Chapter Eleven
Tessa
The water ran cold before I noticed. I was still scrubbing at my hands, nails digging into my palms hard enough to leave marks.
There was nothing on them. No blood or grime, nothing the water hadn’t already carried down the drain three times over.
I kept scrubbing anyway. My skin had gone pink, then raw at the knuckles, and I only stopped when the cold finally registered, needling into my shoulders and the back of my neck until I couldn’t ignore it anymore.
I stood there another minute under the freezing spray, arms wrapped around myself, staring at the drain. The water ran clear. It had always run clear, but I couldn’t shake the sensation of sticky blood.
My hands hadn’t shaken when I’d killed that man. Not once. I turned them over under the cold water and watched them, steady as anything, like they belonged to someone else.
I shut off the water. The cold followed me out of the shower and settled into my bones while I stood dripping on the bathmat.
Down the hall somewhere, I could hear low voices.
Casey was in one of the guest rooms, still sleeping off whatever they’d pumped into her while someone watched over her in case she needed medical care.
Grace had been given a room of her own, and I didn’t know if she was sleeping or staring at the ceiling the way I probably would be in an hour.
Hawk had gone to get his arm looked at, brushing off Pain’s worry the same way he’d brushed off mine.
And we still hadn’t heard a solid word on how Gunnar was doing.
I think that last one worried me more than anything, other than not finding Mercy.
I dried off, but my movements were more than a little clumsy.
Sweatpants and a soft T-shirt I suspected might be Tonio’s, assuming the man owned something other than expensive dress shirts, rested on the vanity.
Hadn’t he worn a black button-up to the freaking raid?
I put them on because I needed to be covered in something that wasn’t damp and cold.
And because I needed Tonio’s arms around me.
Since I couldn’t bring myself to go to him in such a state, I had to settle for his shirt.
The material was a poor substitute, but all I could bring myself to take just now.
When I came out of the bathroom, Antonio was sitting on the edge of the bed with two mugs on the nightstand. “I made you chamomile tea,” he said. “I don’t actually know how you take it.”
I looked at the mugs -- the bags were still in both of them. He’d clearly boiled the water, dunked the bags, and had no idea what happened after that. In any other situation, under any other circumstance, I’d have smiled. Maybe I would later.
“Thank you,” I said, and sat across from him in the chair instead of next to him on the bed, because I needed the distance and didn’t know how to ask for it any other way.
I honestly didn’t think I wanted to be near him simply because I realized how big a pussy I really was.
The woman of Antonio Miles couldn’t be a pussy.
He watched me pulling away from him and I could tell he didn’t like it but didn’t know exactly how to fix the situation.
I didn’t either. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, the same gesture he made when he was building a list in his head and needed somewhere to put his hands while he did it.
“I can have food up here in ten minutes. Anything you want. Or Pain can look you over, make sure you’re not hurt anywhere you’re not telling me about. ”
“I’m not hurt, Tonio.”
“I know. I’m just saying the option’s there.” He kept going, like if he found the right combination of things to offer, one of them would land. “Knight wants a debrief eventually, but that can wait until tomorrow, or the day after, whenever you’re ready. There’s no rush on that.”
“There really is, and we both know it.” The words came out soft and nearly broken, but I knew I had to hold it together. If I lost it, Tonio would never respect me again.
“Or if you want to talk about tonight, I’m here. If you don’t, I understand that too. I just don’t want you sitting up here thinking you have to be alone with it.” He scrubbed the back of his neck, like he was supremely uncomfortable. “I need to help you, Tessa. With every fiber of my being.”
I understood what he was doing. He needed a task as much as I needed to get my shit together. He needed a next step, because that was how Antonio Miles operated in the world, identifying the problem and solving it before it had the chance to fester.
I didn’t want a next step just yet. I wanted to sit in the chair and not have anyone look at me like I might come apart at any second, but I didn’t know how to tell him that without it sounding like I was pushing him away.
Some small, tired part of me still cared what that would look like to him.
The fact was, I really cared about Tonio.
Might even be growing to love him. Him seeing me at my worst somehow felt more personal than it had the night we’d met when he’d pulled me out of hell.
“I don’t know what I want,” I said instead, which was only half true. “Maybe… to sit for a minute.”
“OK.” He nodded, slow. “We can just sit.” I hated he was so careful of me now though I recognized I needed the care. He didn’t move to touch me. Instead, he stayed where he was on the edge of the bed, mug of tea neither of us was going to drink cooling on the nightstand between us.
I looked at my hands. Still steady. I hated that they were steady, and I hated that I couldn’t say why, and most of all I hated that I couldn’t make myself explain any of it to the one person in the room who wanted so badly to fix it. Instead, neither of us said anything for a long time.
“I’m going to get you something to eat, honey,” he said, standing. “You don’t have to eat it, but I want it here in case you do.”
“Thank you, Tonio,” I said. “I’m sorry. But I want you to know I appreciate you taking care of me.”
I didn’t have anything else to give him yet, and I think he understood that too, because he didn’t wait for me to say anything else.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Just…
let me look after you when I come back? Please?
” He didn’t wait for an answer, but he did kneel in front of me for a long time, searching my face for what he didn’t understand.
Finally, he leaned in and gave me a tender, loving kiss on the lips that nearly had me breaking down in front of him.
He paused at the door, looking back at me once. Then he left.
At least, that’s what I thought at first, then I heard him talking just outside the door in a hushed tone. He hadn’t closed the door all the way, and I could hear his side of the conversation so I assumed he was on a phone call.
“…yeah. No, she’s fine, physically.” A pause.
“First one’s always the hardest. I will never put her in the situation for there to be a second.
” He sounded hurt, almost like the wounded animal I felt like.
Another pause, longer this time, and when he spoke again his voice had gone rougher at the edges, less careful than it had been with me.
“I don’t know what she needs right now. I only know it isn’t me.
” A short silence. “Yeah. Whatever you’ve got. Quick as you can.”
The quiet that followed felt different. Without Tonio it was much, much worse.
I stood and crossed to the window, because somehow staying in the chair made the room feel like it was folding in around me.
I looked out at the dark tree line and the single security light at the edge of the helipad, blinking steadily against the darkness of the night sky.
I thought about the young man I’d killed. Or, more accurately, his wedding band. I’d widowed someone somewhere. Had I orphaned someone too? I made myself stop thinking about it and counted the blinks of the light at the helipad. At least, I tried to.
It took maybe five minutes before I heard a soft knock.
I knew the visitor would be my sister. Frankly, I was surprised she’d lasted this long.
The door open, though I didn’t turn around.
Heard Antonio’s voice, low, only a handful of words, pitched too quiet for me to catch.
Whatever he said, it wasn’t long. There was a pause, and I imagined Veda looking at him like he’d kicked a puppy.
That was my sister. As fierce as she was, though, I didn’t know if even she could help me see the good I’d done.
“Hey,” Veda said.
I turned to look at her over my shoulder, giving her as convincing a smile as I could.
She stood just inside the door in sweatpants and one of Griffin’s old shirts, hair still damp, like she’d come straight from the shower and had barely stopped long enough to throw on something decent before she came to my rescue again.
She didn’t ask if I was OK. Instead, she crossed the room, dropped down onto the floor with her back against the frame of the bed, and patted the space beside her without looking up, like she already knew I’d come. Which I did and sat next to her.
Neither of us said anything for a while. The floor was hard through my sweatpants, and the frame of the bed dug into my spine, but I didn’t move, and neither did she.
“You know, the first time I killed was up close and personal,” Veda said finally, staring straight down at her own hands much like I had.
“I trembled like a fucking leaf but, even though I thought so at the time, it wasn’t because I’d killed someone.
It was that I might not have killed that fucker and Griffin might have been hurt.
Or worse.” She shook her head. “Every time I think about that kill, all I can think about is what might have happened if I hadn’t been there. ”
“I don’t feel like myself,” I admitted in a reluctant whisper.
“Like someone else crawled inside your skin and took over?”
I whipped my head in her direction to make sure she wasn’t fucking with me. “That’s exactly it,” I said. My voice came out almost a squeak, I was so shocked. “I didn’t expect you to feel like that, Veda. You’ve always been so… I don’t know… put together. Nothing ever bothers you.”
“Oh, Tessa. That’s where you’re wrong. You and Griffin have the power to bring me to my knees. The thought of something happening to either of you puts me into a panic I have trouble not spiraling into, and it’s all because of that kill. Because, like I said, what if Griffin had gotten killed?”
“Exactly like that. Only I’m worried I was so calm. What if I’m like that all the time, Veda? What if I can kill without remorse?”
“Honey, that’s not what you did at all!” She turned to tuck one leg under her while she faced me.
“You’re remorseful right now! And that guy you killed?
You know good and well if you’d been one of those girls, he’d be the one ensuring you didn’t leave.
At least not alive. You know it as well as I do. ”
“Yeah,” I sighed. “I kind of thought the same thing myself. But he had a wife. Or a husband.” I shook my head helplessly, not able to get the words out. “He had a wedding band. What if I orphaned his kids?”
“And what if he’d been a decent human being and helped all of you rather than protecting those scumbags? I’d say he was more to blame than you for his demise.”
I hesitated, looking desperately for a way to punish myself. Just not for the reasons Veda and Antonio thought. “Coming up empty with an argument.”
My sister smiled at me. “Then maybe it’s time you stopped pussyfooting around this whole situation and tell me what’s really bothering you.”
I pulled my knees up and wrapped my arms around them, resting my cheek on top so I could look at my sister while I spoke. “Tonio needs a woman who can handle that shit. And I’m not sure I can.”
Veda smiled at me gently. “Tessa, honey. He knows that. He’s beating himself up for giving in to you and not taking away your choices. At the same time, he knows you had to make that decision on your own.”
“I thought I was stronger than this. The fact I didn’t feel anything at the time and seemed to have gone numb, I thought meant I could handle it.”
“You’re not built that way, Tessa. You became that woman to survive and to get vengeance for others.” She smiled at me and shook her head. “You’re first and foremost a nurturer. Always have been.”
“Tonio keeps trying to fix everything. Food, a doctor, a debrief. Like there’s a checklist and if he gets through it, I’ll be OK by morning.
Thing is, I feel like maybe I should. I mean, I was.
But then I worried about being so cold-blooded.
I can’t have it both ways, Veda! What’s wrong with me?
” I felt a tear drip from the corner of my eye and wiped it away angrily.
“He would think that.” Amused dryness crept into her voice. “Damned man solves problems by killing them or throwing money at them, since he’s richer than God. This doesn’t fall into either category, so he’s floundering.”
“I didn’t know what to tell him. I still don’t. I just needed him to stop looking at me like I might break.”
“You’re not going to break.” She said it without any weight behind it at all, like she was stating something true and boring.
The sky is up. Water is wet. “You held it together in that hallway. You’re holding it together right now.
Being wrecked by what you did and being weak aren’t the same thing, and if nobody’s told you that yet, I’m telling you now.
Also,” she gave me a pointed look. “It’s OK to cry. ”
I felt something loosen in my chest, some knot I hadn’t known I’d been carrying since the moment the man crumpled before me.
I’d spent this whole ordeal terrified of becoming the thing everyone worried I already was, some fragile weight around Antonio’s neck, one more person he had to manage and protect and worry over.
Sitting here on the floor with my sister, I didn’t feel like a liability.
“I didn’t want him to see me like this,” I said. “Like I might not be able to handle it.”
“He’ll see you a hundred different ways before this is over, and most of them won’t be pretty.
” Veda knocked her shoulder against mine lightly.
“That’s not a weakness in you. It’s just what happens to people who survive things.
You’re allowed to not have your face together every second of every day.
Even for him. And if he doesn’t agree, I will show him why he should. ”
We stayed on the floor a long time after that, not talking, just breathing in the same quiet, and leaning on each other. For now, this was enough.