70
GAbrIEL
I was in a dark place. Not literally, the room was actually well-lit by fluorescent bulbs that hummed overhead.
But, I couldn’t stop replaying the forest. My sister.
Seven. I went through every second trying to see where I could have saved him.
I itched to head out and search for him.
I wanted to stage a rescue so badly I ached with it.
And then there was Angel. He pissed me off. I didn’t know for sure what was going on, but I knew since it involved me handcuffed to a fucking pipe, it couldn’t be good. All in all, I was in a sour mood that worsened by the second.
The door opened, and my shoulders relaxed slightly as Emersyn came back in. I scanned her for injuries, but she looked okay and only had a thoughtful frown on her face. The door shut and we were alone again. She stood and frowned at the wall, obviously very lost in thought.
“Angel, Dante, whatever his name is, works for Albatron,” she said finally.
“What?” I growled.
“Yeah, I just spoke with him.”
“With Albatron?” I asked incredulously. “What the fuck does he want?”
At that Emersyn frowned even more, then barked a laugh that was far from humorous.
“He wants to take us home.”
I shook my head in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I—”
We both apparently needed a moment to absorb that information.
I was surprised when she came over and sat down against the wall within reach.
She had the entire room, and the fact that she chose to sit next to me was…
nice. She looked lost in thought, and there was a small furrow in between her eyes.
I let her be for a bit while she worked through whatever troubled her.
“Are you afraid to go home?” I asked.
Emersyn appeared taken aback by the question. “Afraid isn’t the right word. I’ve dreamt about being reunited with my father for years. Sometimes it was all I could think about. But, what if—” She cut off and looked away. I realized she was embarrassed by whatever worry plagued her.
“What?” I prompted.
Emersyn picked at the concrete and refused to look at me.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” Before I could say anything she huffed a laugh. “That’s so stupid, right? I should be worried about so many other things, and instead I’m worried about whether or not he’ll take one look at me and not recognize me.”
I wasn’t good at pep talks, but I reached out my hand and set it over hers. Those stormy eyes jumped to mine, the glint of vulnerability only made them look more vast.
“That’s not possible,” I said gently. “I was there the day your father found out you were alive. It was like his entire world stopped and restarted. He put everything on hold for you—”
“I know,” she interrupted fervently. “What if he regrets that?”
“Why would he?”
“Because, I feel like a coward.” Tears edged her eyes. “I could have reached out—I almost did—once. What if he resents me for that?”
“Why didn’t you?”
At first I thought she wouldn’t answer as she glared down at the floor.
“I was forced to choose,” she said quietly. “Riggs made me choose.”
“Who is he, and is he dead?” I asked flatly.
That brought a small smile to her lips, and she told me briefly about some dude that was the biggest asshole I’d ever heard of. If I thought I’d been angry earlier, the rage I felt after her story was worse. She finally put me out of my misery and stopped talking about him.
Luckily, it all ended with the story of how she killed him. I made her repeat that part in detail, because it made me feel marginally less furious. The retelling had spiked her anger, and she glared across the room.
“North will understand,” I said firmly.
I repositioned myself so I could reach her better and nudged her chin up. “I see the love he has for you, and it’s more than enough to burn the world down in order to get you back.”
She scoffed softly. “I don’t know if I’m worth that—”
I vehemently shook my head. “Don’t say that. You are.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what you do for the people you love.”
She didn’t look like she believed me, but she studied my face intently like she wanted to.
“Who did the forest show you?” She asked.
I released her, and sat back with a sigh.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to tell me—”
“Her name was Kalena—” Her name felt like a knife to my chest to say out loud. The cuff around my wrist clinked against the metal pipe, as I rearranged myself and leaned back against the wall.
“Kally was my little sister,” I admitted. “She was kidnapped and trafficked while abroad. I–I searched for her—” I cleared my throat and forced the words out. “And, eventually we found her, but I was too late.”
A pained look came over her face. “I’m sorry. Is that why you became Deathwing?”
“Yeah.”
The silence stretched, heavy with the regret of the past.
“I’m sorry about Seven.” She sounded sad, and I turned to look at her, surprised by the heaviness in her words, and even more shocked to see tears in her eyes as she stared hard at the floor. I rubbed my chest, my heart hurt even worse.
I sighed. “Yeah. Seven was—he was—” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My words rasped against my throat until I just gave up. This time, it was her hand that came and rested on top of mine.
“I thought he was funny.”
“Yeah, he always made things seem not as heavy.”
“You should have seen him in the maze,” Emersyn said dryly.
“He got caught in one of those hanging traps and he was dangling upside down, still cracking jokes—” She gave me a watery smile that broke my heart.
“He told me if I had to shoot him, he’d understand.
I didn’t get why he would say something like that, but I do now. ”
“That sounds like him,” I paused. “He once fell in a pool during a job.”
“Seriously?”
I couldn’t help it, I grinned at the memory.
“Yeah, he got startled by a rogue red balloon that was in the backyard—he was terrified of clowns—and tripped—” I shook my head.
“Fell straight into the pool vacuum, which he then thought was a snake—so now this big bad teams guy is fighting his imaginary friends, while the rest of us are trying to make sure he doesn’t get his head blown off. ”
Emersyn giggled. “Wow. I bet he never lived that down.”
“Nope. We still get him red balloons for his birthday—” My amusement faded with my words, because we wouldn’t get a chance to do that again.
The thought made the grief surge, but now was not the time or the place to fall apart.
Emersyn’s hand squeezed mine and I gripped hers back, our only anchor in a storm that threatened to consume us both.
The hours passed. Food was brought by faceless guards. I refused to let Emersyn take a bite until I tried it first to ensure none of it was drugged. Shockingly, none of it was.
I was even afforded bathroom breaks. Which really meant, Emersyn would get the key to my cuffs, and she would release me to use the facilities that were behind a flimsy divider on the other side of the concrete room.
Because we were being treated so well, and because Albatron had told Emersyn he would be returning us home, I didn’t stage any resistance. We seemed to be in silent agreement to wait it out and see what happened. There was also something else Emersyn wasn’t saying—
Sometimes I caught her staring at the door with a deep frown on her face, like she was lost somewhere in the past trying to make sense of something.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong?”
Emersyn’s lashes fluttered as she came back from wherever her mind had been.
“Remember how we thought this was a family affair?” I nodded.
“The brothers are at war with each other. Octavius was going to use my father against Albatron.” She sighed heavily.
“Albatron is hoping that by giving us back to my father, he can buy himself some time from my father’s vengeance, so he can go after Basilion. ”
I scoffed. “Yeah, North won’t go for that.”
She gave me a brief smile. “That’s what I said.” The smile disappeared. “But, it’s more complicated than that.”
I waited out her silence.
“Albatron shot me. I blamed him for a lot of what happened to me and my family.” She paused. “But, I fear, some of that has been misplaced.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” I demanded.
She steeled herself to tell me something that already felt heavy.
“As I alluded to before, Octavius did—things—to me when I was young. But, what I didn’t mention is that someone stopped him from going further,” she said carefully. “I didn’t know who that person was, until now.”
“It was him, wasn’t it,” I stated flatly. “Albatron.”
Emersyn nodded. “And he claims he shot me because after Vetticus was done with me, I would have gone to Octavius, and Albatron has a thing against using children.”
“Do you believe him?”
She shrugged. “He showed me—” She cut herself off, too exhausted to explain, and leaned her head back.
“Yeah—I do. And that’s what’s fucking with me.
I don’t know my father’s side of things.
I don’t know enough to know what to do.” She looked over.
“How do you reconcile a monster who turns out to be the hero?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said dryly. “But then again, it is all a matter of perspective I suppose.”
Emersyn opened her mouth to continue, but the door opened and Angel stepped into the room. He set down two water bottles before he put his hands in his pockets.
“What do you want, Angel?” I asked, my tone dripped with exhaustion. “Or, Dante—”
“Angel is fine. I just wanted to let you know we’ll be leaving soon.”
“Leaving?” Emersyn prompted.
“To take you two home of course,” Angel confirmed.
That shocked us both into silence. Until that moment, it still had felt more like a dream. When Angel still didn’t leave, I gave him another look.
“I also wanted to let you know that I sent men back to the island,” he said.
I immediately straightened, the cuff on my wrist clashed loudly against the pipe as my entire body reacted to his words. Emersyn was no better. She froze, and I heard her bated breath.
“And?”
Angel shook his head and had the balls to look upset. “They didn’t find anything.”
It was like getting hit with the reality of him being gone all over again. I couldn’t breathe, the lights were too bright—I felt way too trapped. Emersyn said something, but I couldn’t hear her over the ringing in my ears. It sounded like she said they needed to try again.
Angel nodded. “Yes, we will be sending out another team to confirm. But, if the findings are the same, I’m sorry for your loss.”
He turned to leave, and when he put his hand on the door I found my voice again.
“Why?” I rasped.
Angel turned and gave me a thin smile that didn’t reach his eyes and held too much pity.
“Because I’m not the enemy,” he turned back to the door, but still didn’t make a move to leave. “And because I know the grief of that kind of loss.” He pulled open the door. “I don’t wish that on anyone.”