Chapter 44
Remi
If heaven bore such ruthless art,
It would damn this mortal heart.
The bond that burns, yet sets me free;
Salvation’s fire that ruined me.
They didn’t want it to seem like we were panicking, so they told Amir to go back to Seattle for their last away game in the city.
Selfishly, I’d stopped him and asked him to stay.
It was pointless, really, but for a second there, I thought the air in my lungs quit working.
Every breath felt like it held no oxygen until he pulled me into his arms and assured me that he wasn’t going anywhere. Not right now anyway.
And so we waited.
When five rolled around, he turned on the TV. Seeing it on the big-screen seemed dramatic, but I didn’t have it in me to ask for anything else right now.
“Today, I’m joined by a special guest.” Clara’s voice prodded at the defenses I’d built up since yesterday, but it didn’t get through.
Tucking my face into Amir’s side, I listened without watching.
“She’s remained silent all this time, afraid of what might happen if she comes forward.
The question we’ve had for months is: Who is Remi Keane?
I’ve brought his aunt, Charlotte Keane, here today to shed some light on the situation. Thank you for being here, Charlotte.”
“Thank you for giving me a place to speak,” Charlotte replied.
The armor shattered, sending shards in every direction. They sought flesh and every weak point in my body. My defenses were dismantled in a single breath, and fear rushed in to replace what I’d spent so long building.
The skin I’d once shed should’ve been gone for good, but this existed deeper than that. It spread through my veins, replicating until I couldn’t escape its reach.
“Let’s turn this off,” Amir suggested. “It’s not important.”
I stopped him before he could grab the remote. With a sigh, he leaned back again, holding me while the two women exchanged pleasantries. I managed to tune out for a few minutes, until my name came up again.
“I just—I never wanted to speak badly about Remi,” Charlotte said. “He’s my brother’s boy. After Graham passed, there was really no other option but to take him in, of course.”
“Will you share your experience? What exactly is Remi capable of?”
Charlotte drew in a shaky breath. Exaggeration at its finest. “He’s not who he pretends to be. At first, he was confused, then he became angry. I thought it was normal. He’d just lost his parents. Violently, at that.”
“Of course. It must’ve been terrible. For him and for you.”
“Yes, it was. My son, Evan, was eighteen when we took in Remi. They’d met, but I hadn’t seen my brother much in the years leading up to his death. I struggled with drugs, you see, and it got worse after losing my brother. Maybe that’s why I didn’t see the signs.
“Remi started acting out terribly. It went from shouting matches to breaking things. I asked Evan to be his mentor, to guide him the best he could, but there was no fixing him. One day, a social worker came by for a routine visit, and Remi told her that he would run away if she didn’t take him away from me.
He claimed that we were abusing him. I never laid a hand on Remi. ”
“What do you think provoked this?”
There was a moment of hesitation. “I believe there was a feud between him and Evan. My son . . . He was the sweetest man you’d ever meet.”
“You mentioned an incident that occurred a few years later.”
“Yes, I received a phone call telling me that Evan was in the hospital in critical condition. When I heard what had happened, I couldn’t believe it. Evan was in a coma for three days, but when he woke up, he confirmed everything.”
“And what exactly happened, Ms. Keane?”
“He ran into Remi. And Remi just . . . snapped.”
“He put Evan in the hospital?”
“He tried to kill him,” Charlotte cried.
“I went to talk to him in jail, to see if there was some reason that he’d do such a horrific thing.
I’ve never seen anger like that. He spat at me, told me that I deserved to burn in hell along with Evan.
He told me that he hoped he was dead. When I told him he wasn’t, Remi looked . . . disappointed.”
“And what happened to Remi because of this?”
“They charged him with assault, of course. It was an open and shut case. If his friend hadn’t stopped him from using that gun, my son would have died that day.”
“A gun? That seems to be a theme with Remi at this point. Which friend was he with?”
“Some kid named Oliver. I’m not sure who he is, really.”
“Thank you, Ms. Keane. Do you have anything else you want to add?”
“Well . . .”
When it was silent for a few seconds, I peeked at the TV.
There, right in the middle of the screen, sat my aunt.
She had my dad’s eyes, and it made me sick.
Her hair had turned grey, and her skin had become more wrinkled.
There were tears on her cheeks, which she didn’t deserve to shed. Not for this.
“Remi likes to make himself the victim,” she rasped, dabbing at her face with a tissue. “He wants everyone around him to be the villain. He prays to a heathen god of violence, just like his mother did.”
I reached up to touch the Fehu rune around my neck. She knew nothing about those my mom revered. Freyja was war when she needed to be, but she was also love and beauty and life. Her brother Freyr was prosperity and peace, growth and the cycle of life. Odin was wisdom, poetry, and prophecy.
She could mock the gods all she wanted. They had longer memories than mortal men.
“I can’t bear the thought of him hurting anyone else, especially that little girl that Amir has.”
Amir’s fingers dug into my side at the mention of Mal.
“Will you tell us how Evan’s doing these days?” Clara asked.
“I wish I had something better to share. Unfortunately, he’s been dead for thirteen years. He hung himself, and in his note, he blamed Remi for why he felt that he needed to do it. In the end, he did murder my son.”
Amir shut off the TV, then dropped the remote on the table.
“Is that true?” he asked. “Evan is dead?”
I scrubbed my hands up and down my face. After a second, I breathed a laugh. “The murder bit surprised me, actually.”
“So, she’s lying.”
“Probably not. I knew Evan killed himself, but I’ve never heard about any note.”
“Do you know anything else?”
“He was in prison. Frankly, suicide was the merciful outcome for a guy like him in that place. He deserved worse, but he was a coward who couldn’t face the reaping.”
“Remi . . .”
I looked out the back door at where Mal was lining up her cars in the yard. There was so much innocence in her. Just yesterday, she’d been panicking in my arms, chanting our code-word, begging me for help in a moment when she couldn’t think straight.
Amir had it right. He wanted to keep her out of the headlines and maintain as much privacy as humanly possible.
Everything he did was to protect his family.
To protect Mal. And now, he was trying to protect me.
He’d been willing to risk his entire career and more to stop Clara from airing this interview. And that was wrong.
I knew what needed to be done. I knew it so wholly that it felt as though it was burning me from the inside.
“I need to get to Remi’s,” I said.
“Hey.” Amir grabbed my arm to stop me. “Dean’s covering for you.”
“Only as long as I need him to.”
“Just stay in tonight. He’s the one who offered to help out.”
“I can’t.”
“Don’t do this, Remi.”
I didn’t bother to hold back the tears, because I knew it wouldn’t work. “I can’t be here right now, shut in this house, trapped.” Wrapping my arms around myself, I took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want to be lost in the past, so I need to work.”
“You don’t have to be lost. Whatever you need, I’m here.”
“This is what I need. To keep myself busy, just like I’ve always done.”
He scanned my face, one side to the other, top to bottom. “You’re not running, right?”
Tentatively, I leaned forward to rest my forehead against his. “I promised, remember? Don’t you trust me?”
His fingers gripped the nape of my neck and pulled me back an inch. With his eyes on mine, he nodded once. “I trust you.”
He leaned in to kiss me, but I stepped back. “If it’s okay, I don’t want to be touched like that right now.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
I felt his eyes on me until I shut the door. My grip on the key left an indent in my palm when I pulled it away. Still staring at the spot, I saw flashes of red in my vision.
“Remi? Is that you? Look at you, all grown up. Well, almost grown up. Hey, what do you say we get something to eat? My treat.”
Shaking my head, I started the car. I had a feeling this was going to be an insufferably long night.
*****
The metal door rattled angrily as it rolled upward, revealing two neat rows of boxes in the room. There was a narrow gap between them that allowed me to squeeze inside. Despite how orderly it was, I had no clue which one held what I needed.
Most of these hadn’t been opened in years—maybe close to a decade.
I moved from San Francisco to Seattle with a duffel and a backpack.
Those bags turned into a couple of boxes, and by the time I rented my house in Washington, I’d collected enough stuff to use the attic.
Now, I lived in a bar, so I had to resort to a storage unit for ninety percent of my shit.
I hadn’t even opened this place up since I first got to the East Coast a year ago.
It was in New York where Oli and Dean lived, but the two-hour drive had been a nice way to clear my head.
As much as it could be cleared. I was teetering on apathy again, but I didn’t want to succumb to that.
Tommy was right about it. It couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t actually help a damn thing.
Flipping open the knife Amir had gotten for me, I cut through the tape on one of the boxes.
I dug through it for a second before I decided it didn’t have what I needed.
With a frown, I turned in a circle and looked at the stacks around me.
There were dozens of them, and I’d made the mistake of letting an unorganized madman help me pack.
I ran my fingers over the top of a box with a sigh. “God damnit, Oli.”
Dropping onto the couch against the back wall, I pulled out my phone. A text from Amir made me smile.
Amir: You up yet?
Me: Why? Miss me?
Amir: Of course I do. I wish you would’ve ridden with me to Boston.
Me: I needed the sleep.
Amir: I know. You leaving the house soon?
I took another look around the storage unit while I spun my lip ring.
Me: Yeah, I’ll see you soon. You’d better get a touchdown for me.
Amir: Hilarious.
Me: Silly me. I meant a three-pointer.
His string of emojis made me chuckle before I set the phone on the cushion beside me. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath.
“Remi, hey,” Oli said frantically. I could feel his hands on my face. He was lucky I was sensible enough to recognize him, otherwise he might end up like Evan.
Evan.
I looked over at him, lying a few feet away. It was hard to tell if he was breathing or not. If the gods had any sympathy left for me, he wouldn’t be.
I drew in a shuddering breath and brought my knees to my chest. “Oli, I can’t do this.”
“It’s okay, Rem. We can explain everything. They’ll listen to us.”
“What does it matter?”
“Don’t be like that.” When I looked at him, there was so much emotion on his face. It wasn’t just shock. It was fear.
“I’m sorry, Oli. I’m so sorry I scared you.”
Taking my hands, he stared down at the blood on them. I could see the wheels in his head turning, like he was processing.
“I’m only scared for you,” he said.
“I can’t do this.”
“Stop saying that. You’re not allowed to give up. You hear me?”
I lifted one shoulder, unable to articulate what I felt. He took my face in both hands, and I felt the blood sticking to my skin, but I didn’t care. His forehead pressed against mine, grounding me for this moment.
“Every breath is proof you still want to fight. This world isn’t done with you yet, and neither am I. So breathe. Just breathe.”
After a few deep breaths, I gripped his fingers and pulled them away from my face.
I met his eyes, so pure but not untouched by this fucked up life we’d lived.
The worst of it hadn’t reached him, but he still couldn’t sleep at night, just like me.
He still flinched at raised voices and knew whose footsteps were in the hall as surely as he could recognize their voice.
“I’m going to leave this city,” I declared. “Somehow, I’m getting out. And I’m taking you with me, Oli.”
Of course, I couldn’t take him with me back then. Those were the words of a screwed-up kid with dreams of freedom. I’d fought for that freedom, got emancipated at sixteen by the same judge who vacated my case. But Oli was fourteen then, so I had no choice but to leave him behind.
Thankfully, the crazy kid found me two years later, intent on following in my footsteps after one of the other foster kids flipped over his bed at three in the morning. By running away, he sort of put us both in a bind, but nobody ever came looking for him, so it worked out just fine.
This time when I looked at the boxes, I smiled. The past flickered in my mind, but I didn’t let it linger. My head needed to be clear, which meant I had to follow that same advice from fourteen years ago.
Just breathe.