me a quick glance. I can’t offer her anything except a slight shrug of my shoulders, having no idea where this is about to go, but what I do know is that I have more than a few things that need to be said. Realizing I’m backing Reaper in this, Shadow slowly begins making her way over to the kitchen stool, doing everything in her power to take her time, dragging her feet and refusing to meet Reaper’s harrowing stare.
He begins pacing through the kitchen and realizing he has no idea how to handle this, I simply sit on the arm of the couch and watch as he tries to figure it out. After all, he’s running this show. What kind of girlfriend—if that’s what I am—would I be if I didn’t let him spread his wings and figure it out for himself?
Shadow slides her ass onto the stool and braces her elbows on the counter before fixing Reaper with a puppy dog stare, trying to break him before he’s even begun, but she should know better than that. Reaper doesn’t break for anyone . . . Well, maybe except for me.
Reaper finally stops pacing before turning his stare on Shadow. “You fucked up, kid.”
“What?” she demands, her eyes widening so fast I fear they’re going to pop right out of her skull. “I saved your asses.”
Woah. Okay. She took that one too far. Reaper and I could have more than taken care of The Texan Reaper without breaking a sweat, but she just had to go and make herself a martyr. It was unnecessary. When I told her to run, she should have done that, and I should have been able to trust that.
Reaper scoffs. “Respectfully, Shadow. You didn’t,” he tells her, not bothering to sugarcoat it for her. “You threw yourself headfirst into a dangerous situation, risking your own fucking life, for something we more than had under control. I get it, Shadow. You’re just a kid and you want to prove yourself, and don’t get me wrong, I’m so fucking grateful that your plan to take him out worked, but it was unnecessary. You could have gotten yourself killed for nothing.”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” she argues back. “You said we’re family. You both said we’re family and this is what families do. We save each other’s asses even if it means sacrificing yourself.”
Reaper shakes his head before letting out a heavy breath. “No Shadow, being family isn’t about sacrificing yourself,” he tells her. “It’s about having each other’s backs and working as a team, but there’s no teamwork when there’s no trust, and tonight for us to be able to take out those brothers, we needed to trust that you were as far away from that amusement park as possible, and you weren’t. You broke our trust when you decided to leave in the middle of the night, thinking you could handle the three of them yourself, and you broke our trust again when you didn’t get the fuck out of there.”
Shadow clenches her jaw, dropping her gaze to her hands on the counter. “I’m sorry,” she murmurs. “I just . . . I wanted everyone to be okay. You, me, and Siren . . . I’ve never had anyone care about me the way you two do, and the idea of losing you both scared me. I thought I could handle it.”
My heart breaks, and I pull myself off the armrest before flying across the living room to the kitchen and pulling her into my arms, holding this sweet girl to my chest. “It’s okay,” I tell her before second-guessing myself. “Well, no actually. It’s not okay. What happened tonight was the furthest thing from okay. But I’m just happy you’re alive. Seeing The Texan Reaper grabbing you like that and not being able to do anything about it . . . Shadow, that was the single most terrifying moment of my life. I’d take a million nights burning in a fiery suite over having to witness that again.”
She nods her head against my shoulder, and I hear as she lets out a shaky breath before deflecting her emotions. “Exaggerating much? Nobody is stupid enough to want to experience that fire again, let alone a million more times,” she murmurs.
I can’t help but laugh as I release her and as she winces, I realize just how tight I was holding her burned skin, and yet she didn’t say a word about it. “Come on,” I say, patting the stool she was just on. “Let’s get you fixed up and then we can figure out where the hell we’re supposed to go from here.”
Reaper fetches the first aid kit and sets it up on the counter. “Are you still mad at me?” she asks Reaper, watching as he grabs things out of the kit.
“I’m furious with you, Shadow,” he tells her. “I’m going to be furious about it for a very long time, but if you’re asking if we’re okay, then yes. We’re okay.”
She nods before letting out a shaky breath. “I can deal with that,” she tells him as I start working on Shadow’s burns and Reaper begins working on mine.
We fall into a comfortable silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts, when Shadow’s head raises, her gaze lifting to mine. “So, what happens now?” she asks. “Am I taking you both out or what? And if so, how do you wanna go?”
I gape at the kid and pull away from her, double-checking there are no weapons in her immediate vicinity. “Ahh, what?”
“I’m going to have to kill you both, right? I’m not saying I want to, but if I have to, I’d prefer to do it in a way you’re comfortable with. Unless,” she continues, glancing between me and Reaper, “you’d prefer to take each other out.”
Reaper and I spare a glance at each other, both of us lost for words and unsure what to say when Shadow begins to laugh. “Oh my god. I’m screwing with you. You should see your faces,” she laughs. “As if I’d want that after everything we’ve just been through. And in case either of you haven’t quite figured it out, I’m not going to survive out in the big wide world on my own. I need you both there.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I mutter under my breath, needing to grip the edge of the counter as my heart races at the thought of having to end Reaper’s life and not getting to love him every day of forever.
Reaper shakes his head. “In case you hadn’t already figured it out, you’re on dishes duty for the rest of your life.”
“Sir, yes Sir,” Shadow says, saluting him as she gets to her feet, deciding that she’s had more than enough first aid despite me only getting through half of her back. “Can we pick this up tomorrow? I need to crash, and from the looks of it, you two have a lot to figure out.”
“Like what?” Reaper questions.
“You know, like how the hell we’re going to get out of Blue Springs unscathed, and what this means for your awkward relationship.”
My brows furrow. “Huh?”
Shadow grins. “You really haven’t thought about it?” she questions, trying not to laugh. “If we somehow get out of here, then I assume we’re going to live together somewhere, and that means the two of you are skipping right over the whole dating thing and basically becoming my parents. I mean, are you dating? Going steady? Or are you practically married? Should I call you Mr. and Mrs. Reaper, or are you going with something a little more modern? Mr. and Mrs. Siren, perhaps?”
Reaper glances toward me, neither of us knowing what the hell we’re supposed to say. “Uhhhhhh . . .”
“That’s what I thought,” Shadow says in a teasing tone, practically skipping down the hallway, more than proud of how easily she just threw our whole relationship into chaos. “Why don’t you two figure that out while I go sleep like a baby?”
Brat.
Shadow laughs the whole way down the hall. The next thing we hear is her bedroom door slamming behind her, and I’m left gaping at Reaper. “I, ummm . . . I don’t need to be called Mrs. Reaper,” I tell him, not wanting him to think that I expect anything more from him than what we already have. Besides, something tells me if we suddenly filed for a marriage license, it might raise a few alarm bells with the FBI, and that right there could be a fatal mistake.
Reaper grins and takes my waist, lifting me up onto the kitchen counter and stepping between my thighs. “I don’t need to marry you to know that you’re mine, Kienna,” he says, making me suck in a gasp at the sound of my name on his lips. “But when we do get out of Blue Springs, I fully intend on taking you with me and starting a life together. I haven’t gone through this past month with you, just to lose you at the finish line.”
I swallow over the lump in my throat. “Are you sure?” I question, my heart racing a million miles an hour.
“Never been so sure in my life,” he tells me. “You, me, and Shadow, we’re a dysfunctional family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I wrap my arms around him and pull him in, his words healing the deep abandonment issues I’ve had since the moment my mother was so brutally taken from me when I was only six years old. “I love you, Reaper,” I whisper. “I want nothing more than to start a life with you, I just don’t see how we’re supposed to get out of here to make that happen.”
“I know,” he murmurs, pulling back and gently brushing his lips across mine. “We have a little less than forty-eight hours to pull it off, and so far, all I’ve been able to come up with is to fake our deaths. Let Shadow hand over the IDs we were able to find, take the prize money, and once we’ve officially been declared dead, we start fresh.”
I nod, agreeing with him until I truly start thinking about what being declared dead would mean for both of our careers. “Wait. If we’re dead, we can kiss our careers goodbye. We can’t accept contracts without someone piecing together that we’re alive, which is only going to set off alarm bells for the asshole behind War Games, which puts us right back at square one.”
“Then we don’t work,” he tells me. “We’ve both been contract killers for years. Don’t pretend like you’re not sitting on millions of dollars. Between us, we have more than enough cash to last ten lifetimes.”
“I know,” I say. “It’s not about the money. I just feel like I worked hard to get where I am today, and I don’t want to wave goodbye to any of that. Not working is not an option for me.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod, his hands squeezing my thighs. “Then we’ll factor that in. We’ll still work, maybe even continue with Shadow’s training if that’s what she wants.”
Holding his stare, I try to figure out how the hell we’re supposed to make that happen, and judging by the slight crease between his brows, he’s just as lost as I am. It’s one thing to have these grand plans for a future together, but if we can’t get out of Blue Springs without getting a bounty on our heads, then what’s the point in any of this?
“How?” I whisper, my heart falling out onto my sleeve.
“It all comes down to the asshole who organized this,” he says, having read my mind. “We fake our deaths, and if we can get to him before he realizes that he was played and puts the bounty out, then we’re free. We’ll have it all. The three of us together. A real chance at having a family.”
“Fuck, that sounds good, but Mila and I have tried to find him a million times before. He’s more of a ghost than you and Shadow are,” I say, suddenly wishing we hadn’t taken 343 out of the competition quite so early. Maybe with both him and Mila working together, they might have been able to trace the untraceable. “I don’t think we can pull it off.”
“I don’t know,” he says, scooping me off the kitchen counter and into his arms as I lock my legs around his waist. “All I know is that we need to try. But first, we sleep. We’re not going to get anywhere trying to plan some grand escape plan after the night we just had. My brain is fried, and don’t even try to tell me yours isn’t. We rest, and then after Shadow wakes up, we figure this shit out together.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” I tell him. “Only, I need to shower, and don’t think for one second that you’re not coming with me.”