32. Freya
FREYA
I shudder under River’s touch, anticipation thrumming through my veins.
I want him to follow through on the threat more than I care to admit but I wasn’t lying to River, I came here for more than one reason.
And one of those reasons is sitting in the other room with my sister and my grandparents.
Blood relations that I don’t quite know how to call family .
Reluctance a molten heat in his eyes, River lets me go and guides me into the living room.
We’d only been here for about ten minutes before the guys arrived and Angelica has already peppered our mother with a dozen different questions.
Even now, she leans forward on the blue armchair, her green eyes, identical to mine, set on Hannah.
“Do you like cotton candy? Freya does, but I can’t stand it because it just tastes metallic. ”
Hannah folds her hands into each other, the barest hint of a smile on her lips. “I’ve never had it.” She glances at her parents who are sitting side by side on the same long couch as her. “The Dying Angels insisted on a healthy diet.”
My grandmother fails to hold back a wince and Peter reaches out, curling his hand over his wife’s. It didn’t take me long to work out that she still carries guilt for raising her daughter in a cult.
My grandparents left the Dying Angels after their daughter was banished and I know from what Jack said on the drive over that they searched for my mother for years before giving up hope.
When River asked him for help protecting Hannah, he’d been able to track down her parents and reunite them.
They’ve been living here, in an FBI safehouse, ever since.
It's a small home but big enough for the three of them and I suspect it’s my grandmother’s touch that’s managed to make the house feel like a home.
Wicker baskets hold blankets at the end of the couches and photographs line the windowsills and side tables. Pictures of my mother as a child fill almost every frame. She’s dressed in the white cotton slacks all Dying Angels wear, but she’s smiling. Laughing.
The timid, detached woman sitting before me looks nothing like the carefree child in those photos.
There’s more space in the living room than in the kitchen but we’re still short on seats.
Oz is sitting on a footstool, and Jude perches on the arm of Allie’s chair.
I want to stay standing between River and Eli but my mother’s eyes keep drifting to me and I know if I’m going to get any information out of her, I need to make her feel at ease.
I pad into the room and sit cross-legged on the carpet, facing Hannah without getting too close.
I’ve noticed proximity gets her guard up.
She’s still so fragile, I almost don’t want to tell her why we’re here.
All of those questions I didn’t think I had rise to the surface.
I want to ask her about the limited time we spent together when I was a child.
I want to know whether she’s always rubbed the heel of her palm against her thigh when she’s nervous because I used to do that too. Until Maxwell trained it out of me.
Allie’s question from a few days ago has stuck in my mind and I realize more than any of that, I want to know what our mother named us. Were we always both Angelica?
The question is on the tip of my tongue when Allie asks, “Do we have any other siblings, as well as Zach?”
For a second the whole world stops moving. Air catches in my lungs. It never once occurred to me that we might have more siblings and I don’t think I can handle finding out we do, but Hannah shakes her head. “Just you two and your brother.”
I close my eyes, settling myself as best I can. When I open them again, Hannah’s watching me and I realize that it doesn’t matter what she’s been through, she deserves the truth.
“Zacharius has kidnapped a young girl,” I tell her.
Mary’s hand covers her mouth, but Hannah stays blank.
“Do you know where he might have taken her?”
Hannah shakes her head. “He distanced himself from me his last couple of years at home, then when he left to find your father, I never heard from him again.”
“Is there anywhere you took him as a child? Relatives? Friends?” Oz asks.
“No. Only to Arthur’s place. He got obsessive about going there before I stopped taking us.”
Jagged, angry claws thrash inside of me at the thought of why Hannah stopped visiting.
It took discovering what her son was doing to me to finally stand up to Maxwell.
I shouldn’t hate her for that but a part of me does.
The child in me wonders why she couldn’t just have taken us with her and gone far, far away from the evil that was Arthur Maxwell.
Jude’s soft gaze lands on me like a feather, dusting away the bleak thoughts.
I turn to him, just holding that contact for a moment.
Even as he lounges on the stool, his arm in a sling, I know this man will do anything to keep me safe.
I want to run my fingers through his curls and sprinkle kisses over his warm brown skin.
I want to let him hold me in his gaze where I can languish under the heat, far away from the cold, murky edges of the world.
“Could he be there?” Peter asks. “Could he be at that man’s place?”
Reluctantly, I turn away from Jude.
River shakes his head. “No, we’ve had eyes on all property linked to Maxwell. Zach’s not there.”
“Is there anyone he might go to? A friend from school or someone he was close with?” I ask Hannah.
She rubs her hand against her thigh again. “He liked to be alone. He didn’t make friends so much as fixate on people. Like your father.”
Like me.
I run a hand over my hair. Zach may be a loner, but it doesn’t make sense for him to be working entirely by himself. He had a limo when he kidnapped Layla, and he gave Allie money. A PA job at the FBI doesn’t pay enough for that.
“Did you give him money before he left home?” I ask.
Hannah stares at her lap. “No. I had nothing to give him. The money we needed was sent by your father each month.”
Then how did he afford to hire Marcus Briggs to help kidnap Layla? How did he have a limo?
The word ‘father’ echoes in my head. Zach didn’t consider Maxwell his father. He knew they weren’t blood related.
I stand up and look at Hannah. “Does Zach know who his real father is? Does he know about Jeremiah?”
Hannah nods. “Since he was a child. I told him when Arthur revealed Zach wasn’t his real son.” She picks at her nails. “I thought it would help.”
I run a hand over my face and turn to River. Jeremiah may preach all that’s holy but leading the Dying Angels has let him accumulate a huge amount of wealth. It’s part of the reason he’s managed to stay mostly off the FBI’s radar. Money talks and dirty money bribes.
“Jeremiah’s bankrolling him,” I say.
River curses.
It makes so much sense I’m pissed we didn’t think of it earlier, but we don’t waste any time now.
We ask Hannah a few more questions while River steps outside to organize getting us to L.A.
so we can pay Jeremiah another visit. Ten minutes later, we’re all cramped in the hallway about to leave when Allie, who’s gone unnervingly quiet, speaks up.
“I want to stay.”
I go still before turning to face her.
“I want to stay here, with our mom. Please.” Her hair is twisted into two braids resting on her shoulders and she looks so innocent right now. But three people in this room have scars because of her.
“Allie, it’s not safe.”
Our mom looks between me and Allie. “We have a protection detail,” she says.
Something fizzes in my heart. “You want her to stay?”
Hannah swallows but it’s Peter who answers in the end. “She’s welcome to. We have a spare room.”
I look over at River expecting him to give me a flat out ‘no’ but he just watches me.
“It’s your call. She can’t come to L.A. with us.
Right now, she’s listed as an FBI asset.
We have her in witness protection.” He lifts his shoulder a touch.
“This is a safehouse so technically we could make it work.”
I grind my back teeth, for once wishing River would pull his usual domineering act, but I know why he’s leaving this decision up to me. I know my sister better than anyone. I just need to figure out which version of Allie I’m dealing with.
“Wait here,” I say to her. “I need to talk to Hannah.” I head into the kitchen not looking back to see if my mom is following or not, I know she will.
The door closes softly, and I spin to face her.
“Let her stay,” she says before I can speak.
I screw up my face and open and close my mouth before finding the right words. “She’s not always of sound mind. She can be dangerous.” The freshest scars on my chest ache and I blink back images of the warehouse Allie tortured me in.
“She’s my daughter.”
“She might hurt you,” I say, my voice firm as I spell it out for her.
“She’s my daughter,” my mother repeats, power behind each word.
So am I.
That’s what I want to say. I want her to claim me like she’s claiming Allie. I’ve not been able to see my mother as anything other than a stranger but in this moment I want more. I want her.
I tilt my head back and stare at the ceiling till the stinging in my eyes fades away. I push aside the emotion and focus on the problem at hand.
Without our dad whispering in her ear, I don’t actually think Allie is a threat to our mother or grandparents.
She only ever hurt people when he told her too and I’ve heard the way she talks about our mom.
It isn’t obsessive in a dangerous way, it’s just that of a child wanting to know her mother.
Even after everything Allie has done, I don’t have it in me to deny her that.
Decision made, we inform the officers guarding the house and Oz resets the parameters of Angelica’s tracking anklet. She still can’t leave the house without it alerting us and now, the officers assigned to my mother too.
I take Allie to one side before we leave, and instinct has me holding her hands like we used to when we were kids. “You can’t hurt them,” I tell her.
She nods. “I know. I won’t. If I start going dark and stabby, I’ll call you. I promise.”
The muscles in my shoulders unwind. Unlike me, Allie’s never broken a promise.
“Freya,” she says after I’ve pulled away, “I know I screwed up. I thought Zach was good but…” She bites her lip and trails off before meeting my gaze. “You’re always the one looking after me but if I can help, please let me. I want to make things right.”
I don’t have the heart to tell her there’s nothing she can do so I just nod and say goodbye, leaving her with our mother and grandparents.
Leaving her with family.